That was where everything got worse.
Ryan and I had agreed early on that we wanted fewer than one hundred guests. We were paying for most of the wedding ourselves, and neither of us wanted to spend the evening greeting people we barely knew.
One night, Mavis arrived at our apartment carrying a handwritten list.
“Eighteen people,” she announced.
Ryan looked down at the paper.
“Who are these people?”
“Family.”
He pointed at one name.
“Who’s Dennis?”
“Your second cousin.”
“I have a second cousin named Dennis?”
Mavis looked offended.
“You met him.”
“When?”
“Your grandmother’s seventieth birthday.”
Ryan stared at her.
“I was eight.”
“Exactly. So you know him.”
“Mum.”
“And his wife needs to come, obviously. They have two adult daughters, so they’ll need invitations too.”
“No.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“No more additions.”
“Now, Ryan…”
“We already gave you twenty-two spots. That’s more than either of us gave ourselves individually.”
Mavis looked at me.
Not at Ryan.
At me.
“You don’t have much family, though, do you?”
The room fell silent.
My parents had died when I was in college.
Mavis knew that.
Frank, Ryan’s father, looked up from his coffee.
“Mavis.”
