JENNIE

ONE YEAR LATER

I watch Mary's adorable flower boys, and, for a split second, I catch myself thinking that those should have been my kids—the kids Kai and I had. But Kai and I didn't have any kids, and Mary's lucky that she now has two step-grandkids at her second wedding. She wouldn't have been so lucky if Kai and I had stayed together—if I hadn't gone and fallen for his sister.

The whole thing is a peculiar state of affairs and maybe luck has nothing to do with any of it, because it would be pretty insane to chalk today's configuration of family members up to good luck alone. There's been plenty of drama and bad luck along the way as well. And I'm still not a mother. My new partner didn't come with an instant family—unlike Kai's.

Lisa and I sometimes talk about kids, and she knows how much I want them, but we've only been together a little more than a year.

Lisa's her mother's maid of honor. Kai is giving his mother away. A smile tugging at my lips, I remember how Lisa railed against how traditional Mary wanted her wedding to Nathan to be, how 'stupidly patriarchal'—Does she really need a man to give her away to another man? Are we really that stuck in the seventeenth century?—but Mary wants what Mary wants, and Lisa couldn't argue with that.

"You do whatever you want at your own wedding, darling," Mary said, and that was the end of it. It made me wonder if Lisa and I would ever marry. Kai's asked Bridget to marry him, although, in his case, he's not only asking her to be his wife; he's also asking her kids to officially become his step-kids. I'm happy for him that he met a woman who made all his dreams come true.

I keep my gaze on Lisa, who is not a gown-wearing kind of woman, but she's dressed in one today, for her mother. Because Mary asked, Lisa said yes immediately, even though it would make her feel uncomfortable for a day. Because Lisa adores her mother and the day she—finally—moved out of Mary's house, only a few weeks ago, to move in with me, was surprisingly emotional—and not just because we were taking the big step of shacking up together. Even though she's almost thirty, Lisa has lived with her mother her entire life. When I call her a mommy's girl, she takes it as the biggest compliment. So there she is, looking dazzling in her glossy pastel-yellow dress, complementing Mary, making her mother look good. I couldn't take my eyes off her if I wanted to.

From my front row seat, I witness how Mary and Nathan say 'I do' to each other. How they vow to be loyal and all the other things that marriage seems to require, but rarely lives up to. It's a little disconcerting to think that the next wedding I'll go to is my ex-husband's.

Mary's beaming. Nathan looks at her with so much love in his eyes. Eleven years ago, I said 'I do' to Mary's son. Lisa was there, but I don't have any recollection of her at our wedding. Although she certainly didn't agree to wear a dress back then, not that her brother would have asked her. Kai's always just let Lisa be Lisa.

Most of all, today, I'm happy for Mary—that she gets her happy ending, too. It's hard to forget how Lisa disapproved of Nathan at first, how she called him Keanu—which isn't the worst of names to call someone, but it was still disrespectful. How it took her time to get used to him, but not as long as she might have expected, because Nathan's sweet and caring and he makes sure there's always tequila at the house. But, in the end, Lisa also accepted Nathan because her mother loves him. Just like Mary accepted that Lisa chose me, because Lisa loves me. And I love Lisa.

I find her gaze. She looks at me with those big brown eyes of hers. They're moist and she looks a little flustered. In response, tears prick behind my own eyes. Kai and I are no longer married, but I never stopped being a part of this clan. They're my family, too, as convoluted and unlikely as we may be together.

I send her a smile and, in return, she blows me a kiss.

To say it's easy and free of any awkwardness to share a table with Kai and Bridget would be a flagrant lie. Although Kai lives in Washington now, we have seen each other at the occasional Manoban family gathering—and when we settled our divorce—but Mary's wedding is of an entirely different nature.

Kai and I have so much history together. We shared more than a decade of our lives with each other. We went through so many ups and downs. Maybe it would be different if I didn't have anything to do with the Manobans anymore, but that's not the case. I may no longer be called Jennie Manoban, but I'm still part of the family. I look at my ex-husband and maybe it's a blessing that we're forced to remain part of each other's lives, albeit in a very different capacity. Because I don't want to forget Kai and all the adventures we had together. All the peaks and valleys that make for a life. I've never had any reason to hate him and I'm so glad that he hasn't ended up hating me—and his sister. He might have been so hurt, so broken and humiliated, that his only option was to hate me, but, perhaps, deep down, I always knew he wouldn't, because that was not the kind of man I married all those years ago.

One of the boys tugs at his arm.

"Pleeeeaaaaase," he says, "Kai, will you come with me. I said please. Please, please, please."

Kai's face lights up in a way that I haven't been privy to in a long time. In a way that it couldn't light up anymore when we were together.

Kai hoists the boy—his name's Cooper—onto his lap. "Why don't you sit here with me?" He bumps Cooper up and down on his knee and the boy squeals with delight. He whispers something in Cooper's ear next and it must be hilarious because Cooper bursts out laughing.

Some men are meant to become fathers. Kai became an architect and a husband—and he was a kind of surrogate father to his little sister for a long while—but all he ever really wanted was to be someone's dad. Even though I couldn't give that to him, I can be happy for him now.

Bridget ruffles a hand through Cooper's hair, then lovingly folds her arm around Kai's shoulders. If you didn't know any better, you'd take this for a table representing the picture-perfect family that's always been there. But with so many things in life, not everything is what it seems.

I feel someone's hand on my neck.

"Damn it," Lisa whispers in my ear. "I can't wait to get out of this dress. What am I? Some sort of human doll that only exists for the sake of—" I shut her up by kissing her on the lips in front of everyone. We can do that now. Everyone knows that we love each other.

"No one asked Kai to wear a dress," she says, as soon as I stop kissing her.

"Babe," I say. "It's what your mother wanted."

"My mother wants so many things." Her features soften when she looks at me. Her eyes narrow. She digs her front teeth into her bottom lip.

"Your mother has everything she could ever dream of," Mary chimes in. "I'm serious." Mary's voice is low enough so only the people at our table—her family—can hear what she says. "A dream of a husband. Two kind and smart children. Two lovely daughters-in-law." She swallows hard. Her gaze cuts from me to Bridget, then back. Mary looks me in the eye. This mother Lisa and Kai share is, for a large part, responsible for who they have become—for the two people I've loved and love most in the world. "Thank you for making my children so happy."

While I return Mary's kind gaze, I hold Lisa's hand in mine.