She said that they’d originally been planning a smaller wedding, something around thirty thousand, but that when Linda — my mother — told them Nora had offered to help with the gap, they’d looked at a bigger venue.
I put my cup down.
The plan had expanded because my mother had told them I was in. The forty-eight thousand dollar wedding existed in part because of a contribution I had not agreed to make.
I took a breath. I said, “I think you and Ethan should know the full picture before anyone makes more decisions.”
Olivia nodded. She looked like she was doing some rearranging of her own.
Nora Checks Her Own Memory
I have a filing system.
This is not interesting in and of itself, but it becomes relevant: I have a filing system because I’ve worked in clinic operations for eight years, and clinic operations without a filing system is a health inspector’s nightmare, and the habits you build for work eventually colonize the rest of your life. My bills are organized by year. My tax documents go back to when I was twenty-two. My school records are in a folder in Gmail labeled “school stuff 2010” that I have never actually cleared out because I have a mild inability to delete things I might need someday.
The email from my mother was in there. So were the grant letters. The loan papers. A work schedule from my second year at Meadowfield that I’d emailed to myself so I could see the whole week on one screen. A tuition statement from the community college. A later tuition statement from the state university.