“I know.”
“That’s enough to start.”
It was not enough. Not for the little girl in me who still wanted a room full of family to prove she had not imagined being loved. But it was enough to get through the night.
The morning of my wedding arrived too bright.
I woke before my alarm, stiff from three hours of broken sleep. My apartment was silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the soft scrape of Jolene moving around in the kitchen. She had slept on my couch and apparently decided caffeine was now an emergency supply.
I sat up slowly.
My dress hung from the closet door like a question.
The card from Daniel still sat on the nightstand. I opened it with fingers that felt numb.
Mena,
Whatever else happens tomorrow, I need you to know this: I am not marrying the version of you other people keep trying to sell me. I am marrying the woman I know. The one who reads instructions all the way through. The one who cries at old dogs in commercials. The one who makes pancakes too big for the pan and pretends that was the plan. Walk toward me. I’ll be there.
D.
I pressed the card to my chest and sat there until Jolene came in with coffee.
She saw my face and softened.
“Good card?”
“Good man.”
“The best,” she said. Then she held up a garment steamer like a weapon. “Now stand up. We are doing this.”
Only one person helped me get dressed.
My mother should have been there. Not because we were close, not because I trusted her, but because daughters carry old pictures inside them even after reality has corrected them a hundred times. Somewhere in me was an image of a mother adjusting a veil, crying softly, saying something kind while the world waited.
Instead, Jolene zipped my dress and smoothed the lace at my shoulders. She pinned a loose curl back from my face. She handed me my bouquet. She did not say anything dramatic when she saw my eyes fill again.
She simply stood beside me in the mirror and said, “You’re the most beautiful person in this room, and today is yours.”
I held on to that sentence all the way to the church.
The parking lot was almost empty.
I noticed before the car stopped moving.
A few cars near the side entrance. Daniel’s older Honda. Jolene’s car behind us. The florist’s van. Two vehicles I recognized from Daniel’s side. A silver sedan that belonged to my cousin Leah, because Leah had come after all.
But the lot that should have been full was mostly open asphalt.
The venue coordinator, Michelle, paced near the church entrance with a clipboard held too tightly to her chest. She looked up when we arrived, and her face did the thing polite people’s faces do when they see damage and try to hide that they have seen it.
“Mena,” she said. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Her eyes flicked toward the parking lot.
I looked away first.
Inside, the church smelled of lilies and old wood. White ribbons marked the pews. Programs sat stacked at the end of each row, printed with names of guests who had chosen not to sit there. The altar flowers were perfect. The candles were lit. The aisle runner stretched clean and white between rows of empty seats.
Ninety-four chairs and pew spaces had been planned for.
I counted nine people.
Nine.
Leah sat in the second row, twisting a tissue in her hands. Aunt Rosie was not there. Most of my father’s side was not there. Patricia’s sisters were not there. Daniel’s mother sat in the front row with her hands folded, staring straight ahead with a stillness I recognized from Daniel. A couple from his work sat behind her. Jolene stood beside me and inhaled sharply.
I could feel every empty place.
Each one felt chosen.
My father was gone. He had died two years before, and I had made peace with walking without him because grief leaves no choice. But I had not prepared to walk without almost everyone else too.
The music began.
Soft piano.
Too beautiful for the room.
My bouquet suddenly felt heavy. My palms were damp around the stems. I looked toward the back door, half expecting relatives to slip in late, embarrassed, whispering apologies.
No one came.
Michelle looked at me.
“We can wait a few more minutes.”
I shook my head.