22. Bex
Chapter twenty-two
Bex
By the time the rehearsal dinner ends and the formalities dissolve, my brain feels like a rubber band stretched too tight.
I've spent the evening passing from conversation to conversation, laughing when Lexi recounted old childhood stories, teasing Sofia about our cousin's dance moves, analyzing tomorrow's wedding schedule with Kit.
Always half-distracted, my attention skipping across everything like a rock on a lake.
I need a minute. Maybe more than a minute. I love people, love the swirl of a crowd, but sometimes I just want to be nobody's anything. That's how I end up at the bar off the main lobby, scanning for a quiet nook.
Geraldine is there, sipping something amber in a lowball glass.
She looks up when I approach, gives a small wave.
I hesitate, then decide to join her. Geraldine has one of those faces that carries a lifetime's worth of expression in a single glance.
She always looks put-together, not in a forced sense but in the way of someone who's done a lot of living and still holds herself with self-respect.
"You mind?" I ask, gesturing to the barstool beside her.
"Not at all. Please." Geraldine's voice is calm, smoky-edged.
I lower myself onto the seat. I let out a breath. "You'd think a rehearsal dinner would be less intense than an actual wedding. Feels like it's the same level of mania."
Geraldine smiles. "Weddings don't always follow the logic you'd expect." She turns her glass a quarter rotation. "You held up well this afternoon. With your parents."
"You noticed."
"I notice most things." Her tone gently invites me to share as much or as little as I want.
"Yeah." I rub a hand over my face. "I'm in from Brooklyn. Sofia's the stable one in the family who does everything politely."
Geraldine's brow lifts in mild curiosity. "And you're the free spirit?"
"Something like that." I smile ruefully, hearing the words free spirit and not knowing if that's still accurate. I've always worn that label like a shield, someone unbound by rules or expectations. But lately, free feels more like a shaky question than a statement.
We fall quiet for a moment. Geraldine's drink is probably some top-shelf whiskey. I forgot to order anything, but I'm too tired to wave down the bartender. I just appreciate the hush.
Geraldine eventually speaks again. "You know, I'm glad Jordan and Sofia are making this wedding happen. Even if it's emotionally complicated."
I nod slowly. "It was supposed to happen differently. My parents were supposed to be on board, do the usual big Italian family gathering. They showed up, which is honestly more than I expected a month ago. But showing up isn't the same as being on board."
Geraldine's face softens. "I understand.
Skye and I had a complicated road as well, in a different sense.
And it damaged our relationship." She pauses, turning the glass in her hands.
"I spent a long time treating my daughter's life like something to manage.
Scripts. Thresholds. The version of her that the business needed her to be.
I told myself I was securing her future.
What I was doing was choosing my expectations over the person standing in front of me. "
I glance sideways. I know bits of this story. Skye once mentioned a hard stretch with her mother, something about being handed a future instead of asked about one. The details were hazy. "So you speak from experience," I say, voice cautious.
Geraldine's expression flickers in recognition. "I do. It nearly cost me my daughter. Not in one dramatic scene. In years of distance that we were both too proud to name."
A pang goes through me. I picture my parents, who basically threw up their hands when Sofia said she was marrying Jordan.
I'd been half expecting that reaction, because they never warmed to Jordan's identity.
I wanted to believe it was fleeting. But so far the line in the sand is still there.
Today it just had better manners. And I've once again become the lesser daughter in their eyes, or so it seems, because I've supported Sofia wholeheartedly from the start.
I force myself to speak. "My parents... it's like they can't handle that this might reflect on them in ways they're not comfortable admitting.
And they blame Sofia for stepping outside the lines, but they also kind of blame me, or at least see me as the lost cause.
Because I've been all over the place with my career choices and personal life.
So it's like, she was their shining hope, and now... "
I exhale, not sure why I'm telling Geraldine any of this.
Geraldine just listens. Then she touches my arm gently, a reassuring gesture. "I sat with them for a while this afternoon. After the introductions."
I blink. "You did?"
Geraldine nods. "They're polite in a group and stiff the moment it thins out. I was curious. Wanted to know if I could plant any seed of perspective. I've been in their position before: never meaning to wound your kid, but doing it anyway."
My throat feels tight. "So how did it go?"
Geraldine's sigh is a soft rush of breath.
She tilts her glass, watching the liquid swirl.
"They're worried, and they're proud in equal measure.
They want to be right about what's best for Sofia, and they're frustrated that she isn't letting them chart her path.
They still see Jordan as an unknown. Doesn't matter how polite or established Jordan might be, it's not matching the version they pictured.
So they're stuck. They came all this way, and they're still standing outside it. "
"Will that change?" I ask, voice lower. I glance at the bar top, noticing how battered and worn the wood is. I feel similarly worn.
Geraldine presses her lips together. "It could. But it might take time and humility on their part. Sometimes parents don't realize they've built up a dream of who their child is supposed to be, and they cling to it for too long."
Silence expands. I dig my fingernail into the edge of the bar top, feeling that old flicker of anger I use as protection. "Sofia's tried. She visited them, wrote them letters. I don't think they'll break easily."
