The reception spilled out from beneath the old maple tree into the rest of the garden as the evening deepened, long tables set with the food Wren had insisted on from the neighborhood restaurant where she'd eaten more dinners than she could count during the leanest years of building her career, the owner himself, a warm, weathered man named Mr. Alvares, personally overseeing the service with obvious pride at having been asked.
"I remember when you couldn't afford the full portion," he told Wren, setting down a dish himself rather than letting the catering staff handle it, his eyes bright with the particular emotion of a man watching someone he'd quietly rooted for finally arrive somewhere good. "I used to give you extra rice, tell you it was a mistake in the kitchen. I don't think you eve
