Chapter 22 Damian
DAMIAN
I focus on the boutonnière. An ivory rose. Slightly too open.
The outer petals are already curling inward at the edges in a way no one else would notice. The florist should have chosen one a day younger. This one will brown by the reception. It will hold for photographs, certainly. It will look pristine under curated light. But it will begin to wilt.
Like truth.
Detail. Fixate on detail. Don’t think about what Perry told you in the hallway.
The ceremony space is breathtaking, as curated wealth often is.
Ivory chairs in perfect rows, silk ribbons tied at identical angles, floral arches heavy with trailing greenery and peonies that smell faintly sweet under the late-afternoon sun.
The grass has been trimmed so evenly that it looks combed.
The aisle runner lies flat without a single ripple.
The air is crisp. Fall has arrived properly now. The kind of day that makes you believe in beginnings. The kind of day that convinces people the future is clean and uncluttered.
The kind of day that is a pretty lie.
The chair is uncomfortable in a deliberate way—too straight-backed, too firm. Designed to look good in photographs.
Jason stands at the altar, shoulders back, chin lifted, trying to look composed. He does not look nervous. He looks triumphant. That has always been his posture in moments of acquisition.
Stop. Focus.
The string quartet tunes behind me. Violins in careful, rising notes. The sun hits the crystal chandeliers hanging from the open pavilion ceiling, refracting light in disciplined shards across polished wood. It glints off cuff links, off champagne flutes resting on trays at the back.
I catalog it all. The symmetry. The spacing. The floral density. The precise angle of the groomsmen’s shoulders. Because if I let my mind wander, I will spiral.
You’re the father of my twins.
My sons. Hidden in plain sight. Delivered by my hands. Named by my mouth.
And she said nothing. For months.
I grip the edge of my program tighter than necessary. The paper is thick, embossed. Faith insisted on embossing. The edges press faintly into my palm. I focus on the texture.
The music shifts. Heads turn. Perry steps into view.
The maid of honor dress is blush, fitted but elegant, structured without being severe. It drapes along her frame in a way that makes the light cling to her. The fabric catches at her waist and releases along her hips with quiet grace.
She looks stunning. Not at all like a woman who just shattered a man’s understanding of his own life in a hallway twenty minutes ago.
My body reacts anyway.
The dress traces her waist in a way that pulls a violent thought through my head—if I had my druthers, I would take her apart in that fabric. Even now, furious and confused.
God. I am not proud of that thought. But my anger and my want are braided so tightly I cannot separate them.
She doesn’t look at me. Not once. I doubt she’d hold it together if she did.
The ceremony begins. The officiant speaks of partnership and shared futures. Of patience and grace. Of the sanctity of honesty.
Honesty. I almost laugh.
Jason clears his throat before speaking.
That small, unnecessary sound pulls me back to the present.
He looks composed, but I know him well enough to see the tension in the set of his jaw.
He’s performing confidence. He has always been adept at it.
The posture of certainty is something he learned early—inherited, perhaps, from both sides.
Amber and I were always good at having a party face. Behind closed doors too. We kept our party faces on until the day we signed our divorce papers. Only then did our masks fall off.
What would we have been if we hadn’t lied to each other from the start?
Faith stands opposite him, hands trembling slightly as she passes the bouquet to Perry, then folds them at her waist. The trembling would read as nerves to anyone else. To me, it reads as effort.
The officiant continues. “…a union built on trust…”
Trust. The word threads through me like a splinter. I force myself to inhale slowly. Control the body. The mind will follow.
But it does not follow. It returns to that hallway. To Perry’s face when she said it.
You’re the father of my twins.
No tremor in her voice. No apology. No cushioning. Just fact.
I replay it in fragments. The way the fluorescent light flattened her features. The way the hallway smelled faintly of floral arrangements and perfume. The way I stood there holding cocktails like a man unprepared for his own life.
I shift slightly in my seat. The fabric of my suit is too tight across my shoulders. The boutonnière brushes my lapel lightly when I move. The rose’s outer petal has curled further inward.
Detail. Fixate.
The officiant invites the reading. Faith’s college roommate steps forward with a folded card.
She smiles too brightly before beginning.
She speaks about destiny and timing. About how Jason once drove six hours in a snowstorm just to surprise Faith with hot chocolate and a scarf she’d forgotten at school.
I have two more sons. Two boys I have not held. Not in any real way. The thought erupts over and over again. Two lives unfolding in a small apartment across town while I sit here in pressed linen and polite applause.
I ache to hold my sons. It’s undeniable now that I know.
The reading ends. Applause ripples softly. The officiant moves into the exchange of rings. Jason’s hands are steady. Faith’s are not. He slides the ring onto her finger with practiced assurance.
I should feel pride, so I attempt to manufacture it. Instead, I feel displacement. The future I imagined for my son now intersects with something far more complicated.
Perry stands behind Faith’s shoulder, bouquet held precisely, expression serene. A word that feels like mockery.
She knew. She sat across from me in that barbecue restaurant. In my truck. In her kitchen. The nights at her place. And she said nothing.
Not when I asked carefully about the father. When I asked whether he was involved, and she said, “Not really.”