Geraldine nods. "I spent years believing I could express love through correction.
Guiding Skye into what I thought was best. I didn't realize I was pushing her away, that I was choosing my expectations over who she actually was.
If you do that long enough, the gap between who you want and who you have becomes unbearable for everyone. "
Something cracks in my chest. I remember late-night arguments with my father about my decision to become a tattoo artist instead of going into something more "respectable.
" I remember my mother telling me to just keep my artistry as a hobby, that maybe it wasn't too late to get a nice office job.
I remember never feeling like I quite matched what they hoped.
And now Sofia is on that same side, where you're just not quite the right shape for the puzzle your parents built in their minds.
I ask quietly, "How did you know when it was time to stop protecting what you thought you were protecting?"
Geraldine turns, giving me the kind of look that carries a mother's gentleness and a mentor's honest clarity.
"When I understood that what I was protecting was the version of my child that matched my expectations.
The real person was standing right in front of me the whole time, waiting.
" She swallows. "But that was time lost, and you can't get it back. I'm lucky Skye forgave me."
A tension I hadn't realized I was holding tightens under my ribs. I press a thumb inside my palm, trying to anchor myself. "Yeah," I say. "I guess that's the fear, right? That one day we'll look back and realize we traded what we had for what we wanted it to be."
Geraldine hums softly. "Yes. And sometimes by the time you see it, you've let decades slip away. Better to see it sooner, if you can."
We sit in silence after that, the distant hush of the lake drifting through the open windows.
I thank Geraldine quietly, but I can't find many more words.
I feel raw, in the way you do when you realize you've been outrunning your own heartbreak by never staying still long enough to let it catch you.
Eventually, Geraldine pats my shoulder with the warmth of a friend who was once on the other side of a similar divide. Then she excuses herself, leaving me alone at the bar. The bartender is already clearing glasses some distance away, giving me space.
I stare at the vacant stool next to me. I glance at the whiskey bottle behind the counter but decide I don't want a night of drowning. I need to keep my mind stable, especially tomorrow. The wedding. The hush. The ring in my pocket.
Because, of course, I'm carrying the ring in the pocket of my jacket. The ring that says I'm married. Am I married? Yes, but not in any real sense, not in the sense that means a vow or a shared life. God, what a disaster. I feel half-crazy thinking about it.
I pull it out, the modest silver band that still has faint smudges on it from the day I got it.
I turn it in my hand, letting the overhead lights catch the metal.
The memory of that night in New Orleans flickers: the surge of adrenaline, the hush of the officiant's voice, the way Kit looked at me like we were two people sharing a secret no one else could possibly understand.
"Inevitable Surprises," I mutter under my breath, thinking of the label I just teased Kit about. Tears prickle unexpectedly at the back of my eyes, so I squint hard, looking away. I am not starting to cry now.
When the moment passes, I head out into the night.
The party's hum still lives in the distance, some last attendees lingering under twinkle lights near the fire pit.
The July air is warm, a faint breeze off the lake rustling the decorative garlands.
I walk slowly across the lawn toward my cottage.
Each step feels heavier with the swirl of thoughts in my head.
My parents, the wedding, the fact that tomorrow might blow everything wide open.
Can I keep living in the space between my own desire and everyone else's expectations?
Here's the thing Geraldine doesn't know she handed me.
I've spent my whole adult life shrinking the word want down to a manageable size.
Want a smaller shop, want a quieter dream, want less, so that when the people who are supposed to love you shrug at what you built, it doesn't level you.
It's efficient. It's armor. And carrying this ring around for three weeks has quietly wrecked the whole system, because every time my fingers find it, the want in me is not small.
It's specific and enormous and shaped exactly like a woman with a color-coded binder.
I remember the look on Kit's face earlier this evening, the exhausted curve of her shoulders, like she's carrying the world's weight with meticulously labeled binder tabs.
I want to help carry that weight. And that realization is terrifying.
Because it reminds me how easily I could slide into wanting something more.
I reach my cottage and pause on the porch, the ring still in my hand.
I slide it onto my finger for just a moment, feeling the weird and certain knowledge of how it fits.
Then I slip it back off, returning it to my jacket pocket.
I push open my door and walk inside, letting the darkness envelop me for a second before clicking on the small lamp.
The bed, the small table. Everything is neat and unassuming.
I set my jacket on a chair, ring snug within the fabric.
At some point, I'll have to face that ring head-on.
I'll have to face Kit. Face what we did and what it meant.
But for now, all I want is a shower, a chance to breathe, and, well, maybe a small prayer that tomorrow brings a spark of reconciliation for Sofia.
And maybe for me and Kit too, if I'm honest.
I sink down on the edge of the bed, pressing a hand to my face as if it can keep my mind from spinning. Geraldine's words echo painfully: The real person was waiting right in front of me the whole time.
I exhale. The time is near, for all of us.
Tomorrow is the 26th. Tomorrow is the wedding. Tomorrow is everything. And I have no idea if I'm ready. But maybe, somewhere in the swirl, I can find the nerve to admit what I want.