Then she grabbed her skirts and hurried toward the dressing rooms.
Nobody followed her.
The heavy doors closed behind her.
For several seconds, the only sound was the soft mechanical hum of the air-conditioning.
Nathan turned to Clara.
“Please tell everyone the ceremony is canceled. I’ll take responsibility for the arrangements.”
Clara nodded.
“Of course.”
He looked toward the guests.
Some appeared shocked. Others looked embarrassed to have witnessed something so intimate.
His younger sister, Leah, stepped forward.
She was twenty-nine, with their father’s dark eyes and their mother’s quiet stubbornness.
She had never liked the way Vanessa treated Eleanor, but Nathan had repeatedly dismissed her concerns.
Now she stood beside him without saying she had been right.
That kindness nearly broke him.
“Take care of Mom for a minute,” he whispered.
Leah nodded.
Nathan walked toward the bouquet.
He crouched on the marble floor and carefully gathered the roses.
Several petals had been crushed. One stem had snapped.
His fingers trembled as he lifted them.
He remembered his father kneeling in the backyard, pushing his hands into the soil, explaining that roses needed patience.
His father had died during a cold November rain.
Nathan had been twenty-six.
For months afterward, he had avoided the garden because every flower reminded him of what he had lost.
His mother had kept tending it.
Every spring, the roses returned.
Nathan stood and approached Eleanor.
“Mom.”
She looked up.
