My phone buzzed in my purse; ordinarily I wouldn’t have looked at it in church, but I was hoping it was something from Julie or Charlotte or Grace. Something that would build a bridge for us to walk over. Because I didn’t know how to recover from last night. I clicked the text message notification and then the link inside it. The header on the webpage said: The Capstone Fund. Underneath were pictures and descriptions. I was confused.

I switched back to the text message box, where I saw this was from someone named Bradley. His message said: This is the fund I was telling you about. Thoughts?

It hit me that this wasn’t my phone. It was Charlotte’s. Shoot. I needed to get this to her. I knew I shouldn’t, but I opened that webpage again; this must be where Charlotte was going to be working.

The top picture was a man who looked vaguely familiar. I spotted his name: Daniel Isaacs. I gasped and clicked the phone screen off as if he were going to come through it and get me.

“What’s wrong?” Bonnie asked.

As if scolding us, Father Matthew cleared his throat and said, “Let us begin on page seventy-five in the Book of Common Prayer.”

I opened my book, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about that man’s face. His name. Why someone was sending his information to Charlotte. My face felt hot. I couldn’t quite put two and two together, but I knew that something was wrong here. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know what my next move would be. I was going to have to admit to Charlotte that I had looked at this. I needed answers.

But didn’t Charlotte need them too? I thought about the ways in which I had lied to her, at least by omission. It wasn’t right, and I knew I needed absolution. I knew I needed to tell her the truth. And I needed to apologize to Julie for questioning her decisions, which she, as a grown woman, had absolute authority over. I was only trying to help them, all of them. Could they see that? Would Charlotte see that? And, really, didn’t I have some forgiving of my own to do? Weren’t there a number of things—one in particular—that I was holding in my heart that weren’t serving me?

I knew that holding grudges was like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. I didn’t want to drink poison, but I wanted what was right.

My mind shifted back to the present as the priest said, “Vengeance is mine.”

I looked down at the bulletin. Had he really just said that? I scanned the reading. Yes, it appeared that he had.