They were… sophisticated. Respectful. He said I looked like someone who could design dreams into reality.”
Doris had rejoiced with her daughter then, sharing in that infectious enthusiasm.
It had been ten years since her divorce from Simone’s father, a decade of building a life as a single mother in Dallas. Simone had grown up watching her mother struggle and scrimp, put herself through a state university with the help of scholarships and part-time jobs, earned a degree in interior design, and was working at a small design studio in downtown Dallas. She’d dated here and there—engineers, grad students, a bartender from Deep Ellum who wrote poetry—but nothing serious, nothing that seemed to stick.
And now she had met a man who, from the first glance, courted her beautifully and lavishly. Flowers arrived at Simone’s studio every other day—not gas station carnations but elaborate arrangements of orchids and exotic blooms. Preston took her to restaurants Doris had only ever seen on food shows—places in uptown and downtown where appetizers cost more than Doris’s weekly grocery budget and where reservations had to be made weeks in advance.
Gifts weren’t simple trinkets, but expensive jewelry nestled in velvet boxes and designer handbags, all delivered in crisp branded packaging that screamed luxury. Preston quickly invited Simone to meet his parents. They received her graciously at their estate, welcoming her with practiced warmth and perfect manners, showing her around the mansion as if she already belonged there.
Everything unfolded like a movie, fast, bright, and thrilling, each scene more glamorous than the last. After only three months of dating, Preston proposed. It happened right there in the same Dallas café where they had first met, a calculated romantic gesture.
He dropped to one knee in front of the entire room as people pulled out their phones to record the moment, their faces lit up with vicarious excitement. He opened a velvet box with a diamond ring that sparkled so brightly under the café lights that Simone had to squint. The stone was massive, easily three carats, set in platinum.
“Of course I said yes,” Simone had told her mother afterward, her voice breathless and quick. “Who would turn down a prince like that? Who would say no to a man who can offer everything?”
The excitement in her voice had been unmistakable, almost manic.
But for some reason, the soft, grounded warmth that usually accompanied real love was missing. There was an anxious edge to it, a brittleness, as if Simone were trying to convince herself this was the right thing to do, talking herself into happiness. “Mom, do you understand what a chance this is?” Simone had asked, pacing Doris’s small living room, her hands gesturing restlessly.
“He’s smart, successful, wealthy beyond anything I ever imagined. I won’t have to bust my butt working two or three jobs like you did after the divorce. I can pursue my passion without worrying about bills, open my own studio, travel—finally see New York, L.A., maybe even Europe.
Paris, Rome, all the places we looked at in magazines when I was growing up.”
Doris had decided then that it was normal, that every bride got nervous before such a big step. Her daughter was excited and thinking practically about her future, which was smart in today’s world. Love was one thing, but you had to have something to live on in America, where one medical bill or one lost job could topple everything you’d built.
She herself had married Simone’s father not out of a thunderbolt of passion, but from a desire to build a family, have children, and find a reliable shoulder to lean on. That reliable shoulder, however, had turned out to be capable of cheating right and left over fifteen years of marriage before finally leaving for a younger woman he’d met at work. He moved to Colorado, leaving Doris in Dallas to raise a teenage daughter alone, working overtime to make ends meet, skipping meals sometimes so Simone could have new school clothes.
Perhaps that was why Doris so desperately wanted to believe things would be different for Simone. That Preston was truly a decent man who would love and cherish her, and that money and status this time came packaged with integrity and respect instead of betrayal and abandonment. The wedding preparations were lightning fast, a whirlwind that left Doris feeling dizzy.
Preston’s parents insisted that everything be top-tier, the absolute best money could buy. They hired a celebrity event planner who proudly mentioned she’d worked on weddings in Los Angeles and Palm Beach, dropping names of actors and tech moguls. Simone’s gown was couture, shipped from a boutique in Milan by way of New York, with multiple fittings and alterations to ensure absolute perfection.
The mansion began to be decorated a full week before the ceremony—florists arriving with trucks full of blooms, lighting technicians rigging elaborate systems, rental trucks driving up and down the long driveway delivering chairs, tables, and equipment. The guest list was drawn up for two hundred people, though Doris personally knew maybe twenty of them—some relatives she saw at Christmas, a few of Simone’s friends from college, and a couple of Doris’s coworkers from the health department who had watched Simone grow up. Everyone else was part of the Sturgis family’s wide network of business partners, political acquaintances, golf buddies from upscale country clubs, and long-time society friends whose names appeared in the Dallas society pages.
Doris felt almost like an outsider at this wedding, as if she had come to an event that didn’t really belong to her, where she was tolerated rather than welcomed. She wasn’t even seated near her daughter. Instead, place cards put her at a table off to the side with distant relatives of the groom, people she had never met before that day and who showed little interest in making conversation with her.
When Doris had gently tried to hint to Simone a few days earlier that she would have liked to sit closer to her at the reception, maybe with Simone’s friends who at least knew her, Simone had given her a strange, apologetic smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Mom, Preston and his parents assigned the seats,” she’d said, her voice tight. “They have some kind of protocol, you know—business partners sit here, family there, status and all that.
It’s very complicated. Please don’t be offended. It’s not personal.”
“Okay,” Doris had answered, swallowing her hurt.
She wasn’t offended exactly, but a bitter residue remained, settling in her chest like sediment. And now, standing apart from the general merriment, watching her daughter from a distance, that residue felt sharper than ever, cutting into her with every breath. The music changed and a slow song began to play, something classical and romantic that Doris didn’t recognize.
Preston took Simone’s hand and led her to the center of the dance floor with practiced grace. Guests stepped back, forming a circle around them, and everyone pulled out their phones to film the newlyweds’ first dance, little screens glowing like a ring of tiny moons in the dimmed light. The moment was picture-perfect, exactly the kind of scene that would be shared on social media with hearts and congratulations.
Doris fumbled for her own old smartphone, its cracked case taped neatly at the corner where it had been dropped one too many times. She opened the camera with fingers that suddenly felt clumsy and aimed it toward her daughter, trying to capture this moment that should have been beautiful. Preston placed his hand on Simone’s back, pulling her close.
Doris noticed how tightly he was gripping her, his fingers digging into the delicate fabric of her gown. He wasn’t gently holding her, guiding her through the steps the way a loving partner would. He was clutching her, his fingers digging into her back, his knuckles pale with the force of his grip.
Simone flinched for just a moment, so quickly most people wouldn’t have caught it, as if in pain, then quickly pasted her smile back on and tilted her head, looking up at her groom at just the right angle for the cameras. A perfect pose. A beautiful picture.
But Doris saw that her daughter’s gaze was empty, distant. As if she weren’t there in the moment at all, but somewhere far away. As if she had rehearsed this routine over and over and was now simply performing it by rote.
Step left. Step right. Smile.
Turn. Lean in. Smile again.
