He Threw Me Into a Fountain at My Sister’s Wedding Minutes Later, the Doors Opened and Everything Changed

I parked at the valet, checked myself in the mirror. Sophisticated green dress, understated diamond studs, classic updo. I looked like someone who had nothing to prove.

I did not feel that way. The ballroom had been turned into something from a magazine spread. White orchids and roses cascading from crystal chandeliers, gossamer draperies filtering the afternoon light.

Exactly the kind of excessive display my parents had always dreamed of staging. My cousin Rebecca found me first, her eyes moving immediately to the space beside me. “You came alone,” she said, in the tone people use when they’re noting something unfortunate.

“I did,” I replied, and offered nothing else. “How brave,” she said. Then she told me a story about a professor I had supposedly dated and who had left me for his teaching assistant.

Complete fiction. The Campbell family had apparently been maintaining a failure narrative about my personal life in my absence, keeping it polished and detailed for exactly these moments. “Your memory must be confusing me with someone else,” I said, and moved on.