A nine-year-old was carrying, alone, the burden of protecting her grown father’s future, at the cost of her own safety, because a manipulative adult had convinced her that this was her job.

It was never her job.

It was never, for one single second, a nine-year-old’s job to protect my happiness by enduring cruelty in silence.

That the person who did this to her managed to dress it up as loyalty, as maturity, as love, is perhaps the most unforgivable part of the whole design.

Chapter 15 — There Will Be No Ceremony

The classical music began to play then, from the speakers near the lawn, because the wedding coordinator, off at her post, had no idea that anything was wrong.