Her mother moved closer, as though she had been waiting nearby for this particular moment.
“Blue is for family,” she said.
She did not say it apologetically. She said it with the flat certainty of someone delivering information they consider self-evident.
“I’m the groom’s mother.”
She gave me a smile. Not the warm, caught-out smile of someone embarrassed by a misunderstanding. A tight, composed smile. The smile of someone who has made a decision and does not intend to revisit it.
I turned to Grant.
He was close enough to have heard everything. His eyes were on the middle distance, on some neutral point that was neither me nor his bride nor his mother-in-law.
“Grant.”
“Mom. Please. Not now.”
Three words. Said quietly, without anger, but with a flatness that landed harder than anger would have.
