Slide one lit up the wall behind me. Lily and Grace, gap-toothed and grinning, above the caption: “The children Claire promised to love.”
The room went quiet in that polite way people do when they aren’t sure yet.
I stood and lifted my glass.
Slide two was Isla’s damning message: “Audition, don’t propose. Get the ring first, then we plan the rest.”
Sixty heads turned. Not to Claire. To Isla.
I also showed the one where Claire’s mother advised her not to waste her years on a widower with children.
Isla stood up quickly and knocked her wine straight into the cake! Frosting splattered her sleeve.
“Claire,” she hissed, “say something!”
My fiancée didn’t.
Sixty heads turned.
Her smile locked in place, then something behind her eyes changed, as if she were watching a horror show.
Slide three was Claire’s line about boarding school. Foster care existing “for a reason.”
