My uncle laughed.
My mother saw exactly what happened.
Then she looked away.
A few minutes later, I discovered they had seated me at the children’s table.
I didn’t argue.
I didn’t complain.
I simply smiled.
Because I already knew what was going to appear on the projector once the speeches began.
“Seriously,” Dad murmured, “don’t mess this up like you mess up everything.”
He said it quietly beneath the soft music and clinking glasses filling the reception hall.
Then he stepped back, gave me that familiar thin smile, and walked away.
My uncle chuckled behind him.
Mom had witnessed the entire thing.
She chose silence.
And there I stood beside table 19.
The children’s table.
Not a regular table where a few younger relatives happened to be sitting.
An actual kids’ table.
Crayons everywhere.
Half-finished juice cups.
Bread rolls scattered across the tablecloth.
One little boy was drawing directly on the paper covering the table.
Another was building some kind of fortress out of dinner rolls.
"At my sister’s wedding, my father leaned close enough that only I could hear him. “Try not to ruin this the way you ruin everything else.”
