Page 31 of Best Woman

My mom looks so beautiful on the day of her wedding to Randy.

Her hair is huge and curly, and her dress as poofy as the Disney princesses I won’t admit I still love.

Even as a child, I understand that the wedding has happened rather fast. Dad only moved out two years ago, but Mom had been sad for so long.

We get our cheeks pinched all day by relatives we barely know, telling us how handsome we look in our little tuxedos.

We carry the rings down the aisle, and part of me likes the attention.

The other part of me is so jealous of my cousin Alyssa and her sparkly pink dress as she scatters rose petals down the aisle.

Someone gives me my first sip of champagne, and my head is all fuzzy.

My bow tie is tight enough to feel like it’s choking me, and the music is so loud.

There are some other children here, cousins and second cousins and Mom’s friends’ kids, but I’m not in the mood to play with any of them.

Aiden is, though, and despite our promise to stick together tonight I haven’t seen him in hours.

“Sweetheart,” my mom coos as she drops into the chair next to me, her dress knocking a glass of water off the table. “Are you having a good time?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “Are you?”

She smiles, the kind of real smile I never saw when Dad still lived with us. “So happy, baby. This is the happiest day of my life.” She catches herself, giggles a bit. “Except for the days you and Aiden were born, of course.”

“Happier than the day you married Dad?”

“Different,” she says. Throughout the divorce and the months of family counseling, Mom always tried to be honest, to talk to Aiden and me like adults.

“It’s different, baby. But it was a wonderful day, and I will always love your father because he gave me you.

” This has been a constant refrain since they sat Aiden and me down two years ago and told us Dad was going to live somewhere new, one Mom has maintained while Dad has never said it again.

“I love you, Mommy.” It’s not something I call her anymore, feeling far too old at eleven to call my mother something so childish. But I like the way it softens her, makes her pull me into the cloud of her skirts and her sweet gardenia scent.

“I love you too, baby. You’ll always be my first, my perfect little boy.”

It feels wrong, and I won’t know why for a long, long time.