I Heard My Uncle in the Hall Before I Saw What He’d Brought

engagement dinner had been planned for six weeks.

A Saturday night in late October, at my parents’ house in Fairfax, where everything always smelled faintly like lemon polish and money they were desperate to be seen having.

Forty-two guests.

My mother had bragged about the florist.

Real candles, not battery ones.

Custom menus with Brianna and Seth embossed continue reading …