After everything we gave her. I had heard it secondhand a dozen times, and I had swallowed it a dozen times, and I had told myself that on the wedding day, at least, he would find it in himself to be decent.

My mother sat with her eyes fixed on the clasp of her leather purse.

My younger brother, Brandon, stared down at the floorboards.

And I understood, standing at those doors, that I had hoped for decency from a man who did not have any, and that this was my own last, dying illusion about my father, and that it was about to be corrected forever.

Chapter 3 — The Walk

So I took a deep breath, and I began to walk down the center aisle of that chapel entirely alone.