Her voice caught, and I felt my stomach turn.
“There they were,” she said. “Messages and pictures from months ago. There were hotel reservations, inside jokes, and he called her ‘Lils.’ He… he said she understood him better than anyone.”
I closed my eyes, trying to keep my own anger from boiling over.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked gently.
“Because I didn’t want to hear you tell me not to go through with it,” she said. “I needed to get to the truth on my own. I needed to make peace with it.”
“And the dress?” I asked quietly.
She looked down at it, wrinkled now, the train puddled on the floor.
“I didn’t want to wear white for a lie,” she said. “So I wore black to bury it. It wasn’t just a wedding dress. It was a funeral for the future I had thought I was walking into.”
I blinked back tears.
“But how could they, Mom? I feel so stupid!”
I reminded her, “You’re not stupid. You’re brave. You faced the truth when others would’ve hidden from it.”
“You were so strong,” I said. “I don’t know how you stood up there and faced everyone.”
“I almost didn’t,” she admitted. “But then I thought… if I go through with it, I’m trapped. And if I walk away quietly, I let them win. I needed to take it back. My moment, my voice, and my story.”
I hugged her again.
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