Maya was perched on the arm of the couch, already texting about appointments. Maria sat beside her, a sleeping Lucia curled in her lap, making notes about flowers and timelines.
"You've all been planning this," I said, looking around at them.
"Someone had to." Zoe didn't look up from her binder.
My throat tightened unexpectedly. "Thank you. All of you."
"Don't get emotional yet." Maya grinned. "Save it for the fitting rooms. Those have tissues."
Saturday came, and we invaded bridal boutiques across three boroughs. Zoe vetoed everything with excessive beading, lace, or "too many things happening." Maya cried at almost everything, which wasn't helpful, but was very endearing.
I found it in the fourth shop. Simple white silk. Clean lines. A neckline that made me look elegant rather than severe, with a back that dipped low enough to make Brian's eyes go dark when he eventually saw it.
"That's it," Maya said, her voice thick. "That's the one."
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw someone I almost didn't recognize. Not Dr. Rothwell, the ER attending who lived on coffee and adrenaline. Not the woman who'd spent fourteen years proving she didn't need anyone.
Someone who'd kept a vow until it was time to break it.
"Yeah," I whispered. "That's the one."
We got married a year after the proposal.
The venue was the Conservatory Garden in Central Park—the formal gardens my mother had tried to drag me to as a child, back when she still thought she could mold me into someone who appreciated high-society luncheons and charity galas. I'd hated it then. The pristine hedges, the expectation that I'd become a woman who cared about such things.
But walking through it with Brian—seeing the way the late afternoon light filtered through the wisteria pergola, the way the fountains caught the sun—I understood why my mother loved it. Not for the status. For the beauty.
"It's perfect," I'd said.
Brian had looked at me, then at the garden, then back at me. "If you love it, book it."
My parents had handled the rest. The permits, the caterers, the string quartet, the thousands of details that turned a public garden into a private wonderland for an evening.
My mother had been in her element—finally given permission to plan something for me, she'd thrown herself into with a fervor that bordered on frightening. But she'd checked with me on every decision, asked my opinion, and respected my boundaries.
It was the closest we'd ever been.
Now I stood at the back of the aisle in the dress Zoe had approved, my father beside me, and tried to remember how to breathe.
"You look beautiful, Ava.” He took my hand. His eyes were wet. “Your mother is already crying."
"She started crying when she saw the flowers."
"She started crying when she woke up this morning." He squeezed my fingers. "I'm proud of you. I know I haven't always shown it. I pushed you away, tried to make you into someone you didn't want to be. But watching you build this life—this career, this relationship—on your own terms..." He had to stop,compose himself. "You're stronger than I ever gave you credit for."
He pulled me into a hug—brief, fierce, entirely out of character for Charles Rothwell.
"Thank you," he said roughly. "For giving me another chance."
The music shifted. Our cue.
We walked.
The garden was full of people. White chairs lined the central lawn, facing the wrought-iron wisteria pergola where Brian waited. My mother sat in the front row, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief that probably cost more than my first apartment's rent.
Brian's parents were beside her—Elena already weeping openly, Roberto sitting straight and proud with suspiciously bright eyes. Maria and the kids, Lucia in her flower girl dress, Marco trying very hard to sit still.
Shane and Garrett stood at the front with Brian, their dress uniforms crisp and gleaming. The Engine 295 crew filled an entire row—Rodriguez, the other firefighters I'd come to know over months of firehouse dinners and hospital runs, the family Brian had chosen long before he chose me.
