“Why?” I asked before Shaun could.
“Wedding discussions,” Matthew said.
I smirked. “Please don’t tell me she changed the date again.”
“I don’t know. I nod. Smile. And just ask when I need to show up in my suit.”
Shaun smiled. “My wife was like that. She took over everything. I just backed her up and wrote checks.”
Weirdly, I didn’t want to hear Shaun talk about his wife. I knew she was gone, but it still felt strange. Like he was cheating, but I knew he wasn't.
"Wait, your wife?" Louie asked.
Let the boys figure it out on their own. I headed back toward the kitchen to see what was going on with my sisters and my mother.
And was smacked by a burst of rose petals.
“What the bloody hell?” I snapped.
“Oh, sorry!” Autumn said.
“Why are you throwing flowers at me?”
“I was trying to prove a point to Summer, that real petals fall differently than the fake ones," Autumn said.
“And I was trying to tell her I didn’t care how they fell. I wanted pink petals on the carpet when I walk down the aisle. I don’t care if they’re rose petals or carnation petals. Fake or real doesn’t matter. I just want to step on pink petals.”
I blinked.
Twice.
And knocked a petal off my shoulder.
“I’m going to get a beer, and I’m going back into the other room because I was warned, but I didn’t heed the warning,” I said.
Autumn looked back through the house where Shaun and the others were. “Ohh, you brought him!”
“Mom invited him,” I said.
“And he wouldn’t turn down an invitation from me,” Mom said, coming back in from the television room at the rear of the house.
“I’m sure he would. He doesn’t have that same obligatory devotion to you like I do.”
“But he didn’t turn me down,” Mom said, glancing back toward the living room as well, and grabbed the beer I'd pulled out for Shaun. “And why do you feel obligated to me?”
I waved my hand in the air.
"Who doesn't feel obligated to you? You gave birth to us. And made a salon for me and my asthma," Summer said.
"I didn't make it for you," Mom said.
"Oh please," I said.
Summer pressed a glass of wine in my hand, her blonde hair fluttering around her face like little feathers.
I sipped on the white wine. Evidently, I needed it because it tasted really good. "You had extra venting put in to make sure the salon fumes didn't bother her asthma,” I said.
"Every salon should do that, not just for asthmatics, but for all the clients."
