“Good, everyone’s here,” the priest says. My immediate family isn’t exactly religious, but I think Nana might’ve objected if we didn’t have a priest doing the ceremony. “We can go ahead and get started on placements.”

For the next hour, we’re told the steps of the ceremony, from Grandpa escorting Nana to their seats down to Ashley being led down the aisle by her father. Then we actually have to practice each step a few times. I feel like if Mother wasn’t here, we might’ve been stuck doing it once or twice, but we do each step no less than seven times to ensure that they’re done perfectly.

My job is to escort Mom down the aisle, then join Michael and the other groomsmen. “Slow down,” she mutters to me as I lead her to her seat beside my grandparents. “You’re walking too fast.”

There are times when I imagine that our relationship is a normal one, that she treats me like a mom should treat their kid, that she didn’t spend my childhood throwing money at me to get whatever I wanted because that was apparently what she thought a parent should do, as if she hadn’t somehow found a way to support my decisions about my identity without really ever talking to me about it or defending me when other family members said I was being ridiculous or going through “a phase.” Sure, maybe her sending me to Steerfield saved me from making big mistakes, from going down the wrong path, but she’d never recognize that it was her fault in the first place. And it feels like she’d recognize me.

I look over my shoulder at Wyatt, a somewhat uninterested look on their face, but they still look happy to be here. When there’s a break for the bridesmaids, Lindsay goes over to them, and the two of them start talking and laughing.

I like that they like each other.

Not that Lindsay and Josh didn’t get along with each other, but there’s a lot more warmth between Wyatt and Lindsay.

All the more reason to not break things off, to let this continue, to tell myself that I can love Wyatt just fine, that we’ll be good for each other—

Mother snaps her fingers rapidly. “Neil, pay attention.”

“This doesn’t involve me,” I say.

“We’re right after your grandparents. You need to know when they’re walking so you can be on time.”

“As if anyone would notice,” I mutter.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Right, nothing.” Mother goes back to the center of the crowd. In every orchestra, there can only be one conductor. We have to run through the whole affair several times, walking back and forth down the aisle to get all the beats right. I end up standing next to Nana and Grandpa a few times while we wait.

“You fill out that suit nicely, son,” Grandpa says, and I don’t know if I should take it as a compliment or not.