I tried to let it go. I told myself she was nervous. That she was young. That we’d have time to build a relationship.
Then the wedding arrived.
Brooke arranged the seating so that the groom’s mother was placed in the fifth row, craning her neck behind coworkers and acquaintances who’d barely known Matthew a year. At the reception, she introduced me simply as “Matthew’s mom,” as if I were part of the waitstaff rather than family.
When I offered to bake our traditional family wedding cake—the same lemon cake I’d made for Matthew’s birthdays since he was three—she laughed.
“Oh no, Mom. I don’t want anything homemade,” she said, as though affection were something unsanitary. “We’ve hired a professional pastry chef from Portland. It’s going to be in Vogue.”
When it came time for speeches, I waited with carefully folded notes tucked into my purse—memories of my only child, hopes for his future, stories about the little boy who used to catch frogs in the backyard and bring them to me like treasures.
Brooke called up her parents, her siblings, her college friends, even a coworker I’d never met. When someone finally asked about me, she smiled tightly.
“Oh yes, Miss Suzanne can say a few brief words.”
I stood, my legs shaking. I had barely reached my second sentence—”When Matthew was five, he told me he wanted to be an astronaut so he could bring me a star—”—when Brooke began clapping, sharp and decisive, cutting me off as neatly as closing a file.
The rest of the room followed. My words vanished beneath the sound.
