“You’re squeezing my hand, Dad.”
I started to speak.
Adele squeezed my arm. “The man who raised me does.”
A murmur passed through the room.
I kissed her cheek and stepped aside.
Maya’s smile was gone.
Adele squeezed my arm.
For an hour, I let the wedding stay beautiful. Jerome teared up before Adele did. Mia cried right along with them. Lucille handed her a tissue without ever looking away from Maya.
Then I caught Maya talking near Harry’s family.
“I wanted to be there,” she said. “Of course I did. But Robert made things difficult.”
Harry nodded along. “Maya tried for years. He kept the girls isolated.”
A woman beside him fixed her eyes on me.
Maya sighed. “You don’t know what it does to a mother to be kept from her babies.”
I put down my water glass.
“He kept the girls isolated.”
Penelope came up beside me. “Dad.”
