Three months after burying my fiancé, I saw his mother slipping down a hallway at a wedding where I was arranging flowers. Colleen noticed me near the reception entrance, and instead of offering a greeting, she turned pale and hurried away. Six weeks before our own wedding, her son Adrian had supposedly died in a violent car accident. I stood beside her at the closed-casket funeral while she squeezed my hand and watched me fall apart. Returning to wedding work had already taken every ounce of courage I had, but rent, suppliers, and business expenses did not pause for grief. When I followed Colleen and asked why she was hiding, a coordinator appeared and said, “The groom needs his mother.”
I assumed Adrian’s older brother, Julian, must be getting married and tried to return to my floral arrangements. Minutes later, however, I saw Colleen enter the groom’s room after checking whether anyone was watching. Through the partly opened door, I heard her tell a man that the ceremony would begin in 20 minutes. His answer made my entire body go cold because I had heard that voice across our kitchen table, beside me in movie theaters, and during countless arguments about our wedding cake. Then the groom stepped into view wearing the suit Adrian had purchased for our ceremony.