Free It's You by Jane Porter

we join others drinking and eating on the flagstone terrace.
    “I did the flowers for a wedding here a couple weeks ago,” Diana says, sipping her wine. “The couple married in the chapel, and then had their reception here on the patio. It was a stunning wedding. They spent over one hundred thousand dollars on the flowers alone.”
    I think of the wedding I’d planned with Andrew. My throat squeezes tight. It’s hard to breathe.
    I look away and study a server carrying a silver tray of canapés. Salmon and cream cheese with a bit of dill on something. And I suddenly know why I feel out of sorts in my red knit dress in this swanky Northern California setting.
    Andrew should be my date tonight.
    Andrew should be partnering me through life.
    I did everything with him for years and this is the first social event I’ve gone to without him.
    I take a quick sip from my wine and another, masking the ache in my chest with the warmth from the wine.
    I shouldn’t have come tonight. Why did I accept the invitation? But on the other hand, it had sounded fun. I’d been excited to go out, do something, and Diana offered me the ticket, not someone else. I can’t let her down. I can’t be bad company.
    I force myself to pay attention to Diana, even though she is now talking about yet another wedding and weddings aren’t my favorite subject. But I smile and nod and ask questions when appropriate and then finally we’re called to dinner.
    I will get through the evening. Even if it means I’m going to have to drink a lot of Merlot tonight.
    • • •
    I do drink a lot of Merlot. I drink so much that I oversleep the next morning and am late arriving at Napa Estates to have Sunday brunch with Dad.
    As we wait for the hostess to seat us, Dad asks me about last night’s event. I tell him the music was excellent. It was a concerto for guitar and strings and the setting couldn’t have been more lovely. “The only bad thing is that I might have had a little too much red wine.”
    “Headache?” he guesses.
    I nod. “Food should help. Water, too.”
    “Have you taken anything for it, yet?”
    “I will, as soon as we eat.” Although honestly, food sounds horrendous right now. I’d like to be back in bed, in a dark room, sleeping the afternoon away.
    “So you didn’t enjoy your girl time,” Dad says as we’re seated at a table for ten.
    I gaze longingly at the small tables, the ones set for two and four. I’d like to sit at one of those today. I’d like to just hide in Dad’s apartment but that’s not going to happen. Dad has become a very social senior.
    “I did. It was fun,” I answer, sitting down in one of the empty chairs next to his.
    “Your friend. She’s not married?”
    “No. She’s single.” And Diana was funny when she talked about her love life and her dates and how horrible her last date was in bed. According to Diana, that’s why she sleeps with them early on, to weed out the lousy lovers before she’s emotionally invested. “She was sharing her dating adventures with me last night. They’re pretty comical.”
    He leans on the table. “So when are you going to date again?”
    I draw back, offended and caught off guard. “I don’t know. When are you?”
    “Hmph. Maybe sooner than you think.” And then before I can even begin to process this, he gestures for some of his eighty-and ninety-year-old cronies to come sit with us.
    • • •
    T he Extra Strength Tylenol begins to kick in halfway through brunch. Gradually I can eat a little more and focus a little better on the conversation at the table.
    With the seventieth anniversary of D-day just a few weeks away, the invasion at Normandy and World War II is very much on everyone’s mind, particularly as so many of these men served in the war, seeing action if not in Europe, then in the Pacific.
    Dad chases his eggs around his plate with toast. “Just like people always remember where they were when they heard that Kennedy had been shot, I’m