“Yep,” I said on a sigh, flopping down in the chair next to her. “It’s been a hundred miles a minute on wedding planning since I got here. I just needed a break, to do something for myself.”
Annie nodded in understanding, patting my hand just as a visitor approached the desk. While she checked them in, I let out a long exhale, taking in the familiar surroundings of the nursing home.
I’d first volunteered as a fourteen-year-old my freshman year of high school. My dad had been the one to suggest it — more as a way for me to give back to the community than anything else — but he never could have known the love it would spark inside my heart.
I still remembered that first day, losing hours with people seven times my age who had the best stories to tell. I remembered the scent of Mrs. Jeannie’s perfume, the collage of photographs she hung on her wall from her time as a nurse in the Vietnam War. I remembered Ms. Barbara’s lemon cake, the way it melted in our mouths that afternoon after she gave me the recipe to try to make it since she couldn’t anymore.
She’d nearly cried when that first bite hit her tongue.
I remembered the soft velvet of Mrs. Hamilton’s hands in mine as we gently danced in her room, and the euphoria I felt when I turned on an old record from the fifties and saw a room of faces light up, and the incomparable joy I experienced when I was the one who made grumpy Mr. Tavos laugh for the first time in years.
It was the first time I felt the high of my own personal drug — helping others. It was the spark that gave way to a flame that burned brightly in me ever since. I loved to volunteer, to give my time to people, organizations, causes that mattered to me.
I’d dragged Annie with me, and though she hadn’t taken to it quite as quickly, she’d made it her home just as much as I had. And now, she was a full-time employee.
“Well, do you want me to give you the run down or do you just want to frolic on your own?” Annie asked when the young family she’d checked in made their way down the hall to their mother’s room.
“I’ll meander, make myself useful.”
She leaned back in her chair, one hand soothing her stomach. “Okay. Well, when you’re done meandering, you owe me a lunch and a thorough run down of all the wedding planning I know your mother has you doing.”
I chuffed. “We’ll need more than one lunch break for that.”
“I can’t believe it’s so soon.”
“Six weeks from Sunday,” I murmured, rocking in my own chair.
Annie watched me. “That’s not the best reaction to have when you’re six weeks from getting hitched.”
I sighed, shaking my head before I let it fall back against the head rest of the chair. “I really am excited — to be married, to start a family, to be by Anthony’s side as he makes his dreams come true. I just…”
My words faded, because it felt selfish and ungrateful to follow them up with something as petty as I just wish I could travel or get my degree before I get married. This was what so many girls in this town dreamed of, it was what I had dreamed of — I’d just found it sooner than I imagined.
And I loved Anthony. I was lucky to have found him at all.
I sighed in lieu of finishing my sentence, and Annie just continued rubbing her stomach.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sure wedding planning with a family like yours is a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.”
I lifted my head again and nodded rather than telling her my true feelings on the subject. “Yeah. But, I’m lucky to have parents who are paying for such an extravagant wedding, and to have a fiancé like Anthony. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better match for me, for my family.”
“Mm-hmm,” Annie agreed, but the way she watched me, I knew I’d let my façade slip. She saw it, what I was trying to hide — not just from her, but from myself. “Speaking of wedding planning, I heard you got Anthony the classic wedding gift.”
I frowned. “How did you possibly hear about that? I was at the distillery for all of an hour.”
Annie scoffed. “Come on, like you don’t already know this town is