“Candy, have you put any thought into what kind of wedding you want?” Becky, Neil’s mother, asked. She sat across from them at the round table, which was set with a white tablecloth, on the covered patio just off the main dining room.
They’d just been served a lush salad filled with fresh greens and topped with goats’ cheese, and Neil watched as Candy picked at her dish. He didn’t think she had put one bite in her mouth, and she kept sending nervous glances first to his mother and then his father. He could tell that everything he’d said upstairs to calm her down had done little to ease her anxiety, and he’d reached under the table and patted her leg a number of times to remind her. The last time, she knocked her knife to the ground.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, scooting back her chair a
