"It's our thing."
"Daddy, why are you talking to yourself?"
"I'm practicing being brave, kiddo."
"Oh. Okay."
She went back to her juice box, satisfied. Six-year-olds are the easiest audience I've ever had.
***
My plan wobbled exactly once.
Grace found me in the garage on a Thursday night, laptop open, eyes wet.
She stood in the doorway in her pajamas.
"I'm practicing being brave, kiddo."
"Dad? You okay?"
I closed the screen too fast.
"Just missing your mom tonight, sweetheart."
My daughter walked over and hugged me around the middle.
"Me too. But Claire makes you laugh again. That matters, right?"
I couldn't answer for a second.
"Yeah, honey. That matters."
She went back to bed. I sat there for a long time.
"Just missing your mom tonight."
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Claire could still choose differently without her mother in the room whispering the script.
I opened the folder again and reread the earliest messages. The older ones. The audition ones.
I wasn't wrong. My fiancée was guilty. She'd had months to make one different choice, and she hadn't.
***
The setback came two days before the party.
Claire mentioned it while she was chopping peppers, casual as ever.
Maybe I was wrong.
"I've been researching some excellent programs in Vermont for Grace. Her science aptitude would flourish there! Mom thinks it's a wonderful idea!"
The knife kept going.
I kept my voice light.
"Vermont, huh?"
"Just something to think about. After the honeymoon."
"I'll think about it."
I smiled. She smiled back, relieved. That was the last of my doubt, neatly chopped up on a cutting board.
"I'll think about it."
***
That night, I called my brother, Marcus.
"Ben, it's almost midnight."
"I know. I need your tech expertise. I'm forwarding you a chat thread. Messages from months ago."
He was quiet while it loaded.
"Ben. Buddy."
Don't miss
"Tell me how to do it as simply and efficiently as possible."
My brother exhaled slowly.
"Okay. Let's talk."
"I'm forwarding you a chat thread."
***
At Claire's birthday party, when the cake arrived, I stood and lifted my glass.
"To my fiancée!"
Claire beamed. But I added, "There's one more thing I need to tell you, sweetheart."
I picked up the remote and turned on the projector behind her.
Slide one lit up the wall behind me. Lily and Grace, gap-toothed and grinning, above the caption: "The children Claire promised to love."
The room went quiet in that polite way people do when they aren't sure yet.
I stood and lifted my glass.
Slide two was Isla's damning message: "Audition, don't propose. Get the ring first, then we plan the rest."
Sixty heads turned. Not to Claire. To Isla.
I also showed the one where Claire's mother advised her not to waste her years on a widower with children.
Isla stood up quickly and knocked her wine straight into the cake! Frosting splattered her sleeve.
"Claire," she hissed, "say something!"
My fiancée didn't.
