THE DAMAGE WE CALL LOVE

"One more thing," Marguerite said into the microphone. "Then I'll sit down. I promise."

"You said that ten minutes ago!" a man shouted from the back, and the hall laughed.

Della laughed with them, one elbow on the head table, her shoes kicked off under the tablecloth. The clock over the bar said five to nine. Her face hurt from smiling, and she didn't mind at all.

Alden leaned toward her. "Bet you she goes another five minutes," he whispered.

"Ten," she said.

"You're on."

Then he crossed his eyes at her, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. It was their joke for every speech that dragged on, and it had got them through a lot of other people's weddings. Della pressed her napkin to her lips so she wouldn't snort champagne onto her dress.

Married. To this idiot. Good.

"Now," Marguerite said, opening her handbag, "I have something for my son."

"Mum, we said no presents," Alden called out.

"It's not that kind of present."

She pulled out a brass key on a loop of red ribbon and held it up high. It swung under the chandelier and sent a small gold flicker across the ceiling.

"Alden, this is for the day she throws you out," Marguerite said. "Your room is exactly as you left it."

Nobody spoke. It lasted about a second and a half.

Then someone whooped at table six, and the whole hall went up, glasses clinking, a man at the bar slapping the counter. Della laughed too. She was a beat behind everyone else, and she felt it, her mouth already stretched wide before any sound came out.

It's a joke. Every mother-in-law does one.

"Go on, take it," Marguerite said, leaning across the table, the key held out. "Don't be shy."

Alden stood. He took the key and turned it over in his palm, and Della waited for the shrug, the little bow, whatever he did when he wanted to turn something into a bit.

He didn't. He kissed his mother on the cheek, slid the key into his inside pocket, and sat back down. He looked at the tablecloth. He looked at his glass. He did not look at Della.

"Alden," Della said through her smile, keeping her voice low for the photographer. "Is that a joke?"

"It's Mum," he said, picking up his fork and putting it down again. "Course it's a joke."

"Then why aren't you laughing?"

"I am laughing." He reached for his water and missed the glass by an inch. "Look. Laughing."

He wasn't. His hand found the glass and closed round it, and a cold little thought slid in next to the happy one. He wasn't surprised.

She looked up, needing something to land on, and found Nerys.

Nerys sat three tables away in her own white dress, veil pushed back, Ansel's arm slung over her chair. One eyebrow was up so high it nearly reached her hairline. She tilted her head at Marguerite, then at Della. *Did you hear that?*

Della shook her head, barely. *Not tonight.*

The eyebrow came down slowly, like it was being lowered under protest. Nerys raised her glass an inch, and Della raised hers back.

"Right!" Marguerite tapped the microphone and it squealed. "Now a dance. The mother-in-law dance. Della, dear, come on up."

"Oh, you really don't have to," Della said, half standing.

"Everyone's waiting." Marguerite already had her hand out. "It's tradition."

"Is it?" Della said, finding her shoes with her feet.

"It is now," Marguerite said.

The DJ put on something slow. Alden pushed back his chair. "Back in two minutes," he said, not quite meeting her eye, and he was walking toward the bar before she could answer.

"Alden?" Della said.

He didn't turn round.

Marguerite took Della's right hand in her left and settled her other hand on Della's back, firm and practised. Her smile was enormous. The crowd went aww.

"Relax, dear," Marguerite said, steering them in a slow circle. "You look like you're being arrested."

"I'm fine, Marguerite," Della said.

"You're gripping my hand" Marguerite said.

"Am I? Sorry." Della loosened her fingers one at a time. "It's been a long day."

"The first of many," Marguerite said.

Be nice, Della told herself. A woman went to a lot of trouble for her son's wedding. Be the bigger person. She kept very still, the way you do when a strange dog sniffs your hand.

"That was a nice speech," she said. "The key was a nice touch. I'm not sure Alden thought so, though."

"Oh, he understood perfectly." Marguerite patted her back twice. "He's always understood me. We've never needed many words, he and I."

"We use a lot of words, Alden and me. It works for us," Della said.

"Does it?" Marguerite asked.

The song had a bridge coming. Della could feel the end of it approaching, and she wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything. Over Marguerite's shoulder, Alden stood at the bar with his phone in his hand. He wasn't looking at the screen. He wasn't looking at her either.

"Della, dear," Marguerite said, and her voice changed. It went low and flat, a tone Della had never heard from her, not once, not at any family lunch. "You've been so sweet today. So good. I'd hate for you to hear this from someone else."

"Hear what?" Della said.

The music swelled. Marguerite stopped moving. Her hands stayed exactly where they were, one wrapped round Della's fingers, the other flat against her spine, holding her in place under the lights while two hundred guests smiled and filmed.

She leaned in until her lips were almost touching Della's ear.

"Ask my son where his salary goes, Della," Marguerite whispered. "Then decide how much of him you actually married."

She let go. She stepped back, touched her pearls, and blew a kiss to the room. The applause rolled in. Marguerite curtsied, delighted, and walked off the floor with her heels clicking.

Della stood where she'd been left.

The song kept playing. Someone cheered. A small child ran through the space where Marguerite had been, laughing, chasing a balloon. Under the lights, in her wedding dress, Della stood alone in the middle of the dance floor with one hand still half raised, holding the shape of a hand that was no longer there.