The Daughter They Threw Away

3.

The moment my mother spotted me, her eyes went feral, like a starving wolf that had caught the scent of meat. She jabbed a finger at my face and started cursing.

"Arlene! Look at you now! All grown up and too big for your boots! You get married and you don't even invite your own mother!"

Her voice climbed higher and higher, shrill enough to slice through the soft piano music drifting across the venue.

"Every single person out there is saying you're an ungrateful daughter. I broke my back raising you from a squalling infant in dirty diapers, and this is how you pay me back? Huh?"

Her finger nearly poked the front of my gown, the grime still packed under her fingernails.

I didn't move. My white gown pooled around my feet, and the wind gusting in through the door lifted my veil in a slow, gentle rise.

"Didn't you say it yourself, that you weren't coming to my wedding?"

I lifted my eyes. My voice came out cold, like it had been chilled with shards of ice.

"You'd much rather rush off to Barbara's wedding and put on a show for her than come to mine, wouldn't you?"

She choked on that, her face flushing a deep purple, like a chicken with a hand clamped around its throat.

"That, that isn't the same thing at all! Barbie has no father, no mother, of course I feel for her! What's wrong with looking after her a little more?"

"And anyway, didn't I call you afterward? I told you, hold the wedding together with Barbie! That way I could go to both your weddings at once. Two birds, one stone, everyone happy! But no, you wouldn't listen!"

She planted her hands on her hips, dead wrong yet somehow louder for it, spit flying everywhere.

I stared at her, and then I laughed. It made my eyes sting.

"I said it too."

"I. Do. Not. Agree."

I bit off each word, driving them in like nails into wood.

"You! You ungrateful girl, how dare you talk back to me!"

My mother was shaking with rage, her eyes bulging like they might pop from their sockets.

That was when Barbara pushed her way forward, lifting the hem of the lavish gown that should have been mine, her eyes reddening and welling on command.

"Arlie, you've really got me all wrong."

Her voice was soft and frail, thick with tears, and she shrank back a little behind my mother, like a startled rabbit.

"I never wanted to steal your mother from you. But my whole life, Auntie has treated me like her own daughter. Ever since I was little, I envied you for having such a wonderful mother."

She dropped her head, tears clinging to her lashes without falling, clear as glass.

"If she doesn't come to my wedding, I'll regret it for the rest of my life. Arlie, you're so accomplished, and you've married such a wonderful husband. You're already so happy."

"I'm not trying to take anything from you, and I'm not trying to ruin your wedding. It's just, we're cousins, and I only wanted to borrow a little of your light. You're already so happy, couldn't you... spare me just a little?"

I let out a scornful huff.

"So you deliberately picked the same day to get married, to force me to hand you half of the wedding I planned so carefully?"

Barbara's face froze, her lips trembling.

"I—"

"Cut the act."

I raised a hand and cut her off, my patience finally gone.

"You picked this day for one reason. You figured that as long as you had her, I'd cave. You think I'm still the little Arlene who'd lie flat on the floor and let you grind my dignity under your heel, just to beg her for one glance?"

I turned my head and gave Elwin a look.

He understood at once and turned, taking a sky-blue folder from one of the groomsmen. He was tall, standing at my side like a silent wall.

I slid out a neat stack of printed A4 pages and slapped them flat against Barbara's chest.

The edges of the paper were sharp, scraping her collarbone.

"You wanted a joint wedding, didn't you?"

"Fine."

"This wedding, the venue, the décor, the catering, the drinks, the officiant, the photography, comes to six hundred thousand."

"Three hundred thousand. You pay me half. Transfer it now, and I'll have security bring you a chair this instant."

Barbara took the bill, dropped her eyes to the dense rows of numbers, opened her mouth, and turned red in the face.

"That, that much... I, I didn't bring any money..."

My mother blew up first. She snatched the bill away, didn't even glance at it, and ripped it in two with a loud rrrip.

The torn scraps drifted down onto the red carpet like snow.

"Arlene! Have you lost your mind! You've fallen straight into the money pit!"

She pointed at me, her finger shaking like a sieve, her voice shrill enough to hurt.

"Barbie coming here is a favor to you! It's her showing you respect! You're cousins, how can you bring up money? A dog must've eaten your conscience!"

She was breathing hard, and when she saw my face stay blank, she suddenly played her last card.

"Let me tell you this. If you dare keep me out today, then we're done as mother and daughter!"

"I'll act as if I never gave birth to a beast like you! From now on, you can beg me all you want, and I won't spare you a single glance!"

The murmuring of the guests buzzed all around us. Some had their phones up, filming, their flashes lighting the air.

My mother thought she had me. She tilted up her chin and waited for me to fold, waited for me to cry and drop to my knees and beg her not to go, the way I had a hundred, a thousand times before.

I spoke softly. My voice wasn't loud, yet it cut cleanly over all the noise.

"All right."

"Then let's be done."