Kate and I tried to convince her not to keep secrets, arguing that maybe her parents would understand Megan’s need to find out about her past and would then help us with valuable details about the adoption. But Megan wouldn’t budge, saying she knew it would hurt their feelings. When her parents had told her she was adopted—they’d waited until she was a teenager—they requested she not look for her biological mother. But asking a teenager not to do something is sort of like asking a gator not to bite you. She couldn’t stop thinking about a reunion and finally hired me without their knowledge.

I may not have delivered on Megan’s request in time for the wedding, but we talked every week. When she mentioned that the woman who was supposed to do the wedding book delivered a premature baby last weekend, I volunteered to fill in. That’s how I’d ended up at that disaster of a wedding rehearsal dinner last night and this chilly affair today.

Mendelssohn’s overture began. Everyone rose to face Megan and her father as they slowly walked toward the preacher and groom. Once they reached the altar, the balding, stern-faced James Beadford kissed his adopted daughter and placed her satin-gloved fingers into Travis Crane’s outstretched hand. The bride and groom stared into each other’s eyes, then turned to the preacher.

Here’s where the lying starts, I thought to my cynical self.

Thirty minutes later, I did the driving while Kate directed us to the reception at the Beadford house. She was using the tiny map insertion from the invitation. The lady with the hat had gotten away from me during the crushing exodus after the ceremony, but I assumed there would be others besides her I would have to catch up with to sign the book—those folks who skip the ceremony and just show up for the booze and the food. I knew about those types because of my own January wedding several years back, the one I hadn’t really forgotten. The one I could only hope to forget in time.