“I’m calling because Diane Foster contacted us to cancel the deposit on her card.”
“We need a new payment method within ten days, or we release your date.”
I was in the break room at the hospital, still in scrubs, coffee going cold in my hand.
“She canceled it?” I said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
That morning, I called the florist next.
Same story.
Diane had phoned in, polite as Sunday morning, and pulled both deposits.
The photographer was still intact.
That one was on my card.
Everything else was gone.
Fourteen thousand dollars.
Vanished with two phone calls.
That night, I sat on our kitchen floor with a legal pad and a calculator.
Savings account: $6,200.
Wedding in fourteen weeks.
Deficit: roughly $8,000.
Derek sat down beside me, back against the cabinet, shoulder touching mine.
“We sell the Civic,” I said.
He didn’t argue.
We listed my 2011 Honda the next morning.
Got $4,800 from a kid at the community college.
I picked up three extra night shifts a week on top of my regular rotation.
Twelve-hour shifts, then home to address invitations at the kitchen table until my handwriting went crooked.
Derek watched me lick an envelope at 2 a.m. and said, “Let me run your credit report.”
“We need it for the house loan anyway.”
I said, “Sure,” barely listening.
I was calculating how many overtime hours it would take to cover the new caterer who charged by the head instead of the platter.
He opened his laptop.
I sealed another envelope.
When I looked up twenty minutes later, Derek was staring at the screen, and he hadn’t moved.
Not even his fingers.
Just frozen.
“What?” I said.
He didn’t answer right away.
Before Derek could explain what he’d found, my phone started buzzing.
Not calls.
Texts, one after another, lighting up the screen like a slot machine nobody asked to play.
Aunt Carol: Heard you told your parents not to come. That’s cold, Wendy.
Uncle Jean: Your mom is heartbroken. Call her.
A cousin I hadn’t spoken to since Thanksgiving: Family is forever. Don’t do this.
I scrolled through eleven messages in four minutes.
Every single one carried the same story.
That I had uninvited my own parents from my wedding.
That I was being cruel.
That Diane was devastated.
I called Aunt Patty.
She’s my mother’s younger sister, the only person in our family who ever looked me in the eye and said, “I see what they’re doing.”
She picked up on the first ring.
“They told everyone it was you,” Patty said.
No preamble.
“Harold called Jean yesterday.”
“Diane posted in the family group chat.”
“Not directly. You know how she does it.”
“Just a sad emoji and ‘please pray for our family.’”
“Classic.”