Not really, my ass. I made it clear I was invested. I was involved, dammit. She let me fall in love with her without the full picture. How could she—
Love. There it is. The feeling I have avoided naming. It doesn’t feel dramatic. It feels factual. Like the sun sets in the west. And that realization unsettles me more than the twins being mine. Love snuck up on me and betrayed me.
The officiant asks if anyone objects. A ceremonial pause. Silence. The world does not implode publicly. It does so privately in my mind.
“By the power vested in me…” The words float upward and dissipate into the open pavilion air.
Jason leans in and kisses Faith. The applause erupts on cue. It’s a full-bodied sound. Chairs scraping lightly against grass. Programs snapping shut. The string quartet swelling into something triumphant and rehearsed.
I stand with everyone else. I clap. I smile. Perform. My face does what it has been trained to do for decades.
Inside, I am rearranging my entire life.
My sons. The phrase feels heavier now that the ceremony is legally binding. As though Jason’s marriage rips something else open.
They’re definitely not his. Perry wouldn’t blurt out that they were mine if they were actually Jason’s. She might have lied, but she’s not a sociopath.
I lower myself back into my seat as the newly married couple turns to walk down the aisle. Faith beams. Jason looks satisfied in the way he always does when he believes he has secured something.
He glances briefly toward me. Our eyes meet. He gives me a prideful smile, and I give an approving nod. I do approve of Faith—she seems like a lovely, smart girl who will throw dinner parties for the right people to advance Jason’s career, which is all he’s ever really wanted.
Life would be simpler if she wasn’t Perry’s sister, but you can’t have everything, I guess.
Beside me, Mr. Clancy exhales loudly and wipes his eyes with exaggerated drama. “Didn’t think I’d see the day.”
I incline my head.
He smells faintly of cigar smoke, whiskey, and peppermint. His jacket sleeve brushes mine as he adjusts in his chair. The fabric strains slightly at his shoulder.
Ushers guide guests toward the reception hall across the lawn. The procession of dresses and dark suits begins moving in a measured flow. The floral arch looms ahead of me, its right side still heavier with greenery than the left. I study the imbalance.
Details, details. Anything to keep me from wondering what panties Perry wears beneath that dress.
I follow behind the crowd, head still swirling on truths while I’m stuck in a lie.
Inside, chandeliers hang lower, brighter.
The tables are immaculate. Crystal glassware is aligned in geometric perfection.
Each place card is handwritten in looping script that likely required three drafts to approve.
I catalog the table settings as we move toward our seats. Eight chairs per round table. Two floral centerpieces per ten feet. White linen so pressed it might cut skin. Math is cleaner than reality.
Mr. Clancy settles beside me again at the head table with a small grunt of effort. His wife smooths his lapel without looking at him, a practiced motion.
Across the room, Perry moves through the reception with disciplined grace. Adjusting seating. Whispering to the planner. Reassuring Faith. She looks magical, like Faith’s fairy godmother making all her dreams come true.
The band begins something upbeat as the bridal party enters again to applause. Guests laugh and sigh and raise their glasses. Life is good to these people, all of whom play a role in Snow Valley society.
Watch anything that isn’t the woman who hid my children from me.
The servers begin circulating cocktails. I take one. Then another. Not because I need it. Because it gives my hands something to do. If I stop moving, the weight might press too hard.
Amber sits three tables over with my mother. They lean toward one another. Too close. I know that posture. I know the angle of Amber’s head when she’s planting something carefully chosen.
She speaks softly. My mother stiffens.
I learned a long time ago how to read Amber’s lips.
The skill came in handy when we were trapped at dull dinner parties or boring events.
We could signal to each other from across the room, make a coordinated excuse, and leave.
So when Amber says my name and “fired,” to my mother, I don’t doubt what bomb she just dropped.
I will not give her the satisfaction of a reaction.
But I see my mother’s intake of breath. Reading her at a distance was something I perfected in childhood, because the temperature of the house depended on every shift of her mood.
Amber is leaning close, hand delicately resting over my mother’s wrist as though offering consolation. My mother twists in her chair slowly. She looks at me.
No. She glares at me. The kind of glare that says you have embarrassed this family in ways that cannot be quietly undone.
I hold her gaze for half a beat. Then I look away.
I told Perry I chose to leave. I told her it was my decision. I told Mother the same thing. The white lie was clean, I thought.
Apparently, I thought wrong.
Mr. Clancy nudges my shoulder gently. “Cheer up, Damian,” he says warmly, leaning close. “Your son just got married. Bet you never thought you’d see the day, what with him sleeping with everyone on the East Coast.”
His wife gasps beside him. “Dear, mind your manners. This is a wedding, after all.”
Mr. Clancy grins broadly. “I am minding my manners. I didn’t say fucking everyone on the East Coast.”
The word lands so unexpectedly that I laugh. Actually laugh. The absurdity punctures the pressure building in my chest. “Well done, Mr. Clancy.”
He winks.
The band transitions into something louder. People stand. Chairs scrape. The dance floor begins to fill in hesitant waves. Amber watches me from across the room, her self-satisfied smirk wide across her face.
I finish my drink and set the glass down carefully. This is going to be the longest reception of my life.