Halfway

"What are you talking about?" I whispered. Two hundred people were staring at us standing frozen in the middle of the aisle, and somewhere behind me I heard my mother's chair scrape back.

My father's grip tightened on my arm like he was steadying himself, not me.

"I saw her face the second we walked in," he said. "Celestine. I haven't seen that face in twenty-eight years, and I still knew it in half a second."

"Dad, this isn't the time—"

"There's never going to be a good time." His voice cracked. "Noelle, listen to me. Before your mother, before any of this — I knew Celestine. A long time ago. Before she married Holt."

The quartet had gone completely silent now. Griffin had left the altar and was walking toward us, confusion breaking across his face, asking, "What's happening? Emory, is she okay?"

My father didn't look at him. He kept his eyes locked on mine, and his next words came out fast, like he'd been holding them so long they'd lost their shape.

"Griffin isn't just your fiancé's name to me. I've known it since the day you told me who you were marrying, and I told myself it was a coincidence, and I have been lying to myself for a year."

"Dad—"

"He's the right age. He has her eyes and my mother's chin, Noelle, I've seen it in every photo you've ever shown me, and I told myself I was imagining it because I didn't want it to be true."

The guests nearest us had gone dead silent, straining to hear.

"What are you saying?" My voice didn't sound like mine.

He looked past me, over my shoulder, straight at Celestine — who was standing now, one hand braced on the pew in front of her like her legs had stopped working.

"I'm saying I think Griffin is your brother."

The word landed in the space between us and detonated. Somewhere behind me, glass hit the floor — someone's dropped champagne flute — and Celestine's mouth opened, but no sound came out at all.