Page 14 of On the Rocks

And three, she wasn’t here — and even if she was, she could never save me from the mile-long wedding to-do list I was faced with.

I sighed, letting my head fall back against my door. I was supposed to be excited about all of this, wasn’t I? Shouldn’t Iwantto plan the seating chart, and care about the color of the flowers, and get excited about the photographs and the cake cutting and the first dance? It was my wedding. It would only happen once, and it felt more like a chore to me than the big day I’d dreamed of since I was a little girl.

I loved the man I was marrying, and I loved the town we were getting married in.

I had the dress of my dreams, my best friend to stand by my side, and the honeymoon of a lifetime planned in the Bahamas.

Everything was perfect, and if you asked any of my friends, they’d say I was the luckiest girl in Tennessee.

So then why did it feel like I was drowning?

“Why, that can’tpossiblybetheMiss Ruby Grace, can it?”

My best friend, Annie, flourished her thickest Tennessee accent from behind the front desk at Stratford’s only nursing home, her gap-toothed smile wide and welcoming as I let the door shut behind me. When I unwrapped the mint spring scarf from around my neck, she gasped, pressing her hand to her chest.

“Why, itis.Oh, heavens. Someone give old Mr. Buchanon his blood pressure medicine before she walks through the halls.”

I chuckled, hanging my purse and scarf behind the desk before I lifted a brow. “Haven’t seen you since Christmas, and that’s the welcome I get?”

“Well, I’d jump up and hug you, but it’s a little more difficult these days,” Annie said, gesturing to the watermelon of a belly she had blooming under her oversized scrubs.

“How about I assist?”

I reached down, and when Annie’s hands were in mine, I pulled her up, both of us laughing as she leaned back to balance out the weight of her belly. It was hard to believe she was the same girl I’d road tripped to North Carolina with just two summers ago, the same blonde, giggly girl I’d stayed up too late with on countless nights, laughing and dreaming and making plans for our future husbands, our future families. I was so sure we’d room together at UNC, or chase our dreams of traveling the country and helping others in AmeriCorps. It didn’t matter what we did — I justknewwe’d do it together.

But when Annie fell in love with Travis, everything changed.

It wasn’t out of place for a nineteen-year-old to be pregnant in Stratford. Half my graduating class was already married and popping out babies. But, seeing my best friend with a stomach the size of Texas was new for me. It was proof that we were older now, that life had changed, that all those dreams we’d had on the days we’d played house as kids were coming true.

She was a wife. Soon, she’d be a mother.

And I wasn’t far behind her.

“Annie, you look…”

“Fat? Sweaty? Like I did our freshman year with all this acne?”

I laughed. “You lookbeautiful.You’re glowing.”

“Why does everyone say that?” she asked, hugging me as best she could with her belly between us. “There is positively no glow going on here. Unless the fluorescent light is hitting my sweat sheen in some magical way.”

That sent both of us into a fit of laughter, and when it settled, Annie shook her head, eyes sweeping over me. They widened a little when they took in the kitten heels Mama had insisted I wear, even though I’d be on my feet all day. “Youlook incredible. I swear, I’m going to blink and have your mother as a best friend one day.”

I grimaced. “Please don’t say that.”

She chuckled, waddling back into her chair. “I didn’t think I’d see you here so soon. Didn’t you just get into town Sunday night?”

“Yep,” I said on a sigh, flopping down in the chair next to her. “It’s been a hundred miles a minute on wedding planning since I got here. I just needed a break, to do something for myself.”

Annie nodded in understanding, patting my hand just as a visitor approached the desk. While she checked them in, I let out a long exhale, taking in the familiar surroundings of the nursing home.

I’d first volunteered as a fourteen-year-old my freshman year of high school. My dad had been the one to suggest it — more as a way for me to give back to the community than anything else — but he never could have known the love it would spark inside my heart.

I still remembered that first day, losing hours with people seven times my age who had the best stories to tell. I remembered the scent of Mrs. Jeannie’s perfume, the collage of photographs she hung on her wall from her time as a nurse in the Vietnam War. I remembered Ms. Barbara’s lemon cake, the way it melted in our mouths that afternoon after she gave me the recipe to try to make it since she couldn’t anymore.

She’d nearly cried when that first bite hit her tongue.

I remembered the soft velvet of Mrs. Hamilton’s hands in mine as we gently danced in her room, and the euphoria I felt when I turned on an old record from the fifties and saw a room of faces light up, and the incomparable joy I experienced when I was the one who made grumpy Mr. Tavos laugh for the first time in years.