Then he would release my arm, shake Daniel’s hand, hug me, and take his seat beside Mom.
Nathan wrote the entire sequence down.
He practiced that too.
Soon, everyone learned there was one answer Nathan gave whenever someone expressed concern.
Mom wondered whether standing in front of more than a hundred guests might overwhelm him.
“I practiced.”
Uncle Patrick asked whether the music could confuse his timing.
“I practiced.”
Daniel gently offered to have someone nearby in case Nathan forgot where to sit afterward.
Nathan looked personally offended.
“I practiced.”
There was no arguing with that.
Mom cried when I told her the plan.
Daniel loved it immediately.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone else doing it.”
For a while, that was the end of the discussion.
Until three weeks before the wedding.
Daniel’s mother invited us to dinner.
Margaret and I had known each other for five years. We had never been particularly close, but we had always managed to remain polite.
