“Hannah is not my past, Brenda, she is my present and my future,” I said.
“I never said she was just the past, but she constantly drags Rebecca’s name into every single thing we do,” Brenda snapped back.
My sister Patricia had walked up quietly from the terrace and now stood directly behind Hannah with a hand on her shoulder. Brenda folded her arms across her white bouquet and shook her head in frustration.
“She talks about her mother on every holiday, insists on keeping photos in every room, and gets upset whenever we discuss updating the house,” Brenda said, stepping closer to me. “I have tried my best to be patient over the last two years, but our marriage needs clear boundaries if it is going to work.”
“Those photographs belong in my house because Rebecca was her mother, and this family started long before you met me,” I replied.
Brenda shook her head again, her eyes narrowing as she spoke. “Once we have our own children together, I refuse to raise them inside a museum dedicated to the woman you married first.”
The photographer slowly lowered his camera to his chest, sensing the shift in the air. Several guests sitting nearby had stopped talking entirely, turning their heads toward our conversation. Brenda seemed to realize people were listening, so she smoothed her dress and tried to soften her voice again.
“We can discuss all of these details privately after we finish the ceremony, Chris, but Hannah needs to understand that your new wife cannot spend her life competing with a dead woman’s daughter.”
Hannah flinched as if she had been hit, pulling back against Patricia’s dress. I immediately shifted my weight and stepped directly between Brenda and my daughter.
“My daughter is not competing with anyone, and you have no right to speak to her like that,” I said.
“She competes with me every single day whether you are willing to admit it or not,” Brenda countered, her voice rising again. “She watches every move I make and tries to make you feel guilty whenever you spend time or money on me.”
“She is a nine-year-old girl who lost her mother, Brenda,” I reminded her.
“Nine years old is plenty old enough to realize that families change and adults have to move on,” Brenda declared.
I looked at Brenda for a long moment before asking a question that had been forming in my mind. “Have you been telling Hannah to hide pictures, stop talking about Rebecca, or stay away when we talk about the house?”
Brenda remained silent, looking off toward the mountains instead of answering me. Hannah spoke up from behind me, her voice trembling slightly but clear enough for everyone nearby to hear.
“She put Mom’s favorite picture in the back of a kitchen drawer last month, Dad, and she told me not to mention it to you because you were too stressed with work.”
A memory clicked into place immediately as I remembered searching for that exact photo on our refrigerator a few weeks ago, only for Brenda to claim it must have slipped behind the counter during cleaning.
