Chapter 28 - The Wedding List
Our wedding list had twenty-seven names.
Margaret attempted to make it eighty-four.
“No,” I said.
“Seventy?”
“No.”
“Sixty?”
“No.”
“Forty?”
“Margaret.”
She sighed.
“You’re very controlling for an architect.”
“Thank you.”
The ceremony would be in our backyard in September.
Not Vincent’s estate.
Not a hotel.
Not the Moretti club.
My house.
Our crooked porch.
Emma’s apple tree.
Daniel would walk me halfway down the garden path.
I would walk the rest myself.
When I told him, he became suspiciously quiet.
“You’re crying.”
“Allergies.”
“In August?”
“Severe.”
The press discovered the engagement eventually.
A photographer waited outside Vincent’s office.
A tabloid published old photographs of Sophia beside new photographs of me.
PAST AND FUTURE OF BILLIONAIRE MORETTI.
I threw the magazine into recycling.
Then took it back out because Emma’s school had a paper drive.
“No reason to waste it,” I said.
Vincent laughed.
Anthony sent no congratulations.
Sophia did.
A card arrived at my office.
Claire,
I wish you peace, even if I have no place in the life where you found it.
Sophia
I sat with the card for a long time.
Then placed it in my desk drawer.
Not everything needed a response.
Two weeks before the wedding, Vincent came home quiet.
“What happened?”
He sat across from me.
“Lawrence pleaded guilty.”
I stopped.
The criminal case had moved slowly.
Fraud.
Extortion.
Financial misconduct connected to consulting payments and board manipulation.
“How long?”
“Sentencing is later.”
I watched him.
“How do you feel?”
“I thought I’d feel relieved.”
“And?”
“I feel tired.”
I reached across the table.
He took my hand.
“He wasted years trying to take something from me.”
“The company?”
“Everything.”
I waited.
Vincent looked toward the backyard.
“But the worst things that happened weren’t because he succeeded.”
I knew what he meant.
“They happened because I gave him something real to use.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I don’t want to talk about him on our wedding day.”
“Then we won’t.”
“And Sophia?”
“Not invited.”
He almost smiled.
“Good.”
The rehearsal took place on Friday.
Emma wore her shoes too early and complained that her feet hurt.
Daniel forgot his one responsibility, which was bringing folding chairs.
Margaret brought flowers that were technically “a few extras” and actually filled an SUV.
Vincent stood beneath the apple tree watching all of it.
I walked toward him.
“Nervous?”
“Yes.”
“About marrying me?”
“No.”
“That answer was suspiciously fast.”
“About deserving tomorrow.”
I touched his face.
“You don’t earn a marriage once.”
He looked at me.
“You earn your place in it every day.”
“So do you,” he said.
I smiled.
“Exactly.”
That evening, he went home.
We had decided not to spend the night together before the wedding.
Not because of tradition.
Because Emma insisted.
“It makes tomorrow more dramatic.”
At eleven, I received a text.
Vincent: Are you awake?
Me: Yes.
Vincent: I’m scared.
Me: Me too.
A minute passed.
Vincent: Good.
I laughed.
Me: Why good?
His reply came slowly.
Vincent: Because last time I thought certainty meant we were safe.
I stared at the screen.
Then typed:
Me: Tomorrow I’m not promising certainty.
Vincent: Neither am I.
Me: I’m promising honesty.
Vincent: Me too.
Outside, the apple tree moved under the porch light.
May you like
For the first time in years, tomorrow did not frighten me because I knew exactly what would happen.
It felt beautiful because I didn’t.
