“Before? She wanted you to walk out of the wedding.”
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his phone.
“What did she tell you?”
“She said it wasn’t too late.”
My mother had kissed my cheek after the ceremony. All afternoon, she’d known what she’d tried to do.
“I’m calling her in the morning. She’s going to explain why she thought she could do that to us.”
I wanted her to know she’d gone too far. But first, I needed to know how close she’d come to succeeding.
“She said it wasn’t too late.”
“Did you think about leaving?”
“No. I trusted the woman I’d spent two years with, not a clip your mother sent me.”
He turned the phone facedown.
“I wanted to ask you privately. Hearing your voice hurt, even though I knew there had to be more to it.”
“Did you think about leaving?”
I took his hand between mine.
“I told her I loved you as you are. I don’t have the original. I can’t show you—”
“Melany. You don’t have to prove it.”
He put his arm around me. I leaned against him, still in my wedding dress, and pictured Mom answering my call.
This time, she wasn’t going to tell me to stop making a fuss about his clothes.
“I can’t show you—”
The next morning, I called Mom with Lenald beside me.
“You cut up that recording to make me say something I didn’t.”
“I thought he deserved to understand your expectations.”
“Those were YOUR expectations. You heard what I actually said.”
“You’re upset. We’ll discuss this when you’re thinking clearly.”
I called Mom.
“I’m thinking clearly now.”
“I was protecting you. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
I ended the call.
Arguing hadn’t stopped her. Getting married hadn’t stopped her. I wasn’t spending the rest of my life checking what she’d told my husband.
“I think it’s time we taught my mother a lesson.”
“I was protecting you.”
He watched me. “What are you thinking?”
An idea had begun to take shape. I moved closer and told him.
“I’ll ask Mara and Felix,” he said when I finished.
“And afterward, she hears what changes from now on. No talking her way around it.”
“What if she won’t listen?”
“It’s time we taught my mother a lesson.”
I looked at my new wedding ring.
I wanted Sunday lunches with Mom, calls about nothing, a family that still included her.
“Then I don’t know how I keep her in my life. But I can’t let her do this to us again.”
***
After our short honeymoon, I called Mom and invited her out with us on Saturday.
“You keep saying I don’t understand his life,” I told her. “Come and see it.”
“I can’t let her do this to us again.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere he and his friends go regularly. We’ll collect you at ten.”
She hesitated, then agreed.
***
Saturday morning, I put on a black dress and borrowed one of Lenald’s silver necklaces.
“Too much?” I asked.
“We’ll collect you at ten.”
He smiled and leaned in close.
“You’re asking the wrong man, babe.”
***
Mara met us outside Mom’s house in a black skirt and heavy boots, her dark red hair tied back.
