Brandon stared at the card.
“You planned all of this.”
“No,” I said. “You did.”
Patricia touched my arm.
“I want to leave.”
I looked at her.
She was tired, but her eyes were clear.
“Of course.”
As we turned away, Brandon spoke.
“Mom.”
She stopped but did not face him.
“I’m sorry.”
The ballroom waited.
Patricia looked over her shoulder.
“For which part?”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
“That is what I thought,” she said.
We walked through the double doors.
The hotel lobby felt cooler than the ballroom. Rain streaked the tall windows, and traffic moved along Michigan Avenue in blurred ribbons of red and white.
The valet brought my old Lincoln to the entrance.
Brittany had once told me it looked like a retirement-home shuttle. She wanted us to arrive at the wedding in a rented European sedan.
I had refused.
The Lincoln was twelve years old, heavy, comfortable, and maintained perfectly.
Patricia lowered herself into the passenger seat.
I placed her cane in the back and walked around the car.
For several minutes after I sat behind the wheel, neither of us spoke.
I expected Patricia to cry.
Instead, she opened her beaded handbag.
From inside, she removed a long black velvet jewelry box.
I recognized it.
She had saved for two years to buy a pair of vintage sapphire earrings for Brittany. They were meant to be presented during the speeches as something old and something blue.
Patricia ran her thumb across the velvet.
“I think I’ll keep these.”
“You should.”
She looked toward the hotel doors.
“Or sell them.”
“For what?”
“A greenhouse.”
I turned toward her.
She had wanted a greenhouse for twenty years. Each time we discussed building one, something for Brandon had seemed more urgent. Tuition. A car. A failed startup. An apartment deposit.
“What would you grow?”
“Tomatoes. Herbs. Maybe orchids, just to prove I don’t dislike them.”
I smiled.
“A greenhouse it is.”
She returned the box to her purse.
Then she looked at me.
“Did you know before the ceremony?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“I saw them prepare the chair.”
She absorbed this.
“You switched the cards.”
“Yes.”
“You could have stopped the wedding.”
“I could have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
The question was fair.
I looked through the windshield at the rain.
“Because if I confronted them privately, Brandon would have denied it. Brittany would have cried. You would have asked me to forgive them before you understood what they planned.”
Patricia looked down.
“I probably would have.”
“I needed the truth to become larger than our habit of excusing it.”
She remained quiet.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked.
“For switching the cards?”
“Yes.”
“A little.”
I nodded.
“But I’m more angry that they believed I would sit in that chair and still protect them afterward.”
Her voice trembled.
“I kept thinking if I loved Brandon enough, he would remember how to love us.”
I covered her hand with mine.
“Love cannot do someone else’s remembering.”
A tear moved down her cheek.
She wiped it away.
“I spent years apologizing for needing anything.”
“You did.”
“I apologized for surgery. For walking slowly. For asking him to visit.”
“You should never have had to.”
She stared toward the city lights.
“I’m done.”
The words were quiet.
“I am done making myself smaller so he can feel larger.”
I started the engine.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Not home yet.”
“The hotel restaurant across the street?”
“No.”
She thought for a moment.
“Pizza.”
I laughed softly.
“In formal clothes?”
“Especially in formal clothes.”
We drove to a small family pizzeria near our old neighborhood. The place had red booths, framed baseball photographs, and paper placemats. A teenage server tried not to stare at my tuxedo.
Patricia ordered a thick slice with sausage and peppers.