Guess Who Didn't Show Up to My Wedding novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Dawn in the Rows
Mom and Dad find her at the vineyard and Dad calls it a game; Mara steps out of the car in a ballgown.
I put on my jeans and my canvas jacket and went down the hill.
My phone was still off on the shelf above the stove.
I left it there.
Mom got out of the car first.
She had on her good cardigan, the cream one, and her eyes were already wet.
"Sweetheart," she said. "Oh, sweetheart."
She tried to hug me.
I stepped back, and her arms stayed out in the air for a moment before she lowered them.
Dad got out slowly.
He was a big man with a gentle face, and everyone at his company said he was the kindest boss they ever had.
He looked tired.
"Willa," he said. "This has gone far enough."
"How did you find me?"
"The family app," Mom said. "Your location. We were so frightened."
"You've been tracking my phone."
"We've always had it on. For safety."
Behind her, a screen door banged.
Cillian came down from the main house with two mugs of coffee.
He stopped at the edge of the drive and held one out to me.
I took it.
He didn't say a word to my parents.
He stood a few feet behind my left shoulder and drank his own.
Dad looked at him, then at me.
"Is this the boy from the harvest job?"
"This is Cillian Thackray," I said. "It's his land."
"We can talk about all this at home," Dad said. "Thurston is beside himself."
"I'm sure he is."
"Willa." Mom pressed her hand against her chest. "It was a surprise. A happy one. Mara worked on it for months. Every girl wants her wedding to be a surprise."
"Every girl wants to know where her wedding is," I said.
Mom's mouth trembled.
"It's just a game," Dad said, the way he'd said it for fourteen years. "You know how your sister is. She loves to plan."
"I read the chat."
Neither of them answered.
I watched Mom's eyes slide to Dad, and Dad's eyes slide to the gravel.
"I have one question," I said.
"Anything, sweetheart."
"Who paid Sunset Cove?"
Dad's jaw moved.
"I did," he said. "It's a wedding present. We put down the deposit in April and the balance is due Monday."
"Then you'll want to call them," I said. "There isn't going to be a wedding on Saturday."
"Willa."
"You'll lose the deposit. I'm sorry about the money."
I wasn't, but it was the most honest thing I could think of to say.
"You can't do this," Mom said. "A hundred and twenty people are coming. Thurston's whole family flew in. His grandmother is eighty-four."
"Then I'll tell them myself," I said. "Not in a chat. In person, and in plain words."
"You're being dramatic."
"I'm being clear," I said. "I've never tried it before. It's new."
Dad took a step toward me.
Cillian put down his coffee on the hood of Mom's car.
He didn't move any closer than that.
Dad stopped.
"What do you want?" he asked. "Tell us what you want, and we'll do it."
It was the first time in fourteen years anyone in my family had asked me that.
I almost told him.
Then I heard a car door open behind them.
It was the back door of the sedan.
A foot in a silver heel came out first.
Then a long emerald gown spilled over the gravel, and Mara stood up in the morning light.
She had her phone up in one hand, filming.
A plastic tiara sat in her dark bob, the kind sold in party shops.
It was the costume from Darrell's joke in the chat, the bride in a ballgown at the wrong vineyard.
She had put it on herself and followed my parents here to film me finding out.
She tilted her head and smiled at me with real delight.
"Guess who found you," Mara said.
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