“They’re beautiful.” Mom smiles.
Shame curls itself around my windpipe. If this wedding dress wasn’t already tight enough to make breathing difficult, then this would do it. Cal sent me a stunning and very expensive gift. I know how much Beaufort Diamonds cost. It’s thoughtful of him. And I’m being completely unreasonable to feel anything other than grateful.
“They are,” I agree, admiring them in the mirror, noting the way I haven’t quite mastered masking my disappointment as well as my mother has.
I stand still as she swaps the other earring for me. The diamonds glisten in my reflection. They match the grandeur of this elegant suite. They fit with the opulence of this entire wedding.
They’re exactly the type of earring the wife of a surgeon would wear.
“May I?” Mel asks.
Mom hands her both pearls, and Mel steps forward.
“Here.” She eases one of the earrings through a piece of folded tulle trim on the sweetheart neckline, repeating the same on the other side with the other earring. “Now you can wear both.”
“Mel,” I utter, my throat thickening as I look at how perfectly they fit in their new position.
“Enough getting all emotional. Save it for after the photos. This makeup was mad expensive, and I look too hot to ruin it,” she replies, forcing the glassiness back from her eyes and beaming at me.
I could marry her instead. Right now. All because of this one simple act.
Mom takes my hand and squeezes it.
“Are you ready?”
“I’m… not ready, I need… one sec.”
My breasts hitch up toward my chin as I attempt to take a deep breath.It’s fine.I mean, I can breathe. I just can’t get those deep full-lunged breaths in. The ones you need when your heart’s racing and your palms are sweating like Niagara Falls.
“Take all the time you need, Sweetheart. The best man will let us know when they’re ready for us.”
“Oh?”
I didn’t ask why we were brought into a room down the corridor from the ballroom where the ceremony will take place. I assumed it was so I could do a last-minute dress and makeup check. But Mom, Mel, and the bridesmaids left ten minutes ago.
“Is there a hold up?” I ask my father.
A million thoughts stampede through my mind at once. The five-tier cake with snow white frosting could have tilted. The string quartet could have had a last-minute instrument tune. The hand-painted silk aisle runner that was flown in from Italy could have snagged as the guests walked over it to get to their seats.
Any number of things could have gone wrong with the extravagant things Callum planned. And he’s a perfectionist. He won’t want me walking into the ceremony unless everything is exactly as he planned.
I smile internally. It’s him all over.
But he should know me well enough after five years as a couple to understand that I don’t care about any of that. I just want to marry him. The man who makes me laugh. Who makes the best truffle-topped fettuccine Alfredo—but try as he might, can’t deny he secretly loves my basic mac and cheese more. The man who likes to spend Sunday mornings cuddled in bed reading the newspaper to me, putting on creepy accents for the obituaries.
The morbid sense of humor keeps him sane.
He’s a brilliant surgeon, but he’s lost patients on his table. And I know he feels each one deeply. Lizzie, Jessica, and Kelly all get it. They’re all doctors. Lizzie and Jessica are in oncology, and Kelly is still in training, finishing her ER placement before she decides where to specialize. We’ve become good friends over the last five years I’ve been at New York Presbyterian.
I study my father’s face when he doesn’t answer.
“Is something going on?” I ask again.
The weird, unexpected nerves I have are replaced by a squirming sensation in my stomach as my father dons his surgeon’s voice. The one he uses when he knows the surgery he’s about to perform is high risk. When there’s a low chance of success. As a little girl I would hear him practicing that voice in front of the bathroom mirror when he didn’t know I was listening.
“Callum’s stepped out for a minute. He needed some air. Poor man’s been on his feet getting everything prepared all morning. Probably forgot to eat too.”
My father delivers it perfectly.
