His Ex Never Left the Family, So I Left the Marriage novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Table Fourteen

At the gala walkthrough, venue owner Grady Collier shows Heather the seating chart: Andrea at the head table, Heather with the vendors, and the toast given by Andrea Hensley.

Pamela called me on Friday morning while I was parking at Collier Mill.

Her voice came through the car speakers.

"Heather, sweetheart. How's my favorite planner?"

"Hi, Pamela."

"I won't keep you. I just wanted to check on the florals for the gala. You said Friday, and it's Friday."

The gala was six weeks out.

Hensley Floor & Tile, forty years old. My father-in-law, sixty-five.

Two hundred and twenty guests in a restored grain mill on the river.

I had planned every piece of it for free.

I told Pamela it was my gift to the family.

She cried on the phone when I said that.

"The florals are confirmed," I said. "White hydrangea and eucalyptus. I'm meeting the venue now."

"You're an angel. We're so lucky to have you in our corner."

Our corner.

She had never once said "our" to me before.

"Pamela, about Sunday."

There was a pause.

It was very short.

"Sunday?"

"His birthday. I'd love to come by. I can bring the lemon cake he liked at the wedding."

"Oh, honey. It's just a quiet day for him this year. He's tired. You know how he gets."

"Just a quiet day."

"Just us old folks. You enjoy your weekend. You work so hard."

"Okay," I said.

"Love you, sweetheart."

She hung up first.

I sat in the car with the engine off and watched the river slide past the old mill wheel.

Then I went inside.

Grady Collier was on a ladder in the main hall, changing a bulb in an iron chandelier.

He owned the Mill. His grandfather had ground grain here.

I had run more than thirty weddings under these beams.

"Ashwell," he said, climbing down. "You're early."

"I'm always early."

"You're usually smiling when you're early."

He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked at me a beat longer than usual.

He had a small scar through one eyebrow from a gear he'd fixed himself.

He never let anyone else fix anything.

"Rough week?" he asked.

"I need the gala floor plan. The final one."

He pulled a folded sheet out of his back pocket.

"About that."

He didn't hand it over right away.

"Your sister-in-law emailed me a new seating chart on Tuesday. Directly. Not through you."

"She doesn't have the authority to change my chart."

"I figured. That's why I printed it."

He unfolded it on the long farm table by the windows.

I looked down.

The head table sat under the big wheel, where the light came in.

I had drawn it myself in August.

The guest of honor in the center. His wife on his right. Then Jason.

Then me.

Then Max.

That was my version.

Their version had the same table and the same center.

His father. Pamela.

Jason.

Andrea Kirkland.

Max.

His sister and her husband on the end.

My name wasn't at the head table.

I ran my finger down the page, table by table.

The bank manager. The golf club. Forty years of contractors and customers and neighbors.

I found myself near the back, by the kitchen doors.

Table fourteen.

Heather Ashwell, event planner.

Next to the DJ.

Next to the photographer and the florist.

The vendors.

"They put me with the vendors," I said.

My voice sounded odd in the big empty room.

Grady didn't say anything.

He just stood there with his arms crossed, looking at the paper.

"I'm married to their son," I said.

"I know."

"I'm paying the deposit."

"I know that too. I have your check."

Fifteen thousand dollars, from Ashwell Events. My company. My name on the contract.

I kept staring at table fourteen.

There was a strange calm moving through me, cold and slow.

Two years of holidays I wasn't invited to.

And now my own event, and I would be working it from the back, next to the kitchen.

"There's one more thing," Grady said.

He pulled a second sheet from under the first.

It was the program proof. The one the printer needed by the end of the month.

I had written it myself.

Welcome. Dinner. The founder's story. A slideshow of forty years.

Then the anniversary toast.

I had left that line blank. I thought Jason would give it.

Someone had filled it in.

His sister's font. Her little flourish on the capital letters.

Anniversary toast, given by Andrea Hensley.

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