He studied hard. He worked even harder.
He finished college, the first in your family to do it, and when he walked across that stage with his cap crooked and his smile shaking, you wore the green dress then too. It had already been old by that point, though not disgracefully so. Time had faded the fabric at the seams, and the tiny stitched flowers along the neckline were beginning to loosen. But it was yours. Not borrowed, not donated, not apologetic.
A dress that had held your body through the most important moments of your life.
You wore it the day Marco was born.
You wore it the day he graduated.
And now, because there was nothing else you could afford that felt like the truth, you were wearing it to his wedding.
The church is beautiful in a way that makes you conscious of everything you are not.
The pews glow dark and polished under soft white lights. There are arrangements of pale roses and eucalyptus tied with ivory ribbon. The women near the front are wrapped in satin and perfume, the men in tailored suits that fit like they were grown there. Their children are dressed as if they have never scraped a knee in their lives. Even the quiet sounds of the place feel expensive.
You try not to notice.
You move carefully toward a pew in the back, wanting only to witness the wedding and disappear before anyone has time to turn your presence into a pity story. But you catch fragments as you pass.
