He smiled at Margaret.
“I’m walking with her.”
Margaret didn’t answer him.
Instead, she looked at me.
“Think about it properly. If he walks you, he won’t just be in one photograph. He’ll be in all of them. The album. The pictures on your walls. The pictures your children will see someday.”
She paused.
“People will remember him instead of the wedding.”
I felt my hands trembling beneath the table.
I had six different responses ready.
I wanted to defend Nathan.
I wanted to tell her exactly what I thought of her.
I wanted to stand up and leave.
But Daniel reached beneath the table and squeezed my hand once.
Not to stop me.
To remind me that I wasn’t alone.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said.
Margaret smiled as though she’d won.
That night, I barely slept.
I kept thinking about Nathan.
About Dad.
About the way Nathan had looked at me when he asked if he could do Dad’s job.
He wasn’t asking to be included.
He was asking to help me carry something that had become too heavy for me.
At three in the morning, I finally knew what I was going to do.
And it wasn’t going to involve arguing with Margaret.
