Her smile vanished.
It was gone for maybe half a second. A flicker. If you blinked, you’d have missed it.
Then it came right back, bright and polished and perfect.
That was Emma.
She crossed the ballroom in her gown, kissed her father on the cheek, and wrapped Kristen in a warm hug.
“I’m so glad you made it,” she said.
If you didn’t know my daughter, you would have believed every word.
But I knew her. I watched her shoulders lock tight beneath the lace. I watched her hands, which she always kept busy when she was anxious, smooth the front of her dress twice in a row.
Sophie appeared at my elbow like she’d materialized out of thin air.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Don’t.”
“He brought her? Here? Today?”
“Sophie.”
“Emma barely knows her, Mom.”
“It’s Emma’s wedding,” I said firmly. “Let Emma handle it.”
Sophie looked across the room at her sister. Emma was already guiding Kristen toward a table, pointing out the bar, laughing at something, playing the gracious hostess to a woman she’d met once.
“That’s the problem,” Sophie muttered. “Emma always handles it.”
