On the morning of my wedding, I stood in front of the bridal suite mirror with a layer of concealer over a b/ruise that no amount of makeup could fully hide. My left eye was swollen just enough to turn heads and invite whispers from anyone who looked too closely.
My maid of honor, my best friend Megan Carter, kept asking if I wanted to cancel everything before it was too late. I told her no because I had spent too many years learning how to smile through humiliation to walk away before I understood exactly how deep it truly went.
The b/ruise had not come from a fall, nor from an ac.cident, and it certainly did not come from some dramatic crime in a dark parking lot. It came from my mother, Patricia Reynolds, who had always cared more about control than love.
The night before the wedding, she had stormed into my apartment because I refused to let her rearrange the seating chart for the third time that week. She wanted her country club friends seated in the front rows, my late father’s sister pushed toward the back, and my future mother in law placed far away from the head table.