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niece—her brother’s daughter.
    “I
like pink better.”
    Shit.
Even her attempts to be friendly always seemed to backfire. “I like pink too,
but since it’s Christmas, all the flowers are going to be red. So a red sash
would match better.”
    “Oh.”
    “You
can have pink if you—” Lydia began. The wedding was going to be very small. No
one but family. If it meant the girl would be happy, Lydia didn’t care if her
dress didn’t match.
    But
Gabe interrupted, “You like red too, don’t you, Ellie?”
    “Yes.
I guess so. But I wanted a pink sash.”
    “A
pink sash won’t match the flowers. So you can have a red sash or you can have
no sash. Whichever you’d like.” His voice was a little sterner than normal. Not
much, but it obviously had an impact on Ellie.
    The
girl’s head dropped. “I’ll have a red sash,” she mumbled.
    “All
right then.”
    “It
will be really pretty,” Lydia said, feeling bad that she’d somehow gotten the
girl in trouble with her dad and not wanting Ellie to blame her for it. “We can
make it hang down really long like the dress. We can do a knot or a big bow in
the back.”
    Ellie
looked up at her soberly. “Bows are for little girls.”
    “Okay.
Then Mia can have the bow and you can let your sash hang down. There are
wedding dresses that are made like that sometimes. And your flowers will be red
tulips that match.”
    “I
like tulips.” The girl wasn’t smiling, but she looked a little less upset.
    Feeling
encouraged by this progress, Lydia said, “I do too. They’re my favorite
flowers.”
    As
they stood waiting to pay, Gabe stroked Ellie’s hair. She leaned against him,
and he put his arm around her.
    Lydia
felt an odd, completely irrational pang in her chest.
    They
were clearly family—as close as people could get. She wasn’t part of it. She
might be marrying Gabe, but she wasn’t going to be part of this family. She
would always be an outsider.
    Someone
without even a good name to be called.
    It
was fine. It was what she wanted. She couldn’t have ties like this if she
wanted to devote herself to her work in India. It would only pull her away from
her calling.
    This
was all part of the transitory life she would be leaving behind.
    But,
still, her chest ached a little as they left the store.
    ***
    They ate lunch at a
restaurant in the mall that had macaroni and cheese that Ellie liked, and they
were on their way out when Lydia saw familiar faces.
    “Micah,”
she called, seeing the couple walking with a toddler beyond the sunglasses stand.
“Alice.”
    Daniel’s
brother, Micah, turned and grinned when he saw her. He was an attractive,
rugged man with a warm smile, and his wife Alice was quiet and sweet with
beautiful, long, wavy hair that Lydia had always envied.
    Lydia
liked both of them, so she was smiling for real as they approached with their
daughter, Cara.
    Lydia
gave Micah and then Alice a big hug, feeling more comfortable than she had
before—since these were people she really knew and understood.
    Gabe
and Ellie she didn’t really know. And she didn’t really understand them.
    “We
heard the news,” Micah said, looking almost rakish as he grinned at her.
“Congratulations.”
    “Thanks.”
Lydia was a little embarrassed, the way she always was when she introduced Gabe
as her fiancé, but she managed to hide it. “This is Gabe. And this is his
daughter, Ellie.”
    Micah
and Gabe shook hands, and then Alice, who was chasing after Cara, waved and
said it was nice to meet him.
    “Have
we met before?” Micah asked, giving Gabe a close look.
    “I
don’t think so.”
    “You
know Mary and Henry from church, right? He’s their son. But he’s a lot older
than us, so he was in college by the time we were in school.”
    She
glanced up at Gabe and saw he’d tightened his lips, and she realized that maybe
she shouldn’t have said he was old.
    She
was terrible at being a fiancée.
    She
stepped over toward him and tried to think of something