“Oh.”
Amy looked up from her breakfast and I knew exactly what she was saying. The flowers were going to be tough. Really tough. If she were still alive, the flowers would've been Mom's domain. No questions asked.
“I have an idea of what I want already,” Amy said. “But you can tell me if you think it will look okay. Obviously you're the expert when it comes to color and it's one of the only pops of color we're using. Everything else is white and silver. Very subtle. Classic.”
“Does that mean you decided to go with silver for our dresses?” Right before Amy had moved out, she'd shown me her choice and I had done my best to dissuade her.
Amy finished her bite of food and dug through her bag. “Yes, I went with silver, but this one is different from the one I showed you.” Finally, she handed me a page torn out of a magazine. This was more like it. “I already sent the link to the other bridesmaids. You have to order it online. I spoke to the company and they said that it shouldn't need any alterations. The bias cut is very forgiving.”
I nearly spat my coffee across the table. My sister was not only putting us in silver satin, that so-called forgiving bias cut was a freaking bullhorn for figure flaws. Just thinking about it made me regret my decision to have toast. I should've skipped the carbs. But I couldn't say anything. “Pretty. Very pretty. The, uh, other bridesmaids already have the link?” Why in the hell had I not been consulted on this choice? That was going to be my silver ass walking up the aisle, not hers.
“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about your dress first. I wasn't sure you would want to wear the same thing they're wearing. Sometimes the maid of honor has a different dress. It just has to be silver. And satin.”
I wasn't about to spend the next several weeks hunting down a dress that met her criteria. Keeping things simple right now was the best course. “I want whatever you want. If you want us all to be matching, I'll get this. Is that what you want? For us all to look the same?”
“You don't have an opinion?”
“I want whatever you want.”
“Okay. I want you to all be matching.”
“Sounds great. Send me the link or I'll write down the info.” I tried to hide my growing disappointment. This wasn't the way I had envisioned this going. It was starting to feel like today was a token. Like my sister was throwing me a bone. “Walk me through everything else you need me to do. Address invitations? Coordinate the DJ? You know I make the best dance playlists. I can be a flower girl wrangler. Kids love me. Give me a job and I promise I'll do exactly what you want.”
“Luke's mom is running with most of that. I'm letting her call the shots.”
“But you said she was making you crazy.”
“I mean, they belong to the country club and I guess she's thrown tons of amazing events there. Luke's two brothers both got married there, so she has it pretty dialed-in by now with the catering and the rentals. It's sort of a family tradition at this point and I don't want to rock the boat, you know?”
Yet more of Luke and his perfectly perfect pod-person family taking over everything. I picked at my food. “What about a shower? I can throw you a shower.”
Amy looked up and wiped her mouth with the napkin. “We got a ton of gifts at the engagement party. And…” Her shoulders dropped and she stared out the diner window.
“And what?”
“Luke's sister is already throwing me a shower.”
“Shelly? She's in college. What does she know about throwing a shower?”
“I have no clue, Katherine. Am I supposed to ask someone for their credentials when they tell me they want to throw me a bridal shower?”
“You didn't even give me the chance to organize one. You know I'd do a good job. I'm super organized.”
“And who exactly would we invite, Katherine? Our friends? We have almost no mutual friends. Our family? There's nobody on Dad's side and we both know mom's side is a disaster. I can just see Aunt Lucy being a total embarrassment. She's always making comments about how much money people have. The second she meets Luke's family we'd never hear the end of it. And we both know there's no way we can invite Grandma Price.”
Just the mention of Grandma Price, our mom's mom, and I couldn't eat another bite of my breakfast. At least I no longer needed to worry about a few slices of bread coming between me and my bridesmaid's dress. Grandma Price had been absolutely horrible to Dad, Amy, and me after the accident. As horrible as a person could possibly be.
The thing everyone knew about Grandma Price was that she had a highly formed sense of justice. She was also obsessed with Agatha Christie books, re-reading them over and over again just in case there was some tiny clue artfully hidden in the text that she'd somehow missed. She hated the idea that anyone would ever get away with anything, which made it zero fun to go to her house. If you stole a cookie out of the cookie jar, you had better be prepared to pay for it with your life.
Grandpa Price had been a police detective, a small-town sleuth tackling school vandalism and the occasional rash of newspaper theft. After work every day, he would tell Grandma everything that had happened, even the stuff he wasn't supposed to because he was in the middle of an ongoing investigation. The instant she got the call from our Dad that her youngest daughter had been killed in a car accident, she and Grandpa rushed right over from three towns away, demanding to speak to the police.
That was when things got crazy. Our local detective was a police academy buddy of Grandpa's and showed our grandparents everything—the statement from Dad, an account from me since Amy's injuries gave her a reprieve on reliving the nightmare, and the photographs of the scene. Amy and I never saw the pictures, but I didn't need to imagine what they looked like. I'd lived it.
After their visit to the police station, our Grandparents came to the hospital where Amy had been admitted and just spent the night. They charged into her room, all hellfire and damnation, demanding an explanation from our father. They said that the police had told them and shown them everything. Dad did his best in the situation, but Amy and I were both in rough shape—Amy, physically, and me, mentally. Grandma pressed hard for a chance to speak to me alone out in the hall. I was terrified of her, of every horrible thing she'd been hissing at our dad, but more than anything, I didn't want to leave Amy's bedside. That massive hospital bed practically swallowed her up. She was so out of it that she couldn't even keep her eyes open. For as scared as I was before, during, and after the accident, I was equally petrified at the hospital.
But Dad made me do it anyway. He said it would be good for me to spend some time with my grandmother. He sent me out into that hospital hallway with her. I will never forget the way she grabbed my arm the instant we were out of sight of my father, or the way she marched me down to the bank of elevators.
“Where are we going?” I'd asked, up to my neck in panic.
