No one at the table moved.

The bride took the locket with shaking hands.

Inside was a faded photo of her at five years old, sitting on a hospital bed beside her mother.

Anna.

The woman everyone said had died fifteen years ago.

The bride whispered, “Where did you get this?”

The little girl looked down.

“My mama gave it to me.”

The bride’s breath caught.

“When?”

“This morning.”

The recorder slipped slightly in the child’s hands.

“She told me to come here before the lights came on. She said I’d know you because you’d be wearing white.”

The bride’s father stood up at the head table.

“That’s enough.”

His voice was calm, but his face was not.

The bride turned slowly toward him.

“You told me she was dead.”

The man’s jaw tightened.

“She was sick. You were young. I did what was best.”

The little girl’s eyes filled with tears.

“She wasn’t dead.”

The bride looked back at her.

The child swallowed hard.

“She was poor. She said your dad made her leave because she was pregnant.”

The bride’s hand flew to her chest.

The guests gasped.

The little girl whispered, “With me.”

The bride stared at her, unable to speak.

Then the child opened the back of the locket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

The handwriting was weak.

But the bride knew it instantly.

“My sweet Clara,” she read, voice breaking, “if this little girl finds you, please don’t send her away. She is your sister. I loved you every day they kept me from you.”

The bride pressed the note to her lips and started sobbing.

The little girl stood there, small and terrified, waiting to be unwanted again.

But Clara dropped to her knees on the marble floor and opened her arms.

The child ran into them.

The whole terrace fell silent as the bride held her baby sister for the first time.

Then Clara looked at her father through her tears.

“You didn’t just bury my mother.”

Her voice shook.

“You buried my whole life.”