"You absolutely were."
"I was thinking medium-sized."
She laughed.
That laugh still did something to him.
Across the ballroom, Noah was helping arrange chairs.
Mia, now almost four, was following him everywhere.
She carried the old family necklace around her neck.
Clara had initially worried it was too valuable.
Adrian didn't care.
His mother had wanted the children to have it.
Objects were meant to belong to people.
Not vaults.
Not reputations.
Not family legends.
Mia ran toward Adrian.
"Daddy!"
He bent down and lifted her.
"What happened?"
"Noah says I'm too little to help."
Across the room, Noah shouted, "She keeps moving the chairs!"
"I was helping!"
"You made them crooked!"
Mia looked at Adrian indignantly.
"He's mean."
Adrian whispered, "He has a point."
Mia gasped.
"You too?"
Clara laughed from behind him.
Mia crossed her arms.
"I'm telling Grandma."
Everyone became quiet.
Mia meant Adrian's mother.
She had never met her, of course.
But Adrian and Clara spoke about her often.
They had photographs.
Letters.
Stories.
Mia had developed the habit of talking to a framed photograph of her grandmother whenever she felt someone had wronged her.
Adrian smiled.
"I'm sure Grandma will take your side."
"She always does."
Mia ran away.
Clara watched her.
Then she looked at Adrian.
"Your mother would have loved her."
"I know."
They stood quietly together.
Three years earlier, this room had represented everything false in Adrian's life.
The perfect wedding.
The perfect bride.
The perfect future.
Now children were running between folding chairs while volunteers carried boxes through the same doorway Clara had once entered in tears.
Adrian looked at her.
"Do you ever think about that day?"
"Which part?"
"The moment you opened those doors."
Clara was silent.
"Every time I walk into this building."
"Were you afraid?"
"Terrified."
"You didn't look terrified."
"I was holding a baby and trying not to collapse."
Adrian smiled.
"What made you come?"
Clara looked at him.
"Your mother's final letter."
"I thought you'd had it for years."
"I did."
"Then why that day?"
Clara took a breath.
"Because there was something I never told you."