I tried to say something, but she didn’t give me a chance. “Don’t you remember how we said we would plan each other’s weddings? How you promised to wear gloves at my wedding, and I promised to wear a black dress at yours even though I thought it was morbid?”

“I—”

“What about the time I agreed to that save-the-mourning-doves rally with your family just so I could keep that creepy Brad Coldecker away from you.”

I’d forgotten Brad Coldecker. He’d been a college student and a member of one of the environmental groups that my parents ran. I didn’t remember which group it had been. There’d been so many. Brad Coldecker was convinced that by flirting with me, he would get closer with my parents. Apparently, the fact that I was thirteen at the time made little difference.

“You don’t have to do a thing. All you need to do is show up and be there. I need you there.”

Then, I’d heard myself say “yes,” and, before I knew it, I’d been giving her my dress measurements and my address for the invitation.

It wasn’t until later that my chest tightened and the reality of what I’d just agreed to sunk in. That’s when I forgot Brad Coldecker again and remembered Mark.

I told myself that it would be fine, and that I was there in Olivia’s old bedroom for the finality of it, because I wanted to witness the end of my brother’s obsession. Surely, even Mark would have to let her go when she was married. Or maybe I was just there because I couldn’t say no to Olivia when it was her turn to ask, especially after saying yes to the third cousin twice removed. As this was the sixth wedding I would endure, it has been established that I wasn’t particularly good at saying no.

I reluctantly thought of Mark. Last time, he’d comforted himself with the black-and-white world of mathematics and dedicated the same obsessive energy he had in pursuing Olivia to solving story problems I had no way of deciphering. I hoped that he would be able to do that again. I also knew when my parents found out, there would be heck to pay because they couldn’t forget that Olivia was the catalyst that had caused Mark to fall apart.