Griffin actually laughed — a sharp, barking sound.

“You’ll never be anything without this name,” my father added, his final curse.

I didn’t cry. I turned and walked into the storm.

For twenty-one years, those words lived inside my chest. Not as an accepted truth, but as a cold weight I learned to carry on long runs and through sleepless nights.

Now I was back.

This wedding was a monument to everything my father worshipped: cake accented with edible gold, ice sculptures weeping onto the linen, a string quartet playing Vivaldi, a guest list curated from financial pages and political registers.