3 days before my wedding, Dad called: “I’m not wal…

3 days before my wedding, Dad called: “I’m not walking you down the aisle. Your sister says it would upset her.” Mom agreed: “Just walk alone. It’s not a big deal.” On my wedding day, I didn’t walk alone.

When the doors opened and guests saw who was holding my arm, my father, sitting in the back, went pale. The steel jaws of the pruning shears snapped shut. I stood inside my greenhouse with the severed stem of an imported orchid in my hand, tracing the bruised white petals with my thumb.

My sister Isabella had sent it the week before. It was expensive, beautiful, and already dying because it had no roots. “It is just about being sensitive right now, Penny,” my father said.

His voice came through the speakerphone resting on my potting bench, small and hollow against the glass walls. Outside, the Bozeman wind rattled the panes, sweeping over the Montana fields with a dry, unforgiving chill. “Izzy is hitting a rough patch with Preston,” he continued.