Chapter 2
I felt embarrassed, as if my body size was somehow an inconvenience to her, but I pushed the feeling away. Mistakes happen.
The second dress arrived three weeks later.
This one fit, but it was unflattering in ways that seemed almost intentional. The cut made me look frumpy. The color washed me out. When I put it on, I barely recognized myself.
But I did not complain.
It was her wedding, and I would wear whatever she wanted.
Six weeks before the wedding, Daniel called me late in the evening. He sounded exhausted in a way that went beyond physical tiredness.
“Mom, I need to talk to you about something.”
My heart jumped into my throat.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s just…” He sighed heavily. “It’s Vanessa. She’s been saying we should move to Connecticut after the wedding. Close to her parents. She says the opportunities are better there, and she wants to be near her family.”
“Connecticut?”
That was five hours away from me, compared to the three hours to Boston. I had already been feeling the distance since he moved there. Connecticut might as well have been another country.
“What do you think about that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
“I don’t know. I love my job here. My life is in Boston. All my friends are here. But she seems really set on it. She’s been looking at houses online, sending me listings. She’s already started talking to recruiters there.”
He paused.
“She also mentioned that maybe we should limit our visits to Vermont. She says the drive is too much with her career demands and that she can’t take that much time off.”
Something cold and heavy settled in my stomach.
“Daniel, does Vanessa like Vermont?”
“She says she does.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. I could almost hear him wrestling with the truth.
“She says it’s too quiet,” he admitted. “Too rural. She gets bored there.”
His voice got quieter.
“Last time we visited, she spent half the weekend on her phone in the guest room. When I asked what was wrong, she said she needed to catch up on work emails. But Mom, it was Sunday.”
“And does she like spending time with me?” I asked, even though I was not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“Mom, of course she does. Why would you ask that?”
I did not have a good answer that would not sound paranoid.
“Just promise me you’ll make decisions based on what you want, not just what she wants. Marriage is about compromise, but it should not be about losing yourself.”
“I know, Mom. I will.”
He sighed again.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
After we hung up, I sat in my kitchen for a long time, staring at the magnet on my refrigerator. It was a photo of Daniel and me from his college graduation. Both of us were grinning, his arm around my shoulders, his graduation cap tilted at a funny angle.
He had looked at me that day with so much love and gratitude, thanking me for every sacrifice I had made to put him through school.
Now I felt a creeping sense of dread I could not name. A feeling that I was watching my son slip away, being pulled into a current I could not see but could feel.
And I was supposed to stand on the shore, smile, and wave.
Four weeks before the wedding, Vanessa had her bachelorette party in Miami. She had invited me, but I declined. Sitting on a beach with a group of twentysomethings drinking cocktails did not sound like my idea of a good time, and I think we both knew the invitation was only a formality.
Still, I sent a gift basket to her hotel with champagne and bath products. I wanted to show I supported her celebration, even if I was not there.
She never thanked me for it.
But her best friend, Chelsea, who had always been kind to me, called me a few days after they returned. Her voice had that careful quality people use when they are about to deliver bad news.
“Eleanor, I wanted to touch base with you.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked, already feeling my stomach tighten.
“Yes, everything’s fine. The trip was fun.”
She paused.
“I just wanted to tell you that Vanessa had maybe a little too much to drink one night, and she said some things.”
I sat down at my kitchen table and gripped the phone tighter.
“What kind of things?”
“She was venting about wedding stress. She mentioned that having you involved had been more work than she expected, that you had outdated ideas and didn’t understand her vision.”
Chelsea’s voice dropped lower.
“She also said something about how she would have to put up with your interference for years, but at least it wouldn’t be forever.”
The phrase would not be forever stuck in my mind like a thorn.
What did that mean?
“I’m only telling you this because I don’t think she meant it,” Chelsea continued. “She was stressed. But I thought you should know in case there has been any tension.”
“I see. Thank you for telling me, Chelsea.”
After we hung up, I felt sick. But I rationalized it the way I had rationalized everything else.
She had been stressed. People say things they do not mean when they are under pressure. Maybe I had been overbearing with my suggestions. Maybe I needed to step back and give them more space.
So that was exactly what I did.
I stopped calling as often. I stopped offering opinions on wedding details. I waited for Vanessa to reach out to me.
She rarely did.
And when she did, her texts were brief and perfunctory.
Everything’s fine.
Don’t worry about anything.
Looking back now, I can see how deliberately she was creating distance. She was testing whether Daniel would notice. Training him to accept my absence before it became permanent.
The week before the wedding was a whirlwind. Out-of-town guests were arriving. There were final fittings, final confirmations, final everything. Daniel and Vanessa had decided to do things traditionally, staying in separate places the night before the wedding.
Daniel would stay with me at my house in Vermont, and Vanessa would stay at the inn in the Berkshires with her bridesmaids.
I drove down to Boston on Monday to help with last-minute preparations. Vanessa was staying at Daniel’s apartment, using it as her base for the week.
When I arrived, she greeted me at the door.
“Eleanor, come in. Come in.”
She seemed genuinely happy to see me, which relieved some of my anxiety.
We spent the afternoon running errands together. She was pleasant and chatty, even telling me about the honeymoon they had planned to St. Lucia. I started to feel foolish for all my worries.
This was just pre-wedding stress. Everyone was tired. Everyone was emotional.
That evening, Vanessa’s phone rang while she was in the shower.
It was sitting on the kitchen counter where we had been having tea. I was not trying to snoop. I swear I was not. But I glanced at it automatically when it lit up, the way people do.
The name on the screen said Chelsea.
The preview of the text message showed beneath it.
Babe, I know you’re stressed, but you need to chill. She’s just his mom. You only have to deal with her for like another ten, fifteen years max.
I froze.
My brain tried to make sense of what I was reading.
Another ten to fifteen years.
Why would that time frame matter? Why would Vanessa need to deal with me?
May you like
Then it hit me.
The average life expectancy for a woman in America was around eighty. I was seventy-two. Ten to fifteen years was how long I had left, statistically speaking.
