I laughed before I could stop myself.
It was the first real laugh I had given all day.
Emmett looked at me then, and there was something in his expression I didn’t know how to name. Not pity. Not surprise. Recognition, maybe.
“You know,” he said, lowering his voice, “I’ve sat beside prime ministers who were less direct than this table.”
“That’s because nobody here wants anything from you except crayons.”
“And possibly a rocket ship.”
“That too.”
His smile faded slightly. “Are you all right?”
The question was simple. That made it difficult.
I glanced toward the head table, where Nicholas leaned close to Allison, explaining something with both hands. My mother had turned her chair away from me, pretending not to watch. My father sat silent beside her, his expression unreadable.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Emmett gave me a look.
“All right,” I admitted. “I’m not fine. But I’m steady.”
“That’s different.”
“Sometimes it’s better.”
He nodded as if he understood that more than most people would.
Dinner passed slowly after that. Every so often, someone from the front of the ballroom looked back. A few guests came over with excuses: to compliment the children, to ask Emmett a harmless question, to say hello as if they had intended to speak with me all along.
I answered politely. I did not perform. I did not explain myself to people who had ignored me an hour earlier.
When the speeches began, the room softened into candlelight and expectation.
Allison’s father spoke first. He was warm, slightly nervous, and funny in the gentle way of men who love their daughters openly. He told a story about Allison at age eight trying to organize a neighborhood talent show and charging everyone one dollar to attend.
“She has always believed life should be both beautiful and efficient,” he said, raising his glass.
The guests laughed.
Then Nicholas’s best man gave a speech full of business-school jokes, golf trips, and polished anecdotes. Nicholas laughed loudly at all the right moments. He looked comfortable again. Restored.
Then my mother stood.
I hadn’t known she planned to speak.
She held a champagne flute in one hand and a small card in the other. Her smile was perfect from a distance, but I could see the strain at the corners of her mouth.
“Nicholas has always been ambitious,” she began. “Even as a boy, he knew exactly where he wanted to go.”
That was true.
“He pushed himself. He surrounded himself with excellence. And now, seeing him marry Allison, a woman of such grace and accomplishment, I know he has found a partner worthy of the future he has built.”
Applause rippled.
Then her gaze shifted, only briefly, toward me.
“In every family, children take different paths,” she continued. “Some shine early. Some find quieter ways to contribute.”
My fingers tightened around my napkin.
There it was.