Chapter 4 - The Ghost Wedding
The next morning, I drove directly to the florist on Main Street to pick up the centerpiece arrangements for the rehearsal dinner.
The owner, a kind-eyed woman named Clara whom I’d known for years, looked up from behind the counter. When she saw me walk through the door, the color drained completely from her face. She dropped the pair of pruning shears she was holding; they hit the concrete floor with a heavy, hollow clatter.
Clara came hurrying around the counter, wiped her hands on her floral apron, and took both of my hands in hers. Her palms were ice cold.
“Oh, Myra, honey,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I’m so, so sorry. We can hold your deposit for the spring, of course. Whatever you need.”
I stood frozen in the center of the shop, surrounded by the sweet, suffocating scent of eucalyptus and white roses.
“What are you talking about, Clara?”
Clara’s expression morphed from sympathy to deep, agonizing confusion. She blinked rapidly, searching my face. “You... you didn't know?”
“Know what?”
“The wedding. Nadine called us yesterday afternoon. She said... she said you and Cal had decided to postpone indefinitely because you needed more time to get your mental health in order. She was crying, Myra. She said it was all so overwhelming for you.”
The world didn't spin; it went completely, terrifyingly still. The sound of the street traffic outside faded into a distant, muffled hum, like water rushing over a dam.
My wedding hadn't been postponed by mutual agreement. It hadn't been postponed because of a venue issue or a scheduling conflict. It had been cancelled by my future mother-in-law, who had spent her Friday afternoon impersonating me to every vendor in town, painting me as a fragile, unstable hysteric who couldn't handle the pressure of her own life.
By lunchtime, I discovered she hadn't just called the florist. She had called the church hall. She had called the baker. She had called half of Cal’s extended family to offer tearful explanations about how hard I was trying, bless my heart, but my nerves simply couldn't take it.
I drove home with my knuckles bleeding from how tightly I had been gripping the steering wheel.
Cal was standing in the garage, leaning over the hood of his truck with a wrench in his hand, pretending to check the wiper fluid.
I didn't yell. Nineteen years of dispatch had taught me that when the line goes dead, screaming into the receiver doesn't bring the signal back. You assess the damage and you transmit coordinates.
“You postponed our wedding,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I stepped into the garage. “And I learned about it from the woman who arranges your funeral flowers.”
Cal flinched. He straightened up slowly, wiping his grease-stained hands on a rag.
“Myra, look. I was going to talk to you about it tonight. It’s just—things have been so chaotic—”
His cell phone buzzed in his pocket.
He held up one finger, looking at me with those wide, pleading eyes. “Hold on, let me just grab this real quick—”
He answered it. For four solid minutes, I stood there in the chilly garage while my fiancé calmly, professionally walked a plumbing client through the process of bleeding a residential radiator. He used his best customer-service voice—patient, soothing, utterly composed.
When he finally clicked End Call and slid the phone back into his pocket, he looked at me as if nothing had happened.
“It’s easier this way,” he said, his tone flat and rational. “Everybody’s calm now.”
Everybody.
That single word settled into my chest like a lead weight.
May you like
Somebody was always paying for everybody else to remain calm in this house. Somebody was absorbing the shockwaves, swallowing the humiliation, and sleeping on a folding cot in a windowless basement so that Nadine could have a view of the driveway and Cal could avoid an uncomfortable conversation.
And increasingly, that somebody was my daughter.
