Her Day
1772 Words
The binder had nine tabs now. I knew because I'd memorized them: Venue, Florals, Catering, Attire, Photography, Music, Stationery, Guest List, Miscellaneous. Miscellaneous was where Ethan's mom put everything she couldn't categorize, which turned out to be most of my ideas.
My phone buzzed. Wedding planning group chat. Three new messages since I'd checked forty minutes ago. I didn't open them.
"You should look at those," Ethan said from the couch. He was reading something on his laptop — supplier contracts, probably, or the pitch deck he was rewriting for the third time. The glow of the screen made him look like he was solving important problems. He probably was.
"They can wait."
"They've been waiting for two days."
"So they're good at it."
He laughed. The laugh was real. I could tell the difference now — the real ones came from his chest and the polite ones came from his throat. This one started in his chest, which meant he wasn't worried about anything, which meant he hadn't been reading the group chat either, which meant we were both pretending the wedding was happening to someone else.
The doorbell rang.
---
My mom came in with a pie this time. Apple. Still in the disposable tin. She'd been doing this since the divorce — showing up with food, the way some people show up with opinions. Six years on her own and she still couldn't walk through a door empty-handed.
"You're making pie now?" I said.
"I'm bringing pie. Different thing." She set it on the counter next to the three ring binder, the legal pad, two bridal magazines, and a swatch of fabric I didn't recognize. The counter looked like a craft store had thrown up on it.
Ethan's mom arrived with a new section of the binder. She'd had it spiral-bound at Kinko's. The cover page now said "Gallagher Wedding — Revised Edition" with a little wedding bell clip art in the corner.
"Phase two," she announced, setting it on the table with a flourish.
"Is phase two more expensive than phase one?" my mom asked.
"Linda."
"I'm asking a question."
"It's more organized."
"That's not what I asked."
I poured coffee. Three mugs, even though Ethan was still on the couch with his laptop. I'd pour him one later, when it was cold. That's when he liked it best, though he'd never asked for cold coffee. I'd just started giving it to him and he drank it, because that was the kind of marriage we were already having — the kind where I anticipated things and he accepted them and neither of us mentioned it.
"Okay," I said, sitting down with my mug. "What's phase two?"
Ethan's mom opened the binder. Tab one: Venue Comparison Matrix. She'd made a spreadsheet. Three columns, seven rows, color-coded. The Ivy Wall Garden was there — third row, highlighted in yellow, which I think was her way of saying "backup option."
"That one's not available in November," she said, tapping the yellow row. "They're booked solid through January."
I looked at the screen grab she'd printed. The garden. The brick wall. The string lights already hung. I'd sent her the link three weeks ago. She'd filed it under "backup."
"They have a cancellation policy," I said. "I checked."
"They charge seventy-five percent of the deposit."
"We could—"
"I already called St. Andrew's again. They have October eighteenth open. The leaves will be changing. It'll be beautiful."
My mom was writing on her legal pad. "How much is St. Andrew's?"
"Same as before. Fifteen hundred. But—"
"And how many people does it fit?"
"A hundred and twenty. Which is perfect for—"
"A hundred and twenty at fifteen hundred is twelve fifty a head just for the room."
"The room includes tables and chairs."
"The room includes pews."
"They're repurposed."
"They're still pews."
I drank my coffee. It was still hot. I should have waited.
---
The conversation moved to the guest list, which was a minefield wrapped in a spreadsheet. Ethan's mom had added eleven names since the last meeting. My mom had added three. The total was now seventy-three, which was twenty-three over what I'd calculated as "affordable without selling a kidney."
"Who are the extra eleven?" my mom asked. She was clicking her pen. She only clicked the pen when she was doing math.
"Extended family on Richard's side. Cousins I haven't seen in years, but—"
"But."
"They'd be hurt if they weren't invited."
"They'd get over it."
"Linda."
"They would."
"They wouldn't. You know how the Gallaghers are about weddings. My Aunt Dolores didn't speak to me for six months after Rebecca's—"
"Rebecca's wedding had two hundred people and cost thirty thousand dollars."
"Rebecca's wedding was beautiful."
"Rebecca's wedding was a down payment on a house."
I said, "What if we cut the favors?"
Both of them looked at me.
"The favors," I repeated. "Nobody cares about the favors. We could skip them and use that money toward the guest count."
Ethan's mom tilted her head. "What favors were you thinking?"
