Chapter 1

When she noticed her daughter’s number, Darcy should have not picked up her phone, but she pressed the speaker button anyway. She drove in afternoon traffic to the attorney’s office to meet her client, Monica, for the three o’clock mediation with her soon-to-be ex-husband.

“Mom, I need to talk to you,” Joyce said.

Joyce’s voice sounded tinny against the wind as it whipped through the open windows of Darcy’s ancient sports sedan lacking air conditioning. She refused to roll up the windows when her back stuck against the seat from Sonoma County’s summer heat.

“Then talk.” Darcy took the exit for Highway 12 in Santa Rosa.

“I’m getting married, and I want you to plan my wedding,” Joyce said.

The driver ahead slammed on the brakes.

“Oh, no!” Darcy shoved her foot on the brake and honked her horn as her vehicle slid to a stop. Her heartbeat raced in her chest, and beads of salty sweat streamed down her forehead and dripped from her nose.

“Mom? What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Darcy snapped. She didn’t know if she felt shock or anger as Joyce’s words slowly withered like a dead flower in her mind’s eye. “You’re getting married?”

“To Tyler. You met him a while ago. The last time we visited.”

Hoping to see more of her twenty-eight-year-old daughter, Darcy relocated from Southern California to Northern California. But she only made one trip to San Francisco in the three years she lived here. “And you want me to plan your wedding?”

Traffic started moving again. Darcy gripped the phone tighter, hoping no highway patrol officers lurked nearby to give someone a ticket. “I’m a divorce planner, not a wedding planner.”

“You’re the best party planner,” Joyce said. “Remember when you planned a pony sleepover?”

A reluctant smile spread across Darcy’s face. “Yes, you were seven.” A divorce changed everything a year afterward, and their mother-daughter relationship never fully recovered. “You wanted those tiny pastel horses as decorations.”

“What a wonderful party! I’m sure you can make my wedding even better than that. We’ll have—”

“Why?” Darcy exited the freeway and turned down the city street toward the attorney’s office. She breathed in deeply and steadied her voice in an attempt to reason with her daughter. “You’re too young, too ambitious, and too smart to settle down.”

“Statistically, it’s best to marry when you’re between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-two,” Joyce said. “Couples of those ages are least likely to divorce.”

“Statistics don’t mean anything, sweetheart.” Why couldn’t her daughter follow her heart? she thought.

“Yes, they do,” Joyce said. “You’re more likely to get divorced if you live together and have a child first, which is exactly what you and Dad did. I’ve never lived with Tyler although we’re buying a house before the wedding, and I’ve no intention of getting pregnant before the wedding. I should be married forever.”

“Forever is a long time.” Too long, Darcy thought.

“Not long enough when you’re in love. I know you’ve built your career against marriage, but I want you to put it aside for one year. Planning my wedding is the only thing I’ve asked of you since the divorce, and it’s the only thing I’ll ever ask.”

“That’s not true.” Darcy slipped into a parking spot. “You asked me to pay for school, including your ridiculously expensive master’s degree.”

“I prefer to think of my tuition as an investment.”

“Well, I never realized any return on my money.”

“Are you asking me to pay you back?”

Joyce’s exasperation surprised Darcy. Her grip loosened on the phone. Repayment wouldn’t be bad, Darcy thought. She could move into her own place. She turned off the engine. “I’m asking you to be grateful.”

“I am grateful. I’m so grateful I’ll pay you to plan my wedding.”

Grabbing her briefcase, Darcy stepped into the blazing sunshine and locked the car doors. She thought about her own wedding as a twenty-two-year-old college graduate with a one-year-old daughter toddling around the garden, picking grass and putting it in her mouth. Darcy had asked her mother to care for Joyce so Darcy could gather her girlfriends to help with the last-minute adjustments to her wardrobe.

Too poor to splurge on anything, Darcy wore her mother’s wedding dress tugged tight around her post-pregnancy middle. Her freshly washed hair kept falling out of the bun one of her girlfriends pinned to make room for the veil. Worst of all, her eyes itched and watered from allergies, which challenged the strength of her waterproof mascara. But those details faded against the spark Darcy felt for her boyfriend, Nathan, who sported good looks and athleticism. What he lacked in ambition, he made up for in the kitchen and the bedroom, serving up food and affection equally appealing.

That Darcy earned more than him didn’t matter. He could stay home and tinker in the garage, designing gadgets he might one day patent into something useful, while she worked as an event planner for a big Los Angeles firm focused on exclusive clientele, including the occasional celebrity. Darcy being the breadwinner didn’t matter until the part-time nanny became Nathan’s full-time lover. The life they had created dissolved so quickly Darcy sometimes wondered if it had existed at all.

