That was exactly what I got. My new family bustled around me with soft laughter and gentle teasing. Nadia pinned a delicate pearl comb in my hair and Yelena adjusted the fold of my heirloom lace veil.
Samara laced her fingers in mine, lifting my arm and placing a thin red ribbon around my wrist.
“It’s a Slavic tradition to ward off the evil eye,” she whispered as Zoya tied it with a prayer in Russian.
I had only known these women for a handful of months, but they were family.
They had welcomed me into the fold with open arms and absolutely no judgment. Even before the engagement. Sincethen, they had been incredibly helpful in helping me learn the customs and traditions for a Russian wedding.
Darius had offered to skip the traditions for a more modern American ceremony. But I told him no. I wanted the traditions; they helped me feel like I was a part of something bigger.
I looked around the small room, still in awe that this was my life now.
The room smelled of jasmine and old perfume, while someone played an old Russian folk melody on their phone. I wasn’t fluent yet, far from it, but I caught just enough to know the singer was singing something about fate, family, and the heart’s return. While I couldn’t understand the lyrics, I understood the love in his voice and the warmth in the melody.
It was perfect.
Even the plate of bread and salt by the table waiting for the blessings was perfect.
I kept waiting for the tears to come, for nerves or cold feet, for something, but it never did. I looked in the mirror at my reflection, expecting to feel strange, but all I saw was a woman at peace with the path she had chosen for herself.
I was completely calm. There wasn’t a thing that could go wrong today that would change how I felt. Today I was becoming Mrs. Darius Ivanova. We were making official what I had known the minute Darius had met Edith.
She made him sweat because she found it amusing, and at first, I did too. But one look at him and I knew she approved. I had asked her about that a few weeks after the proposal, as she studied my ring.
“Honey, I knew the second you walked in the door that man was the man for you.”
“How did you know?” I asked, curious. “Was it because he is just that handsome?”
She cackled. “He is quite a looker, that man of yours. But no. I knew because I wasn’t looking at him, I was looking at you. Girl, you’ve carried the weight of the world on your shoulders. But when you waltzed into the room that day, you seemed lighter; when you smiled, you didn’t smile with just your mouth or even your eyes. Your entire body lit up like a beacon. Only true love can do that.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Honey, they can’t even prescribe something that can make you look the way you do when you look at him.”
That moment just kept playing over and over in my mind, and this wedding didn’t feel like a big decision. It felt like a celebration. I wasn’t deciding to walk down the aisle and marry my husband. We were only legalizing what had been true for months.
I was his, and he was mine.
“Is your mother joining us for the wedding?” Edith asked as she waltzed into the room in her mother-of-the-bride dress, a dazzling pale blue sheath dress with white embroidery and a soft blue overlay. Yelena had insisted on making it for her the moment she met Edith.
“No,” I answered. “When she heard about it, she called to tell me she was staging a protest about how tacky it was to marry into a criminal empire.”
“Good, her ugly-ass orange Armani suits would clash with everything anyway,” Yelena said. She snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide as she clamped her hand over her mouth and looked at me, an apology in her eyes. But I just laughed.
Yelena relaxed and smiled at me. “Seriously, how does your mother not end up on a worst-dressed list?”
“I bet she pays someone off,” Edith said.
“No, actually, she doesn’t. Intentionally. She’s hoping to land on one of those lists and use it as a talking point about feminism.”
“You’re kidding,” Samara said.
I shook my head. I was not kidding. That was the type of drama that my mother brought, and I felt relief rather than hurt that she chose not to be here today.
It did sting at first. I mourned not the relationship I had with my mother, but the one that could have been. But looking around now, it was clear I had something much better.
Darius had opened my eyes to many things. One of which was that I didn’t need to chase my mother’s approval. My mother’s job was to love me unconditionally; it was never my responsibility to give her a reason to love me. I was better off without her in my life.
