Later, as the music swelled and the toasts began, Darlene approached our table with Blaire beside her. She hesitated in front of Nathaniel the way people hesitate in front of a locked door.
“You must be Mr. Cole,” she said.
“I must be,” he agreed pleasantly, and stood. “Mrs. Hargrove, I couldn’t help noticing where your husband seated the groom’s mother today. I’m sure it was an oversight.”
The silence at the table was worth every year of being small.
Blaire found me before the evening ended. “Marianne,” she said, and for once she didn’t sound like she was reading from a script, “I went along with the seating. I told myself it was my mother’s call. I’m sorry.”
I accepted the apology the way you accept a late birthday card — grateful, but no longer waiting for the day. “Then maybe next time,” I said, “you’ll make your own call sooner.”
Nathaniel drove me home that night. We didn’t make promises on the porch; we were both old enough to know better. But when he said he’d like to take me to dinner the following Friday — somewhere I wouldn’t have to sit behind the hydrangeas — I said yes.
I raised my son to take up space in the world. It took a man from fifty years ago to remind me that I was allowed to take up space too.
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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.