Page 137 of How to Walk Away

“I wasn’tinvited,” I said.

“Go as me,” Kit said. “We RSVP’d for three.”

“But they don’t want me there.”

“Nonsense,” my mother said. “It was an oversight.”

I looked at Kit, who really did look awful, and then I looked at my nervous mother, who also looked awful. Kit clearly wasn’t going anywhere. But no way was I making my mom go alone. I sighed to my mom. “Get me Kit’s dress.”

It was red—a “your-life-is-ruined crimson,” Kit called it—and strapless, and kind of fifties-looking, with a crinoline underskirt. I worked my way into it while my mom fussed and tried to help. I also—fuck it—wore the new lingerie. I did my hair. I put on all the new makeup Kit had bought me, including red lipstick. I thought about wearing a scarf to cover my burn scars before deciding that would look worse.

Taking one last look in the mirror, I stopped to wonder if I should leave Ian’s not-quite-formal-enough necklace on, before decidingof course. I’d be needing the word “courage” tonight.

Then I forced my mom out the door.

We were doing this.

Honestly, in the face of all the other things we’d survived this year, how hard could it be?

***

THE WEDDING CHAPELwas not far. Just around the corner.

My research had assured me that Bruges’s terrain was very flat and that the cobblestones would be more of a nuisance than a barrier—both true. I also knew from my research that the chapel itself was right on ground level, so I could wheel in with no trouble. What I didn’t know, until we got there, was how very tiny the chapel would be.

Seriously. It was like a little Christmas ornament.

Standing around outside, in a large crowd, were all the guests who couldn’t fit in the building.

Surely, there were other churches that could have held us all. Surely, Evelyn Dunbar had not overlooked a detail like the size of the venue. But the longer we stood there, surrounded by others who couldn’t get in, and craning our heads for glimpses of the action, the more it felt like Chip’s mom—perhaps in a grand gesture of triumph to the watching world—had overbooked the wedding on purpose.

“Do you think she knew we wouldn’t all fit?”

“I suspect she did,” my mom said, nodding. “Better an overflowing church than an empty one.”

We found a place in the stone churchyard to wait, but there was no place for my mom to sit, and so we were at different altitudes, not even talking, and I spent the next half hour watching her worry her hands at her waist.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked after a while.

She looked down. “Doing what?”

“Twisting your hands around. Are you nervous?”

“I’m not twisting my hands around,” she said, stopping.

That’s when I looked up to see that she wasn’t peering toward the church like everybody else. She was searching the crowd.

That little moment right there made me glad I’d come all this way. She had something important to do, and I was helping her do it.

Ten more minutes went by. Then another ten. Finally, my mom decided to go check in with the usher standing at the door to see what the holdup was.

That’s how we got separated. She disappeared in that direction, cutting right and left through the crowd—and she hadn’t been gone five minutes before the church bells started ringing. Before she could come back, the chapel doors pushed open, and the bride and groom came striding out.

Of course they did. This was a wedding! Their wedding.

I felt myself hunch down, suddenly realizing in a new way that I wascrashing Chip’s wedding.

I had nowhere to hide, but as the little stone churchyard flooded with strangers in sparkly gowns and tuxes, the photographer called all the important people off for photos.

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