Mom shoved a plate of cold leftovers toward me and sneered, “Scraps are good enough for you.” My sister smirked, “Pathetic, as always.”
***Mom served me cold leftovers while my sister watched with a smug smile. “Scraps are good enough for you,” Mom said. I quietly stood to leave, refusing to argue. Then the groom walked in, took one look at me, and stopped cold. “Boss?” he whispered. “You’re her sister?” Suddenly, nobody was smiling.***
By the time I arrived at the Marlowe House in Charleston, the wedding reception had already spread from the ballroom onto the terrace.
White roses wrapped around the railings, a jazz trio played beneath strings of warm lights, and nearly two hundred guests were drinking champagne my mother had once insisted she could never afford for my college graduation.
I had almost skipped the wedding altogether.
My younger sister, Madison Cole, had sent my invitation six weeks late with a handwritten note:
***“Try not to make this about you.”***
That was Madison.
Even when I said nothing, somehow I was still accused of taking up too much space.
Mom spotted me near the seating chart and sighed like I was an unexpected expense.
“You came.”
“You invited me.”
“Technically, Madison did.”
She led me past the beautifully set dinner tables toward a narrow service alcove beside the kitchen.
Then she placed a foil-covered plate in front of me.
Underneath were cold slices of roast chicken, stiff mashed potatoes, and wilted asparagus.
I stared at her.
“Mom, everyone else is eating dinner.”
She folded her arms.
“Scraps are good enough for you.”
Madison appeared behind her wearing a satin reception dress and holding a champagne flute.
Her smile sharpened when she saw my plate.
“Pathetic. As always.”
For years, I had swallowed comments like that because defending myself only gave them something else to criticize.
To them, I was the daughter who moved away, missed birthdays, refused family loans, and worked some vague corporate job in Atlanta.
They had never seriously asked what I did.
I pushed back my chair.
“I’m leaving.”
“Of course you are,” Madison said. “You always run when people stop pretending you’re important.”
I had taken two steps when a man in a black tuxedo entered the alcove.
Ethan Barrett.
The groom.
He stopped so suddenly that the server behind him nearly walked into him.
His face went blank.
Then pale.
“Boss?”
Madison laughed uncertainly.
“What?”
Ethan looked from me to the plate, then toward my mother.
“Boss? You’re her sister?”
