“And the rehearsal dinner,” Claire said. “We were going to do a restaurant buyout. We scaled it back to a dinner reservation with a prix fixe menu. That saves about eight hundred.”
“So if you make both of those cuts,” I said, “you’re at seventeen-fifty over your shortfall, which covers the fifteen hundred you’re short plus leaves a small buffer.”
Owen nodded.
“We can do it,” Claire said. “It’s not exactly the wedding I planned. But it’s our wedding.”
She said this with something that sounded like equanimity. I didn’t know if it was real or performed. I thought it was probably somewhere in between, which is where most equanimity lives.
I said I would not be making up any part of the shortfall, and I said it clearly because I wanted there to be no ambiguity about that boundary. They both nodded immediately. Owen said: “We didn’t ask you to and we’re not.”
“I know. I just wanted to say it clearly.”
“Also clear,” Owen said.
“I will bring a wedding gift,” I said. “A real one. Something I’ve chosen for you.”
Claire smiled. It reached her eyes, which is the test.
## What I Did With the Days Before the Wedding
Three and a half weeks is not a long time to rebuild a relationship, and I want to be honest that I did not attempt to rebuild ours in that window. What I did was take the steps that made attending the wedding possible and then let time do what it does.