Poppy was building a paper stage.
He could see only the top of her head.
“How do I stop that?”
Miriam considered him.
“Don’t make her responsible for getting through next time.”
Viola had changed more than the telephone arrangements.
That emerged through practical questions, not a dramatic search.
Cassian contacted the wedding planner to postpone their upcoming meeting.
The planner sounded relieved.
“I was hoping you would clarify the arrangement for Poppy.”
He frowned.
“What arrangement?”
“Her absence from the ceremony.”
Cassian became very still.
“She isn’t going to be absent.”
There was a pause.
“I was told you and Viola agreed that the day would be easier if your daughter stayed with your sister.”
He closed his eyes.
Poppy had spent weeks talking about carrying a small basket of flowers.
Viola said the basket was ordered.
Cassian believed her.
Now the planner explained that the basket had been canceled.
The child’s place at the reception removed.
A note beside the change read:
FAMILY PREFERENCE.
Cassian asked for the correspondence concerning his daughter.
He received it that afternoon.
Viola had written the messages.
He had not been copied.
When he asked Poppy whether she had heard anything about the wedding, she looked alarmed.
“Am I still allowed?”
The question answered him.
“What were you told?”
“That it might be too much for me.”
“Did you think it would be?”
“No.”
She looked at her paper stage.
“But she said you wanted one day without worrying.”
Cassian sat down beside her.
He was beginning to understand the shape of the lie.
Not simply that he was busy.
That his daughter’s presence was the thing preventing him from being happy.
“I do not need a day without you to enjoy my life.”
Poppy’s eyes filled.
“Even at a wedding?”
“Even there.”
She nodded.
Then she asked whether the flowers had been ordered.
He could not bear to give her another comforting fiction.
