The room smells of white lilies. They’re everywhere, their heavy, funereal scent creeping into my lungs until I feel lightheaded. These aren’t my flowers; they are Elaine’s. The floral equivalent of a Thompson watermark, stamped on the day to ensure no one forgets.
Lily is pacing the length of the Persian rug, her heels clicking a frantic rhythm against the floor. She still has a smudge of dirt on her forearm from where we were trying to hang the fairy lights earlier this morning, before the professional crew came in and tore it all down.
“I will burn this place to the ground,” Lily says, her voice low and vibrating with fury. “I swear to God, Harley, I will find the breaker room and shut the whole thing down.”
I close my eyes and envision my father’s hands. I see the way his calloused fingers traced the grain of the cedar, the way he squinted through his safety goggles to make sure the dovetail joints were perfect. He spent six weeks in his workshop building those boxes for our centerpieces. They were supposed to hold wildflowers. They were supposed to be the one part of my childhood that stayed with me as I walked into this new, cold world.
And now my dad talked about picking through the industrial dumpsters out back, trying to find his heart’s work for his baby girl.
“Maria, tell her,” Lily snaps, spinning toward our stepmother. “Tell her we’re leaving. We can be at the airport before the first guest even yawns.”
Maria is standing by the mahogany door, her arms crossed tight over her chest. She’s wearing the burnt orange dress we picked out together, a color that now clashes spectacularly with the silver-and-navy nightmare Elaine has installed in the hall and ballroom. Her face is a mask of controlled rage.
“She’s a grown woman, Lily,” Maria says, though her eyes are fixed on me with heartbreaking intensity. “She knows what’s at stake.”
“What’s at stake is her soul!” Lily gestures wildly. “Did you see the ballroom?”
Tracing the fabric of my dress, I trace the lace on my lap. I think about the phone call with Skyler. The way he used his ‘management’ tone to tell me to rise above it. He knew. Authorized it, even.
“She’s smug, Harley,” Lily says, stopping in front of me. “I walked past Elaine in the hall. She was adjusting a lily andlooking around like she’d just conquered a small country. She looked at my dress and gave me that pitying little head tilt, like I was a stray dog she was tolerating at a dinner party.”
I can see it. I can see Elaine and Robert standing at the head of the receiving line, basking in the approval of three hundred business associates who don’t know my middle name. They’ve won. They’ve successfully bleached the Matthews out of the day.
And then there’s Amanda. I wonder if she’s out there in the front row, watching the spectacle. The woman who did exactly what I was supposed to do—surrender, adapt, mold. She became the perfect Thompson accessory, and Skyler left her anyway. Because you can’t love a mirror, and that’s all she allowed herself to be.
“Let’s go,” Lily says, grabbing my hand, her palm warm. “Dad will be happy to leave. He hates his tie anyway.”
I glance at her, and then at Maria. When I pull my hand back, it’s not out of weakness.
“No,” I say. My voice is steady. It’s the voice I use when I’m standing in a courtroom, defending a child that the system has forgotten. “I need to see this through to the end.”
“The end?” Maria asks. “Harley, honey, if you walk through those doors, you’re tied to them. The paperwork, the vows—”
“I’m not walking in for a wedding. Skyler needs to understand. If I just leave, they’ll spin me into being the villain. I need to say my piece first.”
A slow, knowing smile forms on Maria’s lips. “You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
Lily lets out a long whistle, her anger shifting into glee. “Okay then. If we’re doing a reckoning, we’re doing it right. You need more lipstick.”
She applies a deeper, sharper red to my lips, obscuring the ‘bashful pink’ Elaine had recommended. Maria steps behind me, smoothing the lace of my veil, her hands firm and grounding.
“Your father will be at the back of the room,” Maria says, her voice low. “He found one box. It’s broken, but he’s holding on to it.”
I stand. The dress is still heavy, but it doesn’t feel like it’s dragging me down anymore. It feels like a goodbye. I head for the door and down the hall, all six of our heels clicking.
“Remember,” Lily whispers as the music swells. “If you need a distraction, the red wine is already on the tray.”
“I won’t need a distraction,” I say. “Just the truth.”
The mahogany doors groan as they swing open. The ‘Wedding March’ hits me first, played by a string quartet.
I take my first step onto the red carpet. It’s a vivid slash of blood-red through a sea of sterile white. Instead of the beautiful wildflowers I chose, white lilies erupt from silver urns like frozen explosions.
Disturbingly, every few feet lies the wreckage of wildflowers, shredded as if they’d been pulled through a woodchipper. It is the perfect symbol for this wedding: the Thompsons reign supreme, and my desires are just more debris to be cleared away.
When I walk past rows of suits and designer dresses, I note how these aren’t my friends. There’s no Lily or Maria in these pews, no coworkers from the office. These are the partners of Peterson and Klein. Stakeholders in the Henderson development. The type of men who have spent thirty years golfing with Robert Thompson.
