“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
Her relief vanished.
“You can’t leave!”
That’s when I understood. She wanted me present, but only if I accepted the spot she’d chosen.
“No,” I said quietly. “I can.”
I started toward the exit, ignoring the whispers behind me.
I was almost at the dance floor when I heard a chair scrape across the floor.
Then another.
And another.
I turned.
At Table Seven, my 82-year-old grandmother was standing.
Grandma Margaret had arthritis in both knees. She rarely stood without difficulty.
But there she was, handbag under her arm, looking directly at Vanessa.
“Grandma?” Vanessa asked.
Grandma glanced at me and answered so firmly the relatives around her fell silent.
“If Clara isn’t family, then neither am I.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
And before she could say another word, Aunt Patricia started pushing back her chair.
“Patricia, please,” Vanessa said. “Don’t encourage this.”
Aunt Patricia, who had spent thirty years teaching middle-school mathematics and had never been impressed by anyone’s ability to shout, rose slowly.
“Encourage what?”
“Everyone making a spectacle of my wedding!”
Patricia glanced at the empty space beside Grandma.
“Your sister came to sit with her family. You removed her chair. What exactly did you expect to happen?”
Vanessa’s husband, Adrian, appeared beside the head table.
He was still wearing the dark-blue tuxedo from the ceremony, with a white rose pinned to his lapel.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Vanessa turned toward him.
“Clara’s upset about the seating arrangement.”
