The photograph showed two girls standing on either side of a birthday cake. I was twelve, all elbows and braces, wearing a purple T-shirt. Amanda was eight, with a gap where her front tooth should have been.
And near her left eyebrow, a small pink line of a scar.
“You remember how you got that?” I asked.
Amanda touched the spot with two fingers, almost without knowing it. “I fell against Grandma’s coffee table. I was four.”
“And you remember how much it bothered you.”
She said nothing. But the people in the front pews were leaning in now, and I could see Travis watching her hand move to her eyebrow, as if he was seeing something about her for the first time.
I turned the album so she could see it better.
“Mom never meant to be cruel,” I said, and I meant it. “She loved us. But when she lined us up for the portrait every Christmas, she kept saying, Amanda, turn your head a little. Just the other way, honey, so the scar doesn’t show.”
A soft sound came from the second row. I think it was our mother.
“One year,” I continued, “right before the family portrait, she asked you to stand with your face turned away from the camera. You started crying so hard you got the hiccups. Do you remember what I did?”
Amanda’s voice was barely a thread. “You took my hand.”
“I told Mom that if Amanda had to hide her face, neither of us would be in the picture. And I meant it. I was twelve and I meant it with my whole body.”
I pointed at the last frame on the page, the Christmas photo we had finally taken. Our mother had apologized in the end, her eyes red. In the picture, Amanda’s face is turned straight to the lens, scar and all, and she is gripping my hand so tightly that our knuckles have gone white.
“Do you remember why you’re holding my hand?” I asked.
Amanda stared at the photo. For a moment she did not look like the polished bride in the satin gown. She looked eight years old again, small and afraid and trying to be brave.
“You wouldn’t let Mom move me,” she whispered.
“Because there was nothing wrong with your face.”
Tears broke over her lashes and slid down her cheeks, taking some of her makeup with them. She did not wipe them away.
“I remember,” she said.
“I spent years making sure you never felt like you had to hide,” I said. My own voice had started to shake. “I never thought I’d have to protect my daughter from you.”
The words hung in the church like smoke. A baby somewhere in the back began to fuss, and a mother shushed it gently.
“I just wanted everything to be perfect,” Amanda said, looking at the white roses in her hands.
“Sophie wasn’t going to ruin anything.”
Travis moved closer to his bride, but his face had changed. It was not anger, exactly. It was the look of a man deciding what kind of husband he wanted to be.
“Amanda,” he said quietly. “Did you tell me Sophie didn’t want to come because you knew I’d disagree?”
She hesitated, and the hesitation was an answer. Then she nodded.
“I knew you’d think I was being unreasonable.”
“Because you were.”
She dragged the back of her wrist across her face. “Everyone has been commenting on my dress and my hair and the flowers for months. I’ve lain awake worrying how everything will look. I wanted the pictures to be perfect, just once.”
“And you decided Sophie was something that needed fixing?” His voice was soft, but nothing about it was gentle.
“No. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But that’s what you did.”
Amanda turned to me, desperate. “Brittany, I know it sounds awful.”
“It doesn’t just sound awful,” I said.
I opened the album to its very last page, and the church seemed to lean in with me.
The photograph showed a pink tulle dress laid carefully across a twin bed, the sleeves arranged, the skirt fanned out. Beside it sat a handmade card with a crooked border of flowers.
Inside the card, in thick crayon, Sophie had drawn a tall woman in a white gown with a veil like a cloud. Next to her stood a smaller girl with brown spots on her cheeks, holding the woman’s hand. At the top, in uneven letters, she had written: I can’t wait to see you get married!
“She made that two weeks ago,” I said. “She was going to give it to you after the ceremony.”
Amanda put her hand over her mouth and made a sound I will not forget.
“I found her in her room yesterday, staring at that dress,” I said. “She asked me whether she could wear it somewhere else, since she couldn’t wear it here.”
“Does she know why?” Amanda whispered.
“Not exactly. I couldn’t make myself repeat what you said.”
I shut the album and set it gently on the nearest pew. “This is your gift. Keep every photograph.”
Then I looked at Travis. “I’m sorry I interrupted your wedding. You didn’t deserve this.”
Last, I turned back to my sister. “But Sophie didn’t deserve what you did to her either.”
Travis studied his bride for a long moment, and when he spoke, the question was so quiet I almost missed it.
“If we ever have a child,” he said, “and that child looks different from what you imagined, will you be ashamed of them too?”
“Of course not,” Amanda said immediately.
“Then explain why you treated Sophie that way.”
She opened her mouth. She closed it. “I can’t.”
Travis turned to the priest. “Father, could we have a few minutes?”
He took her hand, the one still holding half a bouquet, and led her toward a side door beside the altar. Two hundred guests watched them go. The door clicked shut behind them, and my knees finally gave out.
I did not stay to see what happened next. I walked out through the oak doors into the sunlight, sat in my car with both hands on the wheel, and stared at my phone, which showed three missed calls from Nate.
When I called him back, I could hear the television in the background and Sophie laughing at it.
“Where are you? Is everything okay?”
“I just left the church,” I said, and then I could not stop the story from pouring out.
Part 4: A Picture Nobody Had to Hide In
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