A Wedding In December. Sarah Morgan

Catherine, Dan’s mother, is a wedding planner. She’s amazing. This only happened an hour ago and she’s already made some calls and arranged the flowers and the cake. Usually she handles celebrities, so she has tons of contacts.”

      “Oh, well—super.” Maggie felt as if she’d fallen in a river and was being swept along, helpless and flailing. “She doesn’t mind helping you?”

      “She’s excited. And she has flawless taste. Everything will be perfect.”

      Maggie thought of her own imperfect life and felt a rush of something she recognized as jealousy. How could she be jealous of someone she’d never met?

      Maybe she was having a midlife crisis, but surely if that was the case then it should have happened years ago when Rosie had first left home? Why now? She was having delayed empty nest syndrome.

      She blinked to clear her misty vision and wondered why she’d ever thought it would be easy to be a parent.

      Focusing on the practical, she made a mental list of all the things she’d have to do to cancel Christmas. The cake would keep, as would the cranberry sauce, waiting in the freezer. She’d ordered a turkey from a local farmer, but maybe she could still cancel that.

      The one thing not so easily canceled were her expectations.

      The White family always gathered together at Christmas. They had their traditions, which probably would have seemed crazy to some, but Maggie cherished them. Decorating the tree, singing carols, doing a massive jigsaw, playing silly games. Being together. It didn’t happen often now that her daughters were grown, and she’d been looking forward to it.

      “Have you told your sister yet?”

      “She is my next call. Not that she’s likely to answer her phone. She’s always working. I want her to be my maid of honor.”

      What would Katie’s reaction be? “Your sister doesn’t consider herself a romantic.”

      Maggie sometimes wondered if working in the emergency department for so long had distorted her elder daughter’s view of humanity.

      “I know,” Rosie said, “but this isn’t any old wedding. It’s my wedding, and I know she’ll do it for me.”

      “You’re right, she will.” Katie had always been a protective and loving older sister.

      Maggie glanced at the photograph she kept on the table next to her bed. The two girls standing side by side, arms wrapped around each other, their cheeks pressed together as they faced the camera, smiles merging. It was one of her favorite photos.

      “I know you hate flying, Mum, but you will come, won’t you? I badly want you all to be there.”

      Flying. Rosie was right that she hated it.

      In company when conversation turned to travel, she pretended she was protecting the planet by avoiding flying, but in reality she was protecting herself. The idea of being propelled through the air in a tin can horrified her. It all seemed out of her control. What if the pilot had drunk too much the night before? What if they collided with another plane? Everyone knew that airspace was ridiculously overcrowded. What about drones? Bird strikes?

      When the children were young she and Nick had bundled them into the car and taken them to the beach. Once, they’d taken the ferry across to France and driven as far as Italy (never again, Nick had said, as they’d been bombarded with a chorus of are we nearly there all the way from Paris to Pisa).

      And now she was expected to fly to the Rocky Mountains for Christmas.

      And she would. Of course she would.

      “We’ll be there. Nothing would keep us away.” Maggie waved goodbye to her dreams of a family Christmas at the cottage. “But what about a venue? Will you be able to find something at such short notice?”

      “We’re going to have the wedding right here, at his home. Dan’s family own Snowfall Lodge. It’s this amazing boutique hotel just outside Aspen. I can’t wait for you to see it. There are views of the forest and the mountains, and outdoor hot tubs—it’s going to be the perfect place to spend Christmas. The perfect place to get married. I’m so excited!”

      Honeysuckle Cottage was the perfect place to spend Christmas.

      Maggie couldn’t imagine spending it in a place she didn’t know, with people she didn’t know. Not only that, but perfect people she didn’t know. Even the prospect of snow didn’t make her feel better.

      “It sounds as if you have it all covered. All we need to do is think about what to wear.”

      “Mm, I was going to mention that. It’s pretty cold at this time of year. You’re going to need to wear some serious layers.”

      “I was talking about your clothes. Your wedding dress.”

      “Catherine is taking me to her favorite boutique bridal store tomorrow. She’s booked an appointment and they’re closing the store for us and everything.”

      On the few occasions Maggie had thought about Rosie getting married, she’d imagined planning it together, poring over photographs in magazines, trying on dresses.

      Never once had she pictured the whole thing happening without her.

      Now she thought about it, very little of her life had turned out the way she’d planned.

      She stared at the empty expanse of bed next to her.

      “That’s—kind of her.”

      “She is kind. She says I’m the daughter she never had. She’s really spoiling me.”

      But Rosie was her daughter, Maggie thought. She should be the one doing the spoiling.

      No matter how hard she tried, it was impossible not to be hurt and a little resentful.

      Already she felt more like a guest than the mother of the bride.

      No! She wasn’t going to turn into that sort of mother. This was Rosie’s special day, not hers. Her feelings didn’t matter.

      “What can I do to help?”

      “Nothing. Get yourselves here. Catherine can’t wait to meet you. I know you’ll love her.”

      Maggie wondered what Rosie had said about her. My mother works in academic publishing. She loves baking and gardening. To a high-flying celebrity wedding planner, she probably sounded as exciting as yesterday’s laundry.

      “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

      “Can I speak to Dad? I want to hear his voice.”

      Maggie gripped the phone. She hadn’t anticipated this. “I—um—he’s not here right now.”

      “It’s the middle of the night. How can he not be there?”

      Maggie searched frantically for a plausible explanation. She could hear Nick’s voice, for goodness’ sake, Mags, this is absurd. It’s time to tell the truth.

      But the truth was the last thing Rosie needed to hear on the day of her engagement.

      She would not spoil her daughter’s big moment.

      “He’s gone for a walk.”

      “A walk? At three in the morning? Have you guys finally bought a dog or something?”

      “No. Your dad was working on a paper until late and couldn’t sleep. But he should be back any minute.” She was slightly shocked by her own creativity under pressure. She’d always raised the girls to tell the truth, and here she was lying like a pro.

      “Get him to call me the moment he walks through the door.”

      “Won’t you be asleep by then?”

      There was a sound of glasses clinking together and Rosie