The wick caught.
A small flame appeared.
Nobody made a speech.
Nobody took photographs.
Nobody told the children what it symbolized.
We ate leftover cake my neighbor had brought over.
Peter spilled juice.
Someone kicked someone else under the table.
Amelia laughed so hard milk almost came out of her nose.
And the candle burned quietly between us.
I looked around that messy kitchen.
At the four children Ryan and I had brought into the world.
At the empty place in my heart where another child would always exist.
At Amelia, who had spent an entire wedding day asking adults questions they should have asked themselves months earlier.
And I realized something.
My daughter hadn’t stopped her father’s family ceremony because she wanted to ruin his wedding.
She stopped because everyone had been asking her to participate in a story that didn’t make sense to her.Family
