I Paid for the Wedding, So Who Was Mother of the Bride? novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Missing Place
At the final walk-through, Joanna finds Cynthia Wickham's name on the Mother of the Bride card and her own seat at the kitchen doors, and sits in the chair anyway; Hannah says her father told her Joanna knew.
Twelve days before my daughter's wedding, I found out I had no seat.
I found out in the Aldine Grand ballroom at ten in the morning, with a leather binder under my arm.
The binder held six months of contracts, receipts and floor plans.
My signature was on every page.
Every deposit had come out of my own account, the one my mother's house had filled when she died.
Only the final seating chart was left to approve.
The room smelled of white lilies and floor polish.
Two men on ladders were hanging the last crystals on the chandeliers, and a florist was counting roses into buckets by the stage.
The event manager met me at the coordinator's table, holding his clipboard against his chest.
"Mrs. Haldane," he said. "Hannah told us you'd stop by."
"She's stuck at her dress fitting," I said. "Let's start with the head tables."
He didn't move.
"There were revisions this morning," he said. "They came from your husband's office."
"Russell?" I said. "He told me he didn't care where anyone sat as long as the bar was open."
"Yes, ma'am."
He stepped aside and let me go ahead.
Table One stood in the middle of the floor, facing the platform where my daughter would be married.
The place cards sat in silver holders, written in careful calligraphy.
Father of the Bride: Russell Haldane.
Beside it was a second card on the same heavy cream stock.
Mother of the Bride: Cynthia Wickham.
I read it twice.
Cynthia ran marketing at my husband's company.
For two years she had been at every company dinner, quick to laugh at Russell's jokes and quicker to refill his glass.
At the holiday party she had touched his sleeve while she said hello to me.
I had told myself that was just how she was.
"Where is my seat?" I asked.
The manager turned his clipboard around and put a finger near the bottom of the page.
Table Eleven, the round table by the kitchen doors.
The card there said: Joanna Haldane, Family.
"Family," I said.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "The chart was approved at nine."
Behind me, heels clicked across the parquet.
"Joanna! Oh, thank goodness you're here."
Cynthia crossed the floor in a cream suit with two paper cups from the café downstairs.
She was smiling the whole way.
"I brought you a flat white," she said. "Hannah told me that's your order."
She pushed her sleeve back to hold the cup out to me, and I saw a small crescent-shaped birthmark on the inside of her left wrist.
"I wanted to explain before you saw the cards," she said. "It's only a seating chart. Nobody could ever take your place."
Her voice was gentle.
Her eyes were already on the head table.
I took the cup and set it down on Table One.
"Then it's easy to fix," I said.
I lifted her card out of its silver holder and put it in my bag.
Then I pulled out the chair beside Russell's and sat down in it.
So I sat in the mother's chair.
The florist stopped counting roses.
One of the men on the ladders came down two rungs to watch.
Cynthia's smile stayed exactly where it was.
"Joanna, please," she said quietly. "Not in front of the staff."
"I paid the staff," I said.
The ballroom doors opened.
Russell came in first, in a grey suit, with a paper cup of coffee in each hand.
"Jo," he said, and held one out to me. "I got you the one with the oat milk."
"Thank you." I did not take it. "I'm sitting at my table."
"It's a chart, honey." He set the cup on the nearest tray and kept his voice low and kind. "Hannah signed off on it last night. Ask her."
Hannah had stopped at the edge of the carpet.
She wore jeans and a sweatshirt from the school where she taught kindergarten.
Her hair was still pinned up from the fitting.
She would not look at the card in my bag.
"Mom," she said. "Dad told me you knew."
I stood up.
"Hannah. Knew what?"
"He said you were fine with it. He said you'd understand." Her voice shook. "Please don't make this harder."
My daughter's mouth stayed open another moment, and I waited for the rest.
Cynthia put a hand on her shoulder.
"Not here, sweetheart," she said.
And Hannah closed her mouth.
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