Because I remembered some of those moments.
I’d dismissed her concerns as teenage vanity.
Sometimes they were.
Sometimes they were a young girl struggling to belong.
I could have listened better.
That did not justify excluding me from her wedding.
Both things were true.
We learned to hold both.
Lauren also had to recognize the cost of how she’d handled her insecurities.
She had not merely asked for privacy.
She’d told Ethan something false.
Avoided introducing us.
Allowed Margaret to influence her family decisions.
Removed photographs.