breathe. The whole room seemed to go silent and far
away.
Then I lifted my head and I found Barbara in the crowd.
“What did you do?” I said.
She was standing near the front row, perfectly composed, her hands folded in front of her, and she was not the least bit ashamed. If anything, she looked satisfied.
“I simply made the dress honest,” she said.
Somebody in the crowd whispered, “Oh my God.”
Barbara went on, lifting her voice a little so it would carry, so everyone could hear her clever little speech.
“My son isn’t just getting a wife today, is he? So now everyone can see it plainly. All the baggage you’re dragging into this marriage. All the baggage my boy is going to have to carry.”
And beside me, I heard Lisa make a sound.
A small sound. A tiny, broken little sound.
I turned to
her, and her face had crumpled up, her chin trembling, her eyes filling.
“Mom,” she said. “Am I baggage?”
Everything inside me went white-hot.
I dropped to a crouch right there in my wedding dress, in front of everyone, and I grabbed both of Lisa’s hands in mine.
“No,” I said. “No, sweetheart. Absolutely not. You listen to me. You are not baggage. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Do you hear me? The very best thing.”
She nodded, but the tears were spilling over now, and I could see she didn’t believe me, not all the way, because a grown-up she was supposed to trust had just told a whole room full of people the opposite.
I stood back up, and I turned to Brandon.