Now, she struggled to contain her fears so she wouldn’t spoil her daughter’s same romantic illusions. How could she fight against her nature? After all, she thrived in helping people rally legal aid, housing, child support, and career options. She loved planning freedom parties to celebrate the finalization of divorce. She could not imagine drumming up the same level of enthusiasm to help her daughter pick out fine china she would never use and select a five-thousand dollar dress she would only wear once.

“Mom?”

Joyce’s tender, yet pleading, voice rankled Darcy’s resistance. “Okay, okay, okay. I’ll help you plan your wedding.”

The thrilling shout of victory from Joyce’s mouth washed away Darcy’s hesitation. But as soon as she ended the call, darkness rushed back in and flooded Darcy with doubt. How could she make my daughter’s dreams of happily-ever-after come true when she only knew how to undo the knots of unhappily-ever-after? Darcy wondered.

****

At three o’clock, Darcy stepped into the mediation offices of DeSoto & DeSoto, registered with the receptionist, and took a seat in the waiting area.

Five minutes later, Monica dragged her ten-year-old son by the arm into the waiting area.

Joey kicked his legs and screamed.

Dark-haired Monica swatted him with her hand.

Joey twisted and turned to struggle out of his mother’s grasp.

The receptionist fumbled with her phone, staring wide-eyed at the commotion.

Tensing her shoulders with dismay, Darcy frowned. From what she remembered, Joey suffered from autism and developmental delay. He tuned out the world and threw tantrums like a two-year-old. Although he wore a freshly washed, striped shirt and denim jeans, he smelled like he spent the last hour rolling around in a pig pen. Probably because he needed his diaper changed.

With her puffy eyes and worn-out clothes, Monica looked exhausted from the non-stop work of caring for a perpetual toddler, who grew bigger and stronger but not any smarter. Darcy met Monica through Legal Aid and agreed to help her organize her divorce from beginning to end. A year of battling back and forth between Monica and her soon-to-be ex-husband led them to the point of court-appointed mediation. Darcy didn’t want Monica to reschedule this appointment, but she couldn’t imagine Monica negotiating a settlement agreement with her son screaming and kicking in the same room. “Where’s his respite worker?”

“Sick,” Monica said. “I called for backup, but In Home Support Services didn’t have someone available.”

Darcy shuddered. How could anyone live a normal life with a disabled child without professional support? “Not even for an emergency?”

Monica struggled to pin her son against the carpet like a wrestler. “They don’t consider mediation an emergency.”

Darcy stood and waved her hands to get Joey’s attention.

Screaming, Joey broke free of his mother’s grasp and flung his arms and legs against the floor. “Song!”

“He needs his music.” Monica shook her phone. “But the battery is drained.”

Darcy grabbed her phone from her purse. “What type of music?”

“His favorite band is Puddle of Mudd.”

After searching the tracks of alternative rock music on her phone, Darcy selected “Psycho.”

The jarring beat and odd lyrics instantly calmed the boy. He dropped to his knees like a rag doll.

Holding the phone above her head, Darcy knelt.

The mediator called Monica’s name.

Monica grabbed Joey’s arm.

Shaking her head, Darcy waved an arm. “You can leave him with me.”

“Are you sure?” Monica raised her eyebrows.

“Yes.” Her phone was fully charged, but she hoped her patience lasted. “We’ll be fine.”

Monica bit her lower lip.

Since Darcy had known her, Monica seemed stressed all the time. Now Darcy knew why. Caring for this unpredictable child dismantled the endurance of the most patient parent. “Your attorney will support you. I’ll stay here with Joey until the meeting is done, okay?”

The worry lines on Monica’s forehead erased. She touched Darcy’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Pride pulsed through Darcy’s body. Who else could step in and help a divorcing parent of a disabled child so they could finalize their divorce? Not an attorney, not a judge, and not a CPA. Only a skilled, creative, and resourceful divorce planner could.

The song rattled on and on.

Pleased with her decision to download the music from the DJ she dated for three weeks, Darcy smiled and knelt on the scratchy carpet.

Joey rocked back and forth near the row of chairs. He stared at the ceiling, lost in his own little world of music.

Darcy relaxed into the song with Joey, letting her shoulders slump forward and her heartbeat slow to the beat of the drum.

****

That evening, Darcy stood in front of her closet, searching for the best dress to wear to the Legal Aid Gala when her phone rang. Without glancing at the caller ID, she swiped her thumb across the screen. “Hello?”

“I can’t believe you. You’ll ruin the wedding.”

The caller spewed hot venom over the line. Darcy lurched with fear and dropped the black dress she held. Her ex-husband seldom called following Joyce’s high school graduation. Her pulse galloped in her chest and sweat beaded along her forehead.

