I remained silent until Daniel had driven several miles.
Then I said, “Pull over.”
He glanced at me.
“Why?”
“Because I need to yell, and I’d prefer you weren’t driving when I do it.”
He pulled into a gas station.
The second the car stopped, I unfastened my seat belt.
“What was that?”
“I know.”
“No. What exactly did you mean by ‘we’ll figure something out’?”
Daniel turned fully toward me.
“Sarah, your brother is walking you down that aisle.”
I stopped.
“There was never another possibility,” he continued.
“Then why didn’t you say that?”
“Because if I’d said everything I wanted to say to my mother, neither of us would ever be invited to Thanksgiving again.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Then the laughter turned into tears.
Daniel reached for me.
This time I let him.
After a moment, I whispered, “Nathan cannot find out.”
“He won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
That mattered more than winning an argument.
Nathan had spent almost a year trying to understand life without Dad.
He did not need to know that someone considered his face unsuitable for wedding photographs.
That night, I barely slept.
But sometime around three in the morning, lying beside Daniel and staring into the darkness, an idea came to me.
I wasn’t going to fight Margaret.
I was going to do something else entirely.
Part 3 — The Secret Change
The next morning, I called our wedding photographer.
Her name was Lena.
“I need to make a change,” I told her. “And I need it kept quiet. Especially from Daniel’s mother.”
There was a short pause.
“All right. What do you need?”
“Another photographer.”
“We already have a second shooter.”
“I want another angle.”
“For the ceremony?”
“For my brother.”
