The invitation sat on my counter like a dare—thick cream card, pressed floral wreath, our names looped in rose-gold script: Sadie & Evan. I read it three times, then flipped it over, half-expecting an invisible ink addendum: Just kidding. Instead there was a handwritten line in Sadie’s tidy, schoolteacher pen: Nance—will you be my maid of honor?

I laughed—one sharp, surprised burst that startled my cat off the barstool. “You’re kidding,” I told the empty kitchen. The same kitchen where, twelve years earlier, I’d dissolved a giant wad of grape bubblegum out of my hair over the sink with olive oil because my kid sister had decided to make my high school graduation “more memorable.” The same kitchen where Sadie once told me I was “the main character of our family” and meant it like a bruise. Continues…