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He stands, lowering the mike to his side. We both glance out at his mothers—the one who brought him into the world and the one who raised him. They are holding each other’s hands, eyes glistening with tears.
He let Anita come to this. He let her be a part of something so important. Not just the opening of his bar, but his promise to me. Maybe she did lose him, like I almost did. But just knowing her changed him. Changed us. We made our decisions better because of what we learned from hers.
As he leans down to kiss me in a gesture that is as familiar as my own heartbeat, I realize family is so much more than the ways it’s always been defined.
It’s formed by the people who are with you for the journey. Maybe, like Anita and my mom, they’re along for only a tiny part of the ride. Or, like Gabe’s mom and my sisters, they’ve been here every step of the way.
But for the next stage, I’ll be with Gabe.
And our paradise will be wherever we are.
EXCERPT FROMTHE WEDDING CONFESSION
Chapter 1
ENSLEY
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
I’ve heard about situations like this at weddings.
In viral videos. Social media rants.
But this is the first time I’ve seen one right in front of me.
I glance over at my best friend, Ronnie. She’s the bride, dressed in a beautiful but simple knee-length sheath.
Her mother’s dress.
The mother who died only two years ago, before Ronnie’s engagement.
The wedding was supposed to be a small event at the park where Ronnie’s mom used to push her on the swings. She wanted to honor this amazing woman who had been a mother figure to all of us in the bridal party.
Well, the original bridal party.
Now there’s ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen. A country club. A swing band. And a seated dinner for four hundred.
This wedding got hijacked.
And now this.
The guilty party is the person right in front of me. Her arrival has left all the bridesmaids in shocked silence, piled up in the corner like a bushel of peaches in our strapless, puffy dresses that flatter no one.
Ronnie lets out a whimper. I know that sound. She’s trying to control herself to avoid an outburst.
I can’t believe it. I just can’t.
The center of the attention is Felicia, Ronnie’s new stepmother.
We don’t know what came over Ronnie’s dad when he married her. But Felicia is a firestorm. She commandeered their lives, using those big pouty lips to convince Ronnie’s dad to sell their thirty-year family home for a McMansion near this country club.
Felicia is a trustee of the club, and once Ronnie announced her engagement, Felicia insisted the wedding should mirror theirelevated station, whatever that means.
I felt helpless during the last few months, watching Ronnie’s charming dream wedding unravel.
But not today.
Not with this.