"The little bags. The ones with the candles."
"Those are Jordan almonds, sweetheart. It's a tradition."
"Since when?"
"Since always. In my family, the bride gives Jordan almonds. Five for fertility, five for wealth, five for—"
"Okay," my mom said. "So almonds. How much?"
Ethan's mom flipped to a page in the binder. "I found a wholesaler online. Twelve cents each if we order two hundred."
My mom wrote it down. I watched her write it. She wrote the number slowly, like it was a diagnosis.
---
Ethan's phone rang. He glanced at it, then at me.
"I should take this," he said.
"Sure."
"It's about the — the thing. With the supplier."
"Go ahead."
He went to the bedroom and closed the door. I heard him say "Hey, yeah" in the voice he used for business calls — the one where he sat up straighter even though nobody could see him. The door muffled the rest.
My mom watched him go. She didn't say anything for a moment. Then she picked up her pen and made a note on the legal pad. I couldn't see what she wrote.
"Does he do that a lot?" she asked. Quietly.
"Do what?"
"Leave during things."
"It was a phone call, Mom."
"I know it was a phone call."
My mom set her pen down. She hadn't set it down the entire meeting. She only stopped writing when she was about to say something she'd been thinking for a while.
"He's busy," I said. "The startup is—"
"I know what the startup is."
"Then you know he's building something."
"I know he's building something." She set the pen down. Looked at me. "Are you building something?"
"What?"
"The wedding. Are you building it? Or is it being built around you?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. The question wasn't unfair. It wasn't fair either. It was just accurate, and accuracy is the hardest thing to argue with.
"Everyone's contributing," I said. "That's how it works."
"That's how what works?"
"Weddings. People help. It's nice."
"People are deciding. There's a difference."
"I want everyone to be happy," I said.
My mom looked at me. Not angry. Not disappointed. Something else — something I couldn't name yet.
---
After, I walked my mom to the door. Ethan's mom had gone to the bathroom, which she always did right before leaving, like she needed to check that our toilet was up to standard. The apartment felt different without the two of them in it. Quieter. Less crowded and more empty at the same time.
"She seems nice," my mom said, which was her way of saying the opposite.
"She is nice."
"Mm."
I opened the door for her. She stepped onto the porch, then turned around. The light was thin and yellow. October. She looked at me the way she'd looked at me when I was seventeen and came home from Jake Morrison's house with mascara I didn't usually wear.
"Emma." She said my name the way she said it when she was about to tell me something true. "Don't lose yourself trying to make everyone else happy. I did that once."
I nodded.
She put her hand on my arm. Brief. Warm. "That's all I'm going to say about it."
---
After they left, I sat at the table. The binder was open to the venue matrix. The Ivy Wall Garden was still highlighted in yellow. I pulled out my phone and scrolled to the listing. Available dates: nothing until February. I bookmarked it anyway. Then I un-bookmarked it. Then I bookmarked it again.
From the bedroom, I heard Ethan laugh. A real laugh, from the chest. Someone on the phone had said something funny about warehouse logistics or term sheets or whatever the hell he was building.
I closed the browser. Opened the group chat. Twelve new messages. I started typing a reply to Ethan's mom about the centerpieces. Then I deleted it. Then I typed it again, slightly different. Sent it.
The pie was still on the counter in its tin. I should put it in the fridge. I didn't move.
Through the window, the light was different. Thinner. October light. The kind that makes everything look like a photograph of something that used to be there. The sprinklers weren't running anymore. The grass was brown in patches. Summer was over, and autumn had shown up without asking, and everything was fine, and I was going to bookmark the garden venue one more time and then I was going to let it go.
My phone buzzed. A text from my mom.
*You know what you want. It's okay to want it.*
I read it twice. I didn't reply.
The hydrangeas were still open on the binder. White and pale green. They'd be beautiful. They weren't what I wanted. I closed the tab on my phone — the garden venue, for real this time — and went to the bedroom door.
"Ethan?"
"Yeah?"
"The pie's on the counter. You should have some."
"Later."
"It's apple."
"Sounds good."
He didn't look up. The phone call was still going. The door was between us — six panels of hollow wood, painted white, nothing heavy enough to keep anything out.
I stood there for a second. Not long. Then I went back to the table and opened the binder to the seating chart. Forty-seven names in Ethan's mom's handwriting. Three names in mine.
I picked up a pen and started adding seats.
- Writer
