He said she was adjusting. She’d been upset — not at me, he said, but at the situation, and at the version of the story she’d been given before she had the full picture. He said she’d had a long conversation with him about how the family communicated and what she was walking into.
“That’s a good conversation to have before the wedding,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think we needed to have it.”
I asked about the parents.
He said they were doing the family correction. My mother had called his aunt — my father’s sister, who had been the main repository of the scholarship story — and had said, awkwardly but directly, that she’d overstated Nora’s education support and wanted to set the record straight. The aunt had apparently been surprised but gracious.
I didn’t know how to feel about that exactly. It was what I’d asked for and it still felt strange to hear, like a window you thought was painted shut finally moving.
Over the next several weeks, Ethan and Olivia built a new plan. I was not part of building it, which was appropriate. Olivia called me once to ask a question about a vendor she was considering, a catering company that apparently had a connection to a clinic I’d once worked with, and I answered because I knew the answer and it wasn’t a hardship to share it. That was the extent of my involvement in the planning.
My parents contributed their increased amount. Ethan and Olivia adjusted their own contribution to account for deposits they’d already spent. The remaining budget was within what they had.