The white satin of my skirt was bunched up around my knees, taking up most of the space between the bucket seats. I reached down to smooth the fabric, my bare ring finger catching on the delicate lace of the overlay. My finger felt light, almost weightless, but my hand kept drifting back to the spot where the band should have been.
“We need to stop by the apartment first,” I said.
My father did not look at me, but he nodded once, his gray mechanic cap tilting forward.
“Whatever you need, Maddie,” he said, his voice carrying the rough, gravelly scrape of the Kentucky hills.
A heavy drop of water leaked through the dry rubber seal of the passenger door and landed on my bare wrist. He drove with a slow, deliberate caution, treating the old Ford van like it was loaded with dynamite. Every time we hit a dip in the asphalt, the metal racks in the back rattled with the sound of loose pipe fittings and heavy brass valves.
The smell of old motor oil and wet upholstery filled the cabin, a scent I had associated with safety since I was a little girl. Today, it only felt heavy, like a weight pressing down on my chest. We did not talk about the guests who were probably still standing under the white canopy of the church, holding their pastel umbrellas and wondering where the groom had gone.
“I should have seen it,” my father said, his eyes fixed on the red taillights of the truck ahead of us.
“There was nothing to see, Dad,” I said.
“A man does not walk away from his own wedding because of a late commission check,” he said.
He tightened his grip on the wheel until the skin over his knuckles turned the color of parchment.
“There is more to it than that,” he said.
Dana, my bridesmaid and closest friend since nursing school, was already waiting on the third-floor landing when we arrived at the apartment complex. She had changed out of her pale pink dress into a pair of faded sweatpants, but her hair was still pinned up in a crown of stiff curls. She took the cardboard box of unused programs from my arms without a word.
Inside the living room, the stacks of silver-wrapped boxes looked like a miniature city built on my coffee table. Dana set the programs on the floor and immediately began slicing through the packing tape of a shipping box with her house key.
“We are sending every single one of these back to the department store tomorrow,” she said.
She pulled out a set of crystal wine glasses and set them on the dining table. I sat on the arm of the sofa, still wearing my veil, watching her work.
“The registry says those came from his aunt in Louisville,” I said.
Dana tapped her fingernails against her phone screen, her eyes scanning a local social media page before she slid the phone into her pocket.
“We will mail them back to Louisville,” she said.
She reached into another bag and pulled out a stack of paper napkins embossed with gold foil initials. The letters M and T were intertwined in elegant script, surrounded by a delicate border of painted leaves. Dana looked at the initials, then looked at me.
“Do you want me to throw these in the incinerator?” she asked.
“They cost eighty dollars,” I said.
“They are trash now,” she said.
She tossed the napkins into the cardboard box at her feet, where they landed face down.
“Did Tyler call you back?” she asked.
“His phone is still off,” I said.
