Making her watch the wedding happen despite everything she’d done was only the beginning.
I lowered my eyes and squeezed his hands.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured under his breath. “Both of you.”
The ceremony ended.
We were married.
Applause filled the hall, and Lily ran forward to hug us.
Yet Ida still watched me like she believed she controlled what happened next.
As we headed toward the reception hall, I leaned closer to Glen.
“Whatever you’re planning, please don’t destroy your family over us.”
He looked toward his mother, then back at me.
“I’m not destroying my family,” he said quietly. “I’m protecting it. And she’s about to learn the difference in front of two hundred people.”
At the reception, the room quieted when Glen tapped the microphone.
“Mom,” he said, “would you please look down at your feet? There’s something waiting beside your chair.”
Ida smiled and reached down.
She lifted an envelope for everyone to see.
The moment she opened it, her smile disappeared.
The first thing that fell into her lap was a photograph of Lily’s destroyed dress, every torn stitch and dark stain clearly visible.
Then she pulled out a mother-son dance card.
Across it, Glen had written one word.
CANCELED.
Ida screamed.
“How could you do this to me?”
But Glen wasn’t finished.
He looked around the room.
“My mother destroyed the flower girl dress my wife crocheted for Lily to wear today. She ripped it apart because she decided Lily wasn’t family. She hoped she could stop the wedding, so I want to make something clear today.”
“Glen, don’t do this,” Ida whispered.
“If Lily isn’t your family, Mom, then you don’t get to stand here tonight and decide who mine is.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than shouting.
“I’d like to ask you to step away from the family table,” he continued. “And our mother-son dance is canceled.”
Ida stood, her face pale and her voice shaking.
“You’re humiliating me in front of everyone.”
“No,” Glen answered quietly. “You did that yourself when you made a child cry.”
She grabbed her purse and walked out.
For a moment, I assumed it was over.
Ida was gone.
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