The first thing Daniel heard outside the bridal suite was not his daughter crying.
It was the electric clipper.
A hard mechanical buzz cut through the soft wedding music playing somewhere down the hotel corridor.
Daniel stopped walking.
He had been headed toward the ballroom because the coordinator had told him the ceremony would begin in eighteen minutes. His tuxedo jacket sat perfectly across his shoulders, his boutonniere had already been pinned twice because the first florist hated the angle, and nearly two hundred guests were waiting downstairs beneath white roses and warm chandeliers.
For the first time since waking that morning, he had actually begun to relax.
Then he heard Lily.
“Please stop.”
His seven-year-old daughter’s voice was so small that Daniel almost convinced himself he had misunderstood.
The clipper buzzed again.
Then Lily cried louder.
“I said I don’t want it!”
Daniel was already moving.
The bridal suite door stood partly open.
He pushed it wider.
And everything he thought his wedding day was about vanished.
Lily sat in front of a brightly lit vanity wearing the ivory flower-girl dress she had chosen three months earlier. A satin bow rested at her waist. White shoes barely reached the floor.
Her face was wet with tears.
Her long black hair, which had fallen nearly to the middle of her back that morning, no longer did.
Several thick sections lay across the cream carpet.
Another lock slid from Simone’s hand as Daniel entered.
His fiancée stood behind Lily in a fitted white lace wedding gown.
In one hand she held a black electric clipper.
Her other hand rested firmly on Lily’s shoulder.
Not gently.
Holding her still.
Daniel stared.
For a moment his brain refused to turn what he saw into meaning.
“Simone.”
The clipper switched off.
Lily turned.
“Daddy.”
Daniel crossed the room so quickly that Simone stepped backward.
He did not touch her.
He took the clipper from her hand and placed it on the vanity.
“What are you doing?”
Simone recovered first.