I nodded.
Then my phone buzzed.
Maren.
I found the message I sent you.
Another:
Something is wrong.
Then:
Dad changed the address before the wedding packet went out.
I sat upright.
Julian read my face.
“What happened?”
I showed him.
A fourth message appeared.
Evelyn, I don’t think this was an accident.
Maren arrived the next morning carrying coffee and a laptop.
No makeup.
Hair tied back.
Nothing like the bride from twelve hours earlier.
She opened the computer at our kitchen table.
“I found the original chain.”
The message had been titled:
Stand Beside Me?
It was not formal.
Not dramatic.
Maren wrote that she knew we had grown apart.
That she knew being Victor’s favorite had hurt me even when she had not meant it to.
That she wanted me beside her at the wedding anyway.
Not just as a guest.
As her sister.
She had originally sent the wedding planning packet to Victor because he had insisted on coordinating family logistics.
Included was my current personal email.
Victor forwarded the packet to his assistant.
Then wrote:
Use Evelyn’s old Trust address for her materials. Keep family messaging simple. She has a tendency to make emotional situations more complicated than they need to be.
Maren stared at the screen.
“He knew that account was inactive.”
“Yes.”
“I told him.”
Neither of us spoke.
Then she pulled up another chain.
A charity dinner two years earlier.
Maren had asked Victor whether I was attending.
Victor replied:
Evelyn declined.
I had never received the invitation.
Then Christmas.
Maren had apparently suggested the two of us arrive early and cook together like we did as teenagers.
Victor told her:
Evelyn said she’d rather come later.
He told me:
Maren wants the morning alone with her fiancé’s family.