“Nathan, I’m not ruining anything.” How dare he assume she volunteered for the job? She curled her hand into a fist. “Joyce asked me to plan it.”

“You didn’t have to say yes. But you’ll never change. You will always do whatever she says, won’t you? She’s still the tail wagging the dog.”

Shame at the truth behind his statements heated her cheeks. She shook her fist in the air. “I don’t know why you’re complaining. The wedding is not yours.”

“Because I don’t want our daughter getting it into her mind she can just walk away if this marriage doesn’t work out.”

“Just like you walked away?” Darcy placed a hand on her hip and took a step back.

“I didn’t walk away. You did.”

The weight of failure descended on her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t started an affair with Tanya.”

“I didn’t have an affair with Tanya. We didn’t start dating until after you moved out.”

“She moved into your bedroom three days after I left.” Darcy swept an arm across the dresses, skirts, and blouses in her open closet. “She even wore the clothes I forgot to take.”

“Darcy—”

“Don’t Darcy me. You have no right to call and yell. I have every right to hang up right now, but I won’t because you’re the father of our daughter.” Darcy took a deep breath and exhaled to the count of three. She stooped to retrieve the simple slip dress she wore to every special occasion. Tonight, the dress looked as tired and as uninspired as she felt.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said. “When she called and told me, I kind of flipped out. I had hoped she would go with our wedding planner.”

“Your wedding planner?” A fresh wave of shock knocked the wind out of her. She sank on the edge of the bed and clutched the dress to her chest like a security blanket.

“Tanya and I are getting married this fall. We could get a two-for-one deal if our wedding planner took care of both weddings.”

A strange blur danced through Darcy’s vision. The room spun and pointed her in a new direction. Why hadn’t Joyce mentioned her father’s wedding when she called? Did she think she could spare her mother’s feelings by shielding her from the truth? After all, as long as Tanya and Nathan lived together, Darcy could dismiss Tanya as a shack-up girlfriend, a casual fling, or a person of no consequence. Once they married, Tanya’s status elevated from disrespected floozy to regarded wife. Tears pricked Darcy’s eyes. “Why are you guys getting married after all these years?”

“Feels right.”

The pain of betrayal squeezed her chest. In the eight years they had been married, Nathan’s mantra was, “Think. Don’t feel.” Had Tanya’s involvement over the years transformed him? “You’re not a very feeling person.”

“Okay, so it’s practical, too. Easy estate planning. Nothing to think about if one of us dies.”

Over the years, Darcy worked with enough attorneys to know the ins and outs of family law. “That’s just an excuse. All legal stuff can be taken care of through a trust.”

“Why do you care if I want to marry her?”

Darcy sobbed. Their marriage had been a marriage of convenience, necessity, and moral rectitude, since they shared a child, but the marriage had not been full of love. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Her throat tightened. “I guess what you’re saying is she’s The One.”

He laughed. “You’re bitter, aren’t you? You became a divorce planner to get revenge every day through your clients.”

She shook her clenched fist. “That divorce business kept a roof over your head with all the child support I paid you.”

“And now look where it’s gotten you…a room in someone else’s house.”

“At least, I’m doing what I do best.”

“Good for you. Bad for Joyce. You should have told our daughter you didn’t want to plan her wedding. You’re not good at starting a marriage, only ending one.”

Darcy crumpled the soft dress in her fist. Why couldn’t Nathan just leave her alone? Why did he always taunt her? The hatred in the back of her throat tasted like bile. She mustered enormous strength to bite her tongue and stop arguing for another five minutes. Outside her closed bedroom door, she smelled hickory smoke from the barbecue chicken Sam grilled in the backyard. Linda’s laughter burst like tiny bubbles over a joke Sam must have said. Her roommates, a long-time married couple, always seemed so compatible. They danced back and forth between their differences like a beautiful waltz.

Darcy thought of her clients who struggled with a rollercoaster of emotions as they negotiated how to divide child custody, spousal support, and shared assets. She then thought of her best friend, Betty Barnes, and her husband, Chuck, and their second-time’s-a-charm marriage full of unconditional love. Her thoughts circled to Joyce and all her enthusiasm for marriage, in spite of having parents who presented the reality of the darker, more cynical side of love gone wrong. Finally, she thought of her marriage. She always played and failed in the traditional role of wife. She should let him alone with his opinion and change the dynamics of the situation. “Congratulations to you and Tanya. I wish you both only happiness. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going now to get ready for an event.”

“Okay,” Nathan sighed. “I’ll let you go.”

As soon as he hung up, delightful silence filled the room.