“I’m getting married,” she said shyly, when we found a corner to ourselves. “I told Mamma and Daddy last night.”

“To-which one?” I said, stunned.

“You haven’t been listening to a word I said when I called you!”

Maybe I had let the specifics roll over me like a river. Amina had dated so many men. Since she’d reached fourteen, her incredible dating career had only been interrupted by one brief marriage.

“The department store manager?” I pushed my glasses back up on my nose the better to peer up at Amina, who is a very nice five feet, five inches. On good days I say I am five feet.

“No, Roe,” Amina said with a sigh. “It’s the lawyer from the firm across the hall from the place I work. Hugh Price.” Her face went all gooey.

So I asked the obligatory questions: how he’d asked her, how long they’d dated, if his mother was tolerable… and the date and location of the ceremony. Amina, a traditionalist, would finally be married in Lawrenceton, and they were going to wait a few months, which I thought was an excellent idea. Her first wedding had been an elopement with myself and the groom’s best friend as incompatible attendants.

I was going to be a bridesmaid again. Amina was not the only friend I’d “stood up” for, but she was the only one I’d stood up for twice. How many times could you be bridesmaid to the same bride? I wondered if the last time I came down the aisle ahead of Amina I would have to use a walker.

Then my mother and John made their dignified exit, John’s white hair and white teeth gleaming, and my mother looking as glamorous as usual. They were going to honeymoon for three weeks in the Bahamas.

My mother’s wedding day.

I got dressed for the first wedding, the January one, as though I was putting on armor to go into battle.