The night before my wedding, my parents vanished from the head table guest list. Ethan spread the revised seating chart on the table in front of me, casually mentioning that Chloe’s family had twenty unexpected plus-ones, so my relatives would need to be moved to the overflow tables at the back of the room. I stared at him in utter disbelief. “What about my parents?” “They can sit back there too. Mr. Anderson is a respected elder; we can’t exactly leave him off the head table.” He looked down at his phone, texting Chloe back. His tone was as casual as if he were ordering appetizers. In my past life, terrified of causing a scene and ruining the wedding, I actually nodded and agreed. The next day, my dad, wearing his brand-new suit, stood by the doors of the reception hall. He watched me give my toast from across the room, smiling and telling the guests around him: “As long as the kids are happy, we don’t care where we sit.” Three months later, he died of a sudden, massive heart attack. While sorting through his belongings, I found his head table place card, folded perfectly and tucked away. After that, Ethan and I were married for ten years. Chloe always had a seat at the table. And I was always the one expected to make room. Right up until the day I died, his eyes had welled with tears as he asked me: “Did you stop making room for me in your heart a long time ago?” When I opened my eyes again, the revised seating chart was still sitting under my hands. Ethan frowned, rushing me. “Just sign off on it, Mia. The venue is waiting to set the tables.” I picked up the pen and firmly crossed out the groom’s name. He froze. I pushed the seating chart back to him. “Not enough seats, right?” “Perfect.” “I won’t be taking one either.” … Ethan stared at the name I had aggressively crossed out. He was stunned for two seconds before a smirk crept onto his face. “Mia, we aren’t even married yet, and you’re already threatening to call off the wedding?” He snatched the seating chart away, pulled out a fresh copy, and shoved the pen back into my hand. “Fine. I owe you one tonight.” “After the wedding, I’ll take your parents out for a nice private dinner, alright? If you’re still mad, I’ll get down on my knees in the sand on our honeymoon and beg for forgiveness.” His tone was half-joking, half-serious—a mix of coaxing and a subtle warning that I needed to drop it. In my past life, as long as he gave me an inch, I would swallow the miles of humiliation that followed. I didn’t take the pen. I just watched him, curious to see if he would act any differently in this life. Right on cue, our wedding planner pushed open the door. “Ethan, Chloe says her mom’s sciatica is acting up and the mattress in her standard room is too soft. She’s asking if they can swap for the bridal penthouse suite on the top floor.” My mom, who had just walked up to the doorway, stopped dead in her tracks. My dad had booked that suite six months ago. He didn’t know much about wedding traditions, but he heard it was best for the bride to spend the night before the wedding with her parents. So, he paid for it in full, months in advance. He even asked the hotel to add an extra armchair by the window. He said he wanted him and Mom to sit there and watch me get my makeup done the next morning. Ethan didn’t hesitate for a second. “Make the swap.” The planner glanced at me nervously. “But Mia and her parents are supposed to stay in that suite tonight. The photographer is scheduled to do the ‘getting ready’ shots there tomorrow morning.” “There’s a bridal lounge downstairs. Just put two folding beds in there.” I already knew he was going to say that, but I still asked: “Are you sure about this?” The planner stayed silent. Ethan frowned. “It’s just one night, Mia. Are you really going to be this picky?” My mom immediately stepped in, forcing a smile to smooth things over. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Your dad and I can just grab a room at a motel nearby.” Ethan’s face softened. “See? Even your mom doesn’t mind.” He reached out to touch my hand, then glanced at my barely touched dinner plate. “Why are your hands so cold? Did you not eat dinner? You know your stomach hurts when you get cold.” He turned and instructed his assistant: “Go get her some chicken noodle soup. Hold the parsley, extra warm.” He always remembered the little things. His phone rang. Chloe’s voice came through the speaker. “Hey Ethan, my mom says the bed in this room is too hard… also, please don’t fight with Mia over the room. If she doesn’t want to swap, it’s totally fine.” Ethan was already grabbing his car keys. “Don’t make your mom suffer. I’ll be right there to sort it out.” Chloe asked, “Is Mia mad?” He glanced at me, smiling helplessly. “She’s just having a little pre-wedding mood swing. Once the ring is on her finger tomorrow, she’ll forget all about it.” He hung up the phone and draped his cashmere coat over my shoulders. “It’s just a few hours. Your parents aren’t that fragile. They can handle one night somewhere else, right?” Half an hour later, my parents and I were dragging our suitcases across the street to a cheap motel. The room was tiny, and the window only opened a crack. My dad pushed the two twin beds together for my mom and me to sleep on, while he grabbed a blanket and curled up on the small armchair by the window. I told him to book another room, but he waved me