Later, I saw him sitting with Richard near the edge of the patio. They talked for nearly an hour. Linda watched them from across the lawn, her expression hard to read — maybe angry, maybe sad, maybe regretful. I never asked.
That night taught me something I’ve carried into our marriage. A wedding isn’t the flowers or the dinner or the money spent on one evening. It’s the moment two people decide whose voice matters when everyone else has an opinion. Linda tried to save her son money. Instead, she forced him to finally decide where her influence ended — and gave us, without meaning to, a boundary we needed all along.
