Really think.” “I have,” she said.

“She is not coming for you,” I said, because I needed her to understand what she would be inviting into the most important day of her life.

“You know that, don’t you?

She is not coming because she loves you or because she wants to be your mother.

She is coming to put on a performance for Gregory’s family, to be seen as the devoted mother of the bride.

That is all this is to her.” And Samantha looked at me with a steadiness that was entirely her own, a calm I had watched her build over fifteen years of growing up faster than any child should have to.