Page 255 of ClickBack

“Then leave it alone.”

I lower the hand I was about to lift. Di laughs from the chair beside mine, where a woman named Coral has been working on her feet for twenty minutes.

“You can stop watching me,” Di says without opening her eyes. “I paid for this.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“You were trying to remember whether it was on the invoice.”

I was. Across the room, Rae shakes her head at me.

“Sit down, Mama.”

There are forty minutes before I need to be dressed. The gown hangs near the window, its train laid out on a clean sheet. Beyond the glass, the Hill Country stretches beneath a pale winter sky. Our guests are arriving at the limestone estate. Every so often I recognize a voice from the path below, and have to resist getting up to see who it is.

Marguerite comes in to check the time, then leaves with a question about flowers that she takes to somebody else. I stay in my chair. It is astonishing how much effort this requires.

Trina has claimed the chaise. “I could get married here.”

“You could get married anywhere,” Rae tells her. “Find somebody first.”

“I’m choosing the venue. He can catch up.”

Di opens one eye. “Put down a deposit. See how committed you are.”

Trina looks at her champagne instead.

I laugh, and the sound makes me want my mother. It comes without warning. She should be here telling Trina that a deposit is how you get yourself in trouble, then asking Marguerite what it would cost. She should be touching the fabric of my dress and pretending the tears in her eyes are irritation at the price.

Rae catches me looking at the empty chair beside the window. She leaves her phone on the table and comes over to inspect my hair, turning my chin gently toward the light.

“Pretty,” she says.

“Thank you.”

She presses her cheek to mine carefully, avoiding the makeup, and returns to her seat.

Denise arrives with a cufflink in her palm. “Does anybody have one of those little sewing kits?”

“What happened?” I ask.

“Javon pulled the back off this.”

“Give it here,” Di says, sitting up.

“He wants me to tell you it came off.”

“That sounds like him,” I say.

Di takes the cufflink and examines it while Denise looks at me. Her expression changes before she can turn it into a joke.

“Girl,” she says quietly.

“Don’t.” I point at my eyes. “They just finished.”

She laughs and comes to kiss me. Since the summer, she has begun calling when something reminds her of me. Sometimes we talk for five minutes. Once we spent an hour disagreeing about a show Jarrett says neither of us should be watching. Today she squeezes my shoulder and tells me both her boys are almost ready.

Zion follows her in to show me his tuxedo. At twelve, he has suddenly become a person who can stand in a doorway and make me see all the ages before it.