I turned and looked at Grandpa.
“That was supposed to be the plan,” I told him quietly. “Two weeks.”
He looked at me. Then he smiled. That same sad, gentle smile from the hallway.
“I know, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stand to hear her call you that. Not today. Not in front of all these people who think she’s a saint.”
He turned back to the front row one last time.
“I said what I came to say,” he told my mother. “The rest is for the judge.”
Then he turned around to face the altar, tucked my hand back into the crook of his arm, and nodded at the stunned organist.
“Go ahead, son,” he said. “Play. My granddaughter’s getting married.”
The organist looked at the priest. The priest, Father Dominic, a small round man who’d known my family for twenty years, looked at me.
