Page 1 of Always a Fake Bridesmaid
one
LIVVY
“Mom!Mom! Let me show you! Mom! Mommy! Mommy!”
As the dulcet tones of my precious, now four-year-old, daughter echoed throughout the park, I tried to remember the last time someone had called me Livvy Montgomery. Had anyone used my name recently?
Of course in an email. That had to be right. No, I was pretty sure they’d used the name Ms. Montgomery. But not Livvy. Even today while surrounded by my parents, brother, and a couple other family members, they hadn’t addressed me by name.
I was now Mom. Mommy. Although Amelia calling me Mom instead of just Mommy was like a stab to the heart. I didn’t like the idea that my baby girl no longer only called me Mommy.
All of that whirled in my brain in a moment’s time as I turned toward Amelia and smiled.
“Hello, baby girl. What did you want to show me?” I asked, looking down at my precious daughter.
She had just gotten a haircut, and while I once again had saved a few clippings because my baby girl was growing up too quickly, she looked a mess. But she wasmymess.
Her blonde hair was stick straight, so unlike mine it was a little disturbing. She had full bangs and pigtails on either side of her head that made me want to whip out my phone and once again take a photo. The number of albums I had labeled Amelia was a little ridiculous.
I heard the sound of a phone camera clicking come from my right, and I looked over at my mother who was indeed taking a photo.
Shea Montgomery just blinked at me with those all too innocent eyes. “What? She’s cute. And she’s my grandbaby. Let me be.”
“I was just thinking the same. Send me that?” I asked as I moved toward Amelia.
My mother grinned and quickly texted me the photo. I looked over at Amelia, who held up her hands covered in finger paint, and sighed thinking of the mess we’d be cleaning up later.
“What did you paint today, darling?”
“Uncle John. Of course.” She rolled her eyes, and I swallowed hard, wondering where she had learned that. Honestly, probably me. I was a single mother working on little sleep and I tended to roll my eyes often. Only when had my baby girl grown to the point that she could roll her eyes and look like a teenager? Yes, she was still only four, but I could blink and suddenly she’d be rolling her eyes when I wouldn’t let her have the car keys for the night.
Though at Amelia’s words, I looked down at my younger brother and held back a laugh. Only I couldn’t stop the smile crossing my face. Once again, my mother snapped a few photos.
“Baby girl, I do believe your painting should be in the Louvre.”
“What’s a Loo Vee?” Amelia asked, a grin on that painted face.
I knelt down in front of her, baby wipes in hand. “It’s a special museum in Paris, France.”
“Where’s France?”
“It is a country in Europe. Do you remember us talking about Europe?”
“Maybe. Is it with the fish and chips?”
My lips twitched. “Close.”
“They have baguettes and cheese,” John put in. My twenty-year-old brother sat up, his face covered in paint.
“Cheese?” Amelia asked, her eyes widening.
“Well, if there was any doubt that she was a Montgomery,” my mom muttered.
I grinned up at her.
“Excuse me, you married into the family ma’am.”
“I did, and I went through cheese school to understand the true depths of my love of all things dairy. Don’t worry, I promise that we’ll have cheesecake for dessert.”
