Then I straightened my shoulders and went to the consultation room.
Daniel, Vanessa, Melissa, and Mr. Alvarez were already waiting.
Nobody was laughing now.
The arrangement had begun eight months before the wedding.
Daniel called me one evening sounding exhausted.
The hotel Vanessa wanted had increased its minimum spending requirement for the reception.
They had already reserved the date through Melissa, but the required deposit was much larger than expected.
Vanessa’s parents could contribute to the ceremony and several smaller expenses, but they couldn’t cover the reception.
Daniel had been trying to make up the difference.
“Mom, I think we may have to change venues,” he told me.
“Would that be so terrible?”
“Not to me. But Vanessa has dreamed about getting married there since she was little.”
I remembered the hopeful excitement in his voice when he first described the place.
I’d been helping Daniel financially for much of his adult life.
Some of that help had been necessary.
When he was twenty-one, I paid the part of his college tuition that his scholarships didn’t cover.
When his first marriage ended, I let him stay in my guest bedroom while he rebuilt his savings.
When he was laid off several years later, I helped him keep up with his car payments until he found another job.
I never kept a running total.
But by the time he met Vanessa, I had begun wondering whether I’d made it too easy for him to assume I would always solve his problems.
Still, a wedding was different.
I wanted him to have a happy beginning.
So I asked Melissa for the hotel’s event proposal.
I reviewed it carefully.
The reception package was expensive, but I could afford it without compromising my retirement.
I’d been a financial administrator for a public school district, and Richard had worked as an engineer.
We lived modestly, saved consistently, and had no mortgage by the time we retired.
After Richard died, I inherited his retirement savings and life insurance proceeds.
I wasn’t fabulously wealthy.
But I was comfortable.
