It’s in that moment I realize I didn’t just get my righteous sense of justice from my dad.
“Don’t you know what your slut of a daughter just did?” Jeff asks. “She just ruined my life, and yours!”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yell.
“Just full of profanities too. She?—”
But he doesn’t get to continue, because my mother slaps him, hard, across the face.
Jeff gasps, holding his cheek. “Did you all see that?” he cries. “I was assaulted!”
“Oh, we saw it,” Julia says. She arrived without me noticing, but she appears now, next to me, holding up her phone and grinning wide. “You know this is exactly the kind of thing that people wouldeat upon social media. You could go viral for calling your fiancée a slut.”
She turns to me, winking. “It looked like you had this in hand.”
I hug Julia, laughing, while people tsk and start to heckle Jeff.
Mom.
I let go of Julia, turning to my mother, devastated to have brought her into this.
She’s shaking.
But she looks almost gleeful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her let loose like that.
“Thank you, Mom,” I say, stunned.
“Well. You can thank your father. It was he who taught me a little rage can help a woman breathe.”
I hug her next. Over her shoulder, Jeff still stands there like a dingbat.
“Scram, Jeff!” I say, having no idea what I ever,eversaw in him.
“Yeah, scram!” Julia says, laughing.
I recognize it was a weird word choice, but that’s me. I make the weird word choices. What can I say, I’m a book nerd.
“Maybe Clara will feel sorry for you and take you in,” I tell my ex-fiancé.
“Clara left as I was arriving,” Mom says. “I thought she’d finished your hair!”
The three of us laugh then, a little manically.
“Scram!” someone shouts from the crowd gathered around. I’m stunned to see Jeff’s assistant was the one who yelled it. He winks at me.
Finally, Jeff slinks off.
It’s only once I’m gone that I look back to where Clint stood, not embarrassed about what just happened, but hoping he saw me be brave. He doesn’t know quite how big this was for me, or my mom, but somehow, I know he’d be proud.
But Clint is nowhere to be seen.
Heart dropping, I tell Mom and Julia I’ll be back, then head for the main hall, where everyone except Jeff’s family and a few of his most loyal church friends has stuck around to enjoy the party.
I head for the counter, seeing if maybe I can get someone to call him. Behind the counter is a woman in her sixties, dressed in a smart pantsuit.
“You must be the bride,” she says. “Maggie, is it?”
“Yes,” I say. We’ve never met—Jeff’s mom arranged everything once I picked the venue.
