Chapter 1: The Curated Exile
I found out about my sister Lily’s wedding the same way I learned about most of the tectonic shifts in my family—through the jagged, awkward pity of a stranger. It was a Tuesday, the kind of gray, rainy afternoon that makes the fluorescent lights of an office breakroom feel particularly hostile. I was stirring powdered creamer into lukewarm coffee when Sarah, a junior associate from accounting, hovered near my elbow.
“So,” she chirped, her voice pitched a little too high, “are you excited for the weekend? I heard from the grapevine that your sister is getting married. A vineyard ceremony in Napa, right?
It sounds absolutely dreamy.”
The spoon froze in my hand. The clinking sound against the ceramic mug stopped, leaving a silence that felt heavy and suffocating. “The weekend?” I repeated, my voice steady despite the sudden, cold stone dropping into my stomach.
Sarah’s smile faltered. She saw the blankness in my eyes, the lack of recognition. The realization hit her a split second before the embarrassment flushed her cheeks.
“Oh. I just… I saw the registry online. I assumed…”
“It’s fine,” I lied, turning back to my coffee to spare her the sight of my humiliation.
“It must be a small affair.”
But I knew Lily. I knew my mother, Carol. Nothing they did was small.
I didn’t go back to my desk. I drove straight to my parents’ house, the sprawling colonial in the best neighborhood of Greenwich, the house that always smelled of lemon polish and unsaid judgments. I found my mother in the sunroom, arranging white lilies—of course—into a crystal vase.
She was wearing her signature pearls, the ones she touched whenever she was about to deliver a polite insult. “Emma,” she said, not looking up. “You didn’t call.”
“I didn’t get an invitation,” I said, cutting straight to the bone.
“To Lily’s wedding. This Saturday.”
Carol paused, snipping a stem with a sharp snick. She finally looked at me, her blue eyes cool and unbothered, like a frozen lake you could skate across but never swim in.
“Oh, that,” she sighed, as if we were discussing a change in the lunch menu. “We decided to keep the guest list… curated. It’s an intimate gathering, Emma.
Just the people who truly support Lily’s happiness.”
“Support her happiness?” I stepped closer, my hands trembling at my sides. “I’m her sister. I’ve bailed her out of debt twice.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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