“You’re staying with me,” I said, “until you’re old and gray and sick of me. I promise you on Mom.”
Lily finally let herself cry then, and I let her, because in our family, you were always, always allowed to cry.
PART 4
Jenna spent four days bragging.
She booked the ballroom of the nicest hotel in the city, the one she’d always wanted.
She invited her entire family, my friends, and, with a performance of tearful sentiment, all of my mother’s old friends.
She bought herself a Cartier bracelet on my credit card and called it her “something new.”
She even had the girls fitted for matching dresses, so the photos would look perfect.
I paid for all of it without a word, because I wanted every single one of those people in that room.
The night of the banquet, the ballroom glittered.
Two hundred guests. Candles on every table. A string quartet.
