“We thought it was important for you to see him happy,” she continued. “Truly happy. After everything he endured.”
I looked down at the invitation again. Declan’s name sat beside Savannah’s in ornate gold letters, polished into something holy.
“Everything he endured,” I repeated.
“Yes. Those were difficult years for him. Waiting. Hoping. Pouring money and emotion into a future that never came. But Savannah has brought light back into his life.”
There it was.
The old room opening.
The sterile clinic waiting rooms. The whispered updates. The monthly hope. The disappointment we never knew how to carry together. The way Declan’s hand stopped reaching for mine long before the marriage ended. The way Beatrice began using words like legacy and duty as if my body were a failed department within a family corporation.
“She’s expecting,” Beatrice said.
I heard the smile in her voice.
“Congratulations.”
“Four months. A boy, according to the early scan. Declan is beside himself. After all this time, the family finally has a future.”
My hand rested flat on my desk.
The glass was cool beneath my palm.
“Wonderful.”
Beatrice paused. She had expected something else. A catch in my breath. A stumble. A wound reopening loud enough for her to enjoy.
When she didn’t get it, her voice tightened.
“We want you to behave with dignity that weekend. Savannah is young, radiant, and under quite a bit of public attention. You understand. There will be photographers, friends of the family, investors, society pages. We can’t have any awkward displays.”
“From me?”
“Well.” She laughed softly. “A divorced woman attending her ex-husband’s wedding can look a certain way if she isn’t careful.”
I almost smiled.
Five years ago, that sentence would have sent me to the bathroom with the water running so no one could hear me cry. Five years ago, Beatrice’s voice could still walk through my rib cage and rearrange what I believed about myself.
But I was not twenty-six anymore.
I was thirty-one. Creative director at a public relations firm I had helped build from six employees to forty. Owner of a restored brownstone in Lincoln Park. Mother of two three-year-olds who had turned my living room into a permanent toy district and my life into something louder, fuller, and more alive than any Vance ballroom had ever been.
“Are you finished?” I asked.
The silence on the other end was immediate.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want to make sure you’ve said everything you needed to say.”
Her breath sharpened.
“Wear something understated. Savannah is the bride. Do not compete for attention. You’re a guest in our world now, Riley. Try to remember your place.”
I traced one finger over the embossed edge of the invitation.
“My presence will be memorable,” I said.
She gave a short, dry sound.
“See that it isn’t.”
Then she hung up.
I set the phone down and looked out over Chicago, where the sky was the hard pale blue of late autumn. In the glass reflection, I saw myself sitting straight-backed in my office chair, hair pulled into a low knot, navy blazer pressed, expression calm.
They wanted me at the wedding because they wanted an audience for my replacement.
They thought I would arrive alone and small.
They thought Savannah’s pregnancy would be the final proof that the Vances had been right about me all along.
They thought the past was dead.
I picked up a pen, turned the invitation over, and wrote one word on the back.