Coming Home

“Love is patient, love is kind, love means slowly losing your mind.” -Kevin Doyle, 27 Dresses It was hard for Victoria Holmes to believe she had only met Darryl Vincent a year ago and now she was preparing for their wedding. Darryl was her dream come true, he was handsome, smart and loving. They both loved children and wanted to start a family as soon as possible. The couple would be moving into their first house after the wedding. Tori couldn’t believe her luck. In her mind, everyone had thought she wouldn’t amount to anything like many of the people who stayed in their hometown after high school. She had proved them wrong and started her own business that was taking off and she had found the perfect partner to start a family with. Tori glanced out the window as the makeup artist, Jen, was applying her lipstick. She could see that the leaves were still a healthy green. They would begin to change color in the next month or so, just in time for the wedding. She’d always wanted a fall wedding. “There you go, how do you like it?” Jen spun her around to look. Tori’s makeup looked gorgeous. Jen had chosen the perfect deep burgundy to go with Tori’s mahogany skin and the eye makeup complimented her bronze eyes. Jen had also worked her magic on Tori’s unruly black hair. It was braided into a complex updo that she loved. “It looks perfect,” Tori replied while she tried to keep from crying tears of joy. Jen pinned one last braid down as she said, “ isn’t going to know what hit him when he sees you walking down the aisle!” Tori just smiled in response. As she was paying, Tori realized she forgot to pick up the invitations. She was trying to get them out by the week and if she didn’t pick them up today there would never be enough time to address them all. Tori hurried over to the store and grabbed them just in time. Now all she had to do was address all 200 invitations by hand and drop them in the mail. That was possible in 24 hours without having her hand fall off, right? Tori set out to work and finished the envelopes an hour earlier than she had expected. She was thankful for the extra time. She had wanted to write personal notes to her two best friends from high school. She hadn’t seen them in the last five years but she wanted them to be in her wedding as her bridesmaids. It meant a lot to Tori that they would come no matter how long they had been apart. She only hoped they would feel the same way.