“Exactly. Ours. Nothing she wears changes that.”
What he meant was that nothing she did was worth making him uncomfortable.
Gloria took twenty-two minutes of my photography time. Her private makeup artist powdered her shoulders while I stood near the service door holding the bouquet my mother’s sister had made. When Callie finally returned to me, Gloria told her to photograph “the two important women in Colin’s life” and positioned herself between Colin and me.
That should have been the worst part.
It was not even close.
At the reception, I discovered that Gloria had changed the seating chart. She sat at the center of the head table beside Colin. My place had been moved one chair down, with the explanation that Gloria needed “good access for her knee.”
Her knee did not stop her from circling the room and accepting compliments on her gown.
During dinner, I heard her tell one of Colin’s uncles, “I gave them the wedding they could never have afforded.”
Colin and I had paid the venue, catering, flowers, music, photographer, and hotel rooms. Gloria had paid $6,800 for the rehearsal dinner and had repeatedly called it her gift.
At 8:47 on my wedding morning, my mother-in-law walked into the hotel ballroom wearing a white cathedral-length gown and told the photographer to move me out of her light.
