“Please.”
She turned. Dad grabbed the doorframe, then walked straight to the kitchen, picked up his phone, and called the restaurant.
“Cancel tomorrow night. The room, the cake, everything.”
“Robert!”
Instead of explaining, he disappeared upstairs and came back with their wedding album. I’d seen those pictures hundreds of times. He flipped past the ceremony, the reception, the honeymoon, then stopped at a photograph I’d never noticed. His hands shook as he held it beside Mom’s face.
Mom lunged across the table. “Robert, don’t.”
But he’d already turned it over. On the back, in faded blue ink, were four words: “Margaret, 16. Before Thomas.”
“What does that mean?” Dad asked. “Margaret, what did Thomas do?”
I looked between them. Thomas was Mom’s older brother, the Uncle Thomas who mailed birthday cards every year and complained if anyone forgot to call him at Christmas. He had stood beside Dad in their wedding photos.
Mom sat down slowly. “Nothing we need to discuss today.”
