Chapter 463 Lori's Wonder:>84

• My heart broke for her, for this beautiful girl who would never be able to have what I had, because of what fate had done to her; she'd never wear that ring and be Andy's wife, no matter how much they both wanted it. At that moment I understood just how deeply I was being gifted, that Davey and I could do this, and that poor, beautiful girl could never have what I had. It took a while to get over that. I suspect Davey guessed my heart suddenly wasn't in it, if his puzzled looks were anything to go by, but eventually I pulled myself together and threw myself back into my special day.
• It took a long time, though, before the sadness I felt for Linda and her tragedy mellowed enough that I could think about her, and wonder how I could help her, or what, if anything, we could do to make it right for her. (As it happened, she found a way; Davey and I were never more happy than the day we attended her wedding, to her beloved Andy; sometimes Fortune smiles on us when we least expect it, and now Linda, Andy, and their little girl are the happiest family in the world.)
• The food was excellent. Aunt Sophie had excelled herself in the choice of caterer, the cake was everything I'd wanted it to be, made and decorated by a mind-reading queen among cake-makers, with four tiers draped in swathes of perfectly realistic sugar pastillage roses and cornflowers, and gilt-edged swags and realistic drapes of folded sugar-work, beautiful, elegant, formal, and dramatic. The music was all I could have wanted, too, played by a string quartet for the formal dancing, and a local band who gave us dance music to pass away the evening.