The morning of my wedding carried the heavy, intoxicating scent of white lilies and promises that felt older than the room itself. I sat before the ornate, gold-leafed vanity in the bridal suite of the Grand Oakhaven Estate, my veil already weighing against my carefully pinned hair. For the first time in three agonizing years, since the sudden heart attack that took my late husband, David, I allowed myself to believe that the darkest chapter of my life was finally over.
Sophie, my five-year-old daughter, sat cross-legged on the plush Persian carpet near my feet. She was swinging her little white patent-leather shoes and humming a disjointed, happy tune beneath her flower crown.
“Mommy, is it crooked?” she asked, her big brown eyes—so much like her father’s—looking up at me.
I knelt in front of her, the layers of my silk gown pooling around me like spilled milk, and adjusted the small circle of daisies resting on her dark curls.
“Perfect,” I whispered, tapping her nose. “Now, remember what we practiced. What do you call the tall man in the gray suit?”
She rolled her eyes in that dramatic, theatrical way only a five-year-old can manage. “Evan. Just Evan.”
“That’s right, baby.”
“Why can’t I call him Daddy? Lily at school calls her new one Daddy.”
I smoothed her hair, swallowing the sudden, sharp lump in my throat, and worked to keep my voice steady and gentle. “Because you already had a Daddy. He loved you very much. And no one gets to take his name. Not ever.”
