On my wedding day, as we were all dancing, she suddenly appeared laughing hysterically.
Then, horrified, I saw her son standing behind her.
I froze.

My brain couldn’t register what I was seeing. Her little boy—Santi—just standing there, in that familiar dinosaur t-shirt he always wore when he came over.
But he was supposed to be gone.
I looked again. It wasn’t him. The kid was a guest’s child, about the same age, with messy dark curls and the same wide grin. He tugged at my dress and asked if there were more cupcakes

smiled weakly and pointed toward the dessert table.
But my sister, Noelle, she was laughing. Loudly. Wildly. The kind of laugh that didn’t match the room. People stopped dancing. The music didn’t.
Then she dropped to her knees.
I rushed over, kneeling in my gown beside her. “Noe, what’s going on?”
She just stared at me. Tears started pouring down her cheeks, and in between fits of laughter, she whispered, “They told me you’d understand.”