Today I wanted everything.
The door cracked open.
"She's awake," Lily said over her shoulder, in the tone of a woman announcing a verdict. She came in with a tray. Coffee for her, tea for me, a small white plate of pastries that she set on the nightstand with the gravity of a surgeon laying out instruments. "Good. Drink. Sienna's bringing the makeup case in five. Jade's downstairs threatening the dress steamer. Do not fight me on the eyeliner."
"Wouldn't dare."
"Smart bride."
She perched on the edge of the bed and pushed my hair off my forehead the way an older sister does. Her eyes had that wet look she got sometimes when she did not want to be soft about a thing. I let her.
Sienna came in a minute later with a case the size of a small suitcase, and Jade trailed after her with two cups and a dress bag and the steamer slung over one shoulder like a weapon.
"Tea," Jade announced, pressing the warm cup into my hands. "Decaf. I tasted it to make sure. You're welcome."
"You tasted my tea?"
"Quality control."
"Sit," Sienna said, already pulling brushes from the case. "Hair first. Face second. Talk if you want. Do not move."
I sat at the little vanity in the corner and let three of the people I loved most in the world fuss over me. Lily worked the back of my hair into something soft. Sienna brushed gold into the inner corners of my eyes and warned me, calmly, that if I cried before the ceremony she would personally redo it and bill me. Jade steamed the dress in the corner, humming under herbreath, and every so often she looked up at me in the mirror and grinned like she could not help it.
I thought about how, a year ago, I had not known any of these women existed.
A small knock at the door. The kind that does not ask, only announces.
"Come in, Halmoni," I said.
She came in.
My grandmother had on her good silk blouse, the cream one with the pale plum trim, and her hair was pinned at the nape of her neck the way she only pinned it for important things. She crossed the room with that quiet steady step of hers and stood behind me at the vanity, and her eyes met mine in the glass.
"Halmoni," I said again, smaller this time.
She did not speak right away. She reached into the small pouch at her wrist and pulled out a hairpin. It was old. The lacquer on the wood had darkened with years, and the small enamel flower at the top was chipped at one petal. I knew it. I had seen it on the side of my great-grandmother's head in the one photograph my mother had kept.
"This was my mother's," she said. "She wore it the day she married. I wore it the day I married. Now you."
She slid the pin carefully into the soft twist Lily had built into my hair and pressed it home with two fingers and a small satisfied breath.
"Thank you," I said. My voice did not come out steady.
"Do not cry," Sienna warned from over my shoulder.
"I'm not crying."
"Your eyes are crying."
"That's just water."
Halmoni's hand came to rest on my shoulder. A small hand. Lined. Warm. She did not say anything else. She did not need to.
The door banged open.
"I'M HERE," said Rhea.
She came in at full speed, two dark braids tied off with white ribbon, a small white dress with a satin sash, and Beom-Beom clutched under one arm with what was clearly a self-tied bow of white ribbon around his good ear. The bow was crooked. The bow was perfect.
