He told me Lena requested the change.”
Mom’s face fell.
Dad looked at Caleb.
“Is that true?”
“It was logistics.”
Natalie shook her head.
“Stop saying logistics like it makes lying normal.”
Caleb’s expression cracked.
“This is my wedding.”
“Our wedding,” Natalie said.
The correction landed hard.
Silas quietly picked up his folder.
“I think this has moved beyond anything involving me.”
Caleb turned toward him desperately.
“Sir, please.
I don’t want a family disagreement affecting how I’m perceived professionally.”
Silas paused at the door.
“A family disagreement won’t.”
Caleb exhaled.
Then Silas continued.
“But your judgment tonight may.”
Nobody moved.
Silas’s tone remained calm.
“You invited senior colleagues and apparently reorganized your family seating based on their professional value to you.
Then, when you discovered your sister had a business relationship you considered prestigious, you attempted to cast doubt on her credibility in front of her client.”
Caleb looked like he had been struck.
“I was protecting the company.”
“No,” Silas said.
“You were protecting your status.”
He opened the ballroom door.
“Enjoy your wedding.
We’ll leave employment matters for the office.”
Then he was gone.
Caleb stared after him.
For the first time in my life, I saw my brother with no comeback prepared.
The rest of the reception limped forward.
Nobody announced the argument.
There was no dramatic public firing, no security escort, no shattered champagne glass.
Reality was quieter and more uncomfortable.
Natalie returned to the ballroom without Caleb for nearly twenty minutes.
Mom sat beside me at Table Nineteen.
She looked absurdly elegant on a folding chair beneath a paper drawing of a dinosaur.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
“About Nebula?”
“About how bad things had gotten between you two.”
I looked at her.
“You knew enough.”
She lowered her eyes.
That was the first honest moment we had shared about Caleb in years.
Dad joined us later.
He didn’t apologize immediately.
Dad had never been good at apologies.
Instead, he asked Leo for a crayon and spent ten minutes drawing a truck that looked like a refrigerator with wheels.
Eventually he said, “We’ve made too many excuses for him.”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
