She ran inside twenty minutes later shouting my name, waving her left hand in front of her like she had just won the lottery.
“Lauren! Look! Look!”
I hugged her.
I cried.
She assumed they were happy tears.
Some of them were.
That night, alone in my apartment, I let the ugly thoughts come.
Why Grace?
Was Daniel settling?
Did he feel responsible for her?
Was he trying to rescue her?
Was this some bizarre extension of the promise he had made when we were children?
And the thought I hated myself most for thinking:
Could he truly want my sister instead of me?
The next morning, Grace called me at 7:12.
“You’re my maid of honor.”
It wasn’t a question.
I stared at the ceiling.
Then I smiled.
“Obviously.”
I decided whatever hurt I was feeling belonged to me.
Grace had spent her whole life surrounded by people deciding what she could handle, what she deserved, and what kind of future was realistic for her.
I refused to become another person who did that.
So I helped plan the wedding.
My parents surprised me.
I had expected resistance.
Dad had always been protective to the point of control. He was an estate attorney with a reputation for planning everything ten steps ahead.
Mom worried about Grace constantly.
Yet when Daniel asked for their blessing, they welcomed him almost too easily.
Dad even poured him a glass of bourbon.
“You’re making the right decision,” he said.
At the time, I thought he meant Daniel was a good man.
Years later, that sentence would sound very different.