off. “No need to waste the money. We have to be up at dawn anyway.” He was still wearing the brand-new dress shoes he bought for the wedding tomorrow. He was wearing them to break them in so his feet wouldn’t hurt on the big day. As he sat down, he leaned over and carefully wiped a smudge off the leather. In my past life, after he died, I was cleaning out his closet and realized the soles of those shoes had only been worn on my wedding day. My dad suddenly asked in the dark: “Mia, when you crossed Ethan’s name out earlier… were you just throwing a tantrum, or have you made up your mind?” Through the cracked window, I could see the lights on the top floor of the luxury hotel across the street. The penthouse suite. I pulled my gaze away. “Dad, you and Mom already gave up your spot tonight.” “Tomorrow, don’t give up your spot for anyone.” At 6:00 AM the next morning, someone knocked on the motel room door. The makeup artist had just finished pinning my veil when our driver rushed in. “Ms. Mia, the lead wedding car has been reassigned.” My dad, who was practicing how he would walk me down the aisle in front of the mirror, turned around. “Did the car break down?” The driver looked incredibly awkward. “Mr. Anderson’s SUV broke down by the highway exit. Ethan said Chloe’s dad had knee surgery recently, so he sent the lead wedding car to go pick them up.” I looked out the window. The spot where the vintage Rolls-Royce had been parked was empty. My dad had picked that car out himself. He didn’t know anything about luxury cars. He just went to the rental agency and sat in the back of every single one, asking the dealer if the backseat was wide enough for me to sit comfortably in my massive ballgown. My mom’s face immediately darkened. “Doesn’t the rental company have other cars?” “They do, but Ethan said the lead car has the best suspension.” “Don’t worry, Mrs. Vance, it’ll be back in twenty minutes.” The door pushed open, and Ethan walked in holding a shoebox. “Mr. Anderson has bad knees. We couldn’t just leave him standing in the cold by the highway.” He looked at me. “What, you’re giving me the silent treatment again?” He crouched down in front of me and opened the shoebox. Inside were the pearl flats I had fallen in love with six months ago. “Give me your foot.” I didn’t move. He looked up. “You rubbed your heels raw yesterday, and you still want to wear heels? Are you planning to limp down the aisle to make me look bad?” His words were obnoxious, but his hands were incredibly gentle. He held my ankle, carefully avoiding the blistered skin, and pressed down on the toe of the shoe to check the fit. “Alright, it’s not too tight.” In my past life, I secretly cried when I received these shoes. Just because I had stared at them in a shop window for ten seconds, he remembered them for six months. But having lived this life once already, I simply asked in a flat tone: “If it had been my dad stranded on the highway today, would you have rerouted Chloe’s car to pick him up?” Ethan’s hands stopped. “Why are you comparing the two? Your dad is perfectly healthy. Mr. Anderson’s leg…” “So my dad is supposed to just wait?” He stood up. “When did I ever say your dad should wait?” “But that’s the choice you make every single time.” Ethan’s brow furrowed heavily. “Mia, are you purposefully trying to pick a fight with me today?” When I didn’t answer, he reached out and adjusted my veil. “Fine. I owe you for the car, okay? Just give me some face today. After the wedding is over, you can punish me however you want.” Right at that moment, Ethan’s phone buzzed. Chloe sent a photo. She and her parents were sitting comfortably in the back of the vintage Rolls-Royce. [Borrowed your bride’s ride for a sec. Don’t be jealous! Teehee ~] Ethan glanced at it and chuckled. “She always knows exactly what to say.” “Of course she does. She knows exactly what to say to make me uncomfortable.” The smile faded from Ethan’s face. “Are you done? It’s just a joke, is it really worth throwing a fit over? You never used to be this petty.” I didn’t reply. Eventually, the rental company sent over a white cargo van normally used for transporting camera equipment. Terrified of catching my dress in the sliding door, my dad crouched on the dirty pavement, carefully tucking the layers of tulle inside. After getting in, he pulled a folded index card from his inner suit pocket, stared at it, and quickly shoved it back. “Is that for me?” He smiled, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ll read it later. I have to wait until I officially hand you over.” When we arrived at the venue, confetti cannons went off. Through the tinted glass of the cargo van, I saw the vintage Rolls-Royce parked at the very center of the red carpet. Ethan opened the door for Chloe, his hand instinctively hovering over the doorframe to protect her head. A relative laughed and yelled: “The bride is here!” Chloe doubled over laughing. “Stop, stop! The real star of the show is right behind us!” Ethan smiled too. He didn’t correct them immediately. The actual bride was sitting outside a side entrance in a van labeled ‘AV Equipment Rentals.’ That’s when I noticed my dad was tightly gripping his index card, completely silent. “What if he forgets his speech?” Ethan chuckled. “With all these people here today, who could possibly forget your dad?” He walked over and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Keep your head straight.” His voice was low, sounding intimately affectionate. “Didn’t you say you wanted to hang our family portrait in the living room forever? Smile. All our relatives are watching. Don’t let everyone see that you’re picking a fight with me again.” “But my dad is almost entirely cut out of the frame.” Ethan glanced back at the photographer’s monitor. “We’ll take another one later.” “When?” His patience was wearing thin. “Mia, why are you being so difficult today?” Chloe immediately took a dramatic step backward. “I’ll just step out, then. I don’t want Mia to be uncomfortable looking at me.” Mrs. Sterling grabbed her arm. “This is an issue between husband and wife. You haven’t done anything wrong. You stand right where you are!” Ethan frowned too. “You don’t need to move.” Having said that, he turned back to me, lowering his voice to coax me. “We’ll get something to eat as soon as pictures are done. You barely ate breakfast. If you pass out on stage, you’re the one who’s going to suffer.” He remembered that I was hungry. But he completely failed to notice my dad. To make room for Chloe and Ethan to look like “one big happy family,” my dad had been pushed so far to the edge he was practically out of the frame. The camera flashed a second time. I didn’t smile. But my dad kept smiling. Probably terrified that people would realize our family was unhappy, he kept the corners of his mouth pinned up until the photographer yelled “Got it.” Only then did his smile slowly fall. After the crowd dispersed, he looked down at the digital proofs syncing to the photographer’s iPad. I walked over. “Do they look good?” My dad immediately hit the sleep button on the iPad. “They look great.” But before the screen went black, I saw it. Only half of my mom’s shoulder was visible. And my dad’s face was still partially blocked by a potted plant. In that moment, I suddenly remembered my father’s funeral portrait from my past life. It was the only photo from the entire wedding where he was standing completely unobscured in the center of the frame. Because no one was there to block him anymore. At 11:40 AM, the MC walked in holding the itinerary. “We ran seven minutes over during the photoshoot. Everything else has been compressed to the absolute minimum.” “Tradition dictates that dinner must be served exactly at 12:18 PM. We only have a seven-minute buffer.” “Chloe’s piano solo transition is exactly seven minutes. The Father of the Bride’s speech is roughly three minutes. We only have time for one.” My dad’s hand, which had been adjusting his tie, stopped. “I can cut it down to one minute.” I looked at Ethan. He didn’t even look at the itinerary. “Keep the piano solo.” The room went dead silent. “You didn’t even have to think about it?” “The piano is already mic’d and set up. Your dad can give his speech at home later. What’s the difference?” My dad nodded hurriedly. “Right, right, exactly. We can just do it at home.” “He said he only needs one minute.” Ethan frowned. “Dinner starts at 12:18. What if we miss the auspicious timing?” “So you’re cutting my dad’s speech?” His face darkened. “Mia, why do you have to twist every single thing into me victimizing you?” I stared at him. “The bridal suite. The wedding car. The family portrait. And now, you’re taking away his one minute to speak?” “Which one of those things matters to you?” He was silent for a few seconds, then reached out to touch my face. “Fine. I messed up the schedule. Can we just get through the wedding first, and you can chew me out tonight?” I didn’t argue anymore. Perhaps simply because I had already lived through the ending of this story once before. The processional music began to play. My dad held my hand and walked me into the banquet hall. As we passed the overflow tables at the very back of the room, my mom, sitting on the outermost edge, smiled at me from afar. My dad placed my hand into Ethan’s. He squeezed my fingers tight. “Be a good girl. Don’t cry. If you ruin your makeup, you won’t look pretty anymore…” The house lights dimmed. Chloe, wearing a pristine white dress, sat down at a grand piano. The massive projector screen behind her displayed the family portrait we had just taken. I faintly heard guests whispering: “If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Chloe was the one marrying into the family.” I looked toward the back of the room. My dad had already retreated to the overflow table. I watched him take the index card he had spent two weeks writing, fold it in half again, and shove it back into his pocket. Suddenly, I didn’t want to go to the head table anymore. Before the toasts began, I walked straight to my parents’ table at the back. “Dad. Let’s go home and make some pasta.” He froze for two seconds, then smiled. “Okay!” I took off my veil and slipped into the comfortable flats my dad had been carrying for me since this morning. By the time Ethan chased me to the elevator lobby, I was already helping my mom inside. “Mia!” He slammed his hand against the elevator doors, his words stumbling over each other. “Are you out of your mind?! You’re leaving?! Your whole family?! I…” “Isn’t Chloe great at entertaining a crowd?” “What is that supposed to mean?!” Ethan looked absolutely furious. “Fine, I was wrong, okay…?” “Just come back out here and finish the wedding…”
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