Chapter 2 - Bride Approved
Laurel saw my face change.
“Is something wrong?”
“I didn’t approve this.”
She looked at the schedule, then back at me.
“Colin said you discussed it.”
“When?”
“Monday afternoon. He emailed the changes and asked me not to bother you with more decisions.”
I looked through the open door at June.
Renee had moved beside her on the bed. She was saying something quietly, keeping her voice light.
I stepped into the hallway and closed the door.
“Please show me every change he made.”
Laurel’s expression sharpened. Whatever she had expected to manage that morning, it wasn’t this.
She opened her tablet.
The first email concerned the processional.
The second concerned seating.
June had been moved from the front row beside my mother to a children’s table near the rear of the reception room.
The third concerned photographs.
“Could we keep the formal portraits to immediate family first?” Colin had written. “We’ll bring June in afterward for a few additional shots.”
I read the sentence twice.
Immediate family.
My daughter had lived every ordinary day of my life with me for eleven years. Colin had been in it for nineteen months.
“Did he say why?” I asked.
“He mentioned sensitivities with his mother.”
Marjorie.
Colin’s mother had spent the rehearsal dinner asking June about a school project involving migrating birds. She had listened so attentively that June had shown her pictures on my phone.
I struggled to reconcile that woman with the one Colin had apparently described.
“Did Marjorie contact you herself?”
“No.”
“Anyone else?”
“No. Only Colin.”
I took a breath.
“Please pause the ceremony preparations. Quietly. No music cues, no announcements, and no one comes into the bridal suite unless I approve it.”
Laurel nodded.
“Do you want me to get Colin?”
“In a moment. First, I need copies of these.”
She forwarded them while I watched.
Then she said, “I’m sorry. I should have confirmed with you.”
“You were given information by the groom. I understand why you believed him.”
I could be furious without making her responsible for his choices.
That distinction mattered. I needed to keep seeing clearly.
Inside the suite, June was rubbing one thumb over the pale mark where her bracelet had been.
I sat beside her again.
“Sweetheart, has Colin asked you to keep other things between the two of you?”
She went quiet.
I kept my voice gentle.
“You’re not in trouble. And you don’t have to remember everything right now.”
“He said the office needed to stay an office.”
I frowned.
“What office?”
“At his house. The room with the yellow curtains.”
The room Colin and I had chosen for her.
We had stood in it together three weeks earlier while June described where she wanted her bookshelves.
Colin had smiled and said the window seat would be perfect for reading.
“What did he tell you?”
“That I shouldn’t get too excited because you and he still had to decide.”
“Did he say where you would sleep?”
“The little room downstairs. Unless I stayed with Dad more.”
My heart began pounding.
June’s father, Ben, lived twenty minutes away. Our marriage had ended years earlier, but our parenting partnership had survived because we worked at it.
June spent alternate weekends and one evening a week with him.
Colin knew that schedule.
“He talked to you about staying with Dad?”
She nodded.
“He said Dad gets lonely. And maybe after the wedding you’d need more grown-up time.”
I looked at Renee.
Her expression had gone completely still.
June’s voice dropped.
“I thought maybe you told him to ask because you felt bad asking me.”
“No,” I said immediately. “I never asked him to say that.”
“Did I misunderstand?”
“No.”
I wanted to tell her everything would be fine, that this was a terrible mistake we could clear up in five minutes.
But she had already been hurt by an adult making reality sound easier than it was.
I would not do that too.
“I’m going to speak with Colin,” I said. “Some plans may change today. Whatever happens, you haven’t caused it.”
Outside, the quartet began a soft practice run.
June flinched.
She had hummed that music down our hallway every Saturday.
I stood.
“Renee, would you stay here?”
“Of course.”
At the door, June called my name.
“Mom?”
I turned.
“If you still want to marry him, I can sit anywhere.”
I crossed the room and held her face between my hands.
May you like
“You do not have to make yourself smaller so I can have a wedding.”
Then I went to find the man who had taught her to offer.
