My mom should have been here for this. She was supposed to be here for all of this.

In the three weeks since Kash had proposed for the third—and last—time, Marcy and I had been on a wedding planning kick that didn’t show signs of slowing down until we had every last detail in place. As part of that, we’d been dress shopping all morning. I’d put off looking for a dress for myself as we picked out the bridesmaids and mother dresses, but that only worked for so long before the three of them were shoving me into a room with a sales assistant who was getting all up close and personal with my body as she helped me into dress after dress.

After five misses, I found myself in this one. The one dress I didn’t want to even look at, but the assistant begged me to “just try.” I should have known the evil genius would try and succeed at making me cry.

The strapless dress flowed down to the ground in a sweep train, making me look ethereal, or like I belonged in ancient Greece. But my favorite part was the crisscross bodice that led to an empire waist, and I stared, transfixed, as my fingers trailed across the ruching. It was perfect, Kash would love it—and I knew if my mom were here, she would have loved it too. A few traitorous tears slipped down my cheeks and I made quick work of sweeping them away when the women all made sounds of admiration and sympathy as they saw them.

“You look stunning, Rachel,” Marcy choked out and began searching through her purse.

“I was going to ask how you feel in it, but it’s all over your face. You’re glowing,” Mrs. Gates added and rubbed Marcy’s shoulder when she started blotting her cheeks with a tissue she’d found in her purse.

Maddie stood up and walked over to me, turning my body so I was facing the mirrors again. “What if we did this,” she said mostly to herself as she loosened her hair from a clip, and began gathering up mine.

I watched as she made a messy—yet somehow styled—bun, low on the side of my neck and held it together with the now-hidden clip before stepping away. My next intake of breath was audible, and she smiled.

“Perfect.”

I couldn’t respond, but I agreed wholeheartedly. Bringing my hands up, I covered the majority of my face, not even bothering with the tears still slowly falling down my hands, and continued to stare at the transformed reflection in the mirror.

“What do you think? Is this the one?” the saleswoman asked softly, and I turned to smile at her.

“Yeah.” I stopped to clear my throat and shook my head as I gathered myself. “Yeah, it is. I love it.”

She did a happy clap reminding me so much of Candice, and I asked Maddie to grab my phone to take pictures so I could send them to Candice and her mom, Janet. After calls from a squealing Candice, and a crying Janet, I reluctantly went back to the dressing room to change into my clothes.

Once the dresses were bought, and an extra bridesmaid dress ordered for Candice to try on in Texas, the three of us went out for lunch and the wedding planning took off once again. We already had a venue, photographer, and food for June 28; and now that I had the dress, I felt like the rest would fall into place easily. But for the first time in these last three weeks, I wasn’t in the mood to plan. I wanted my mom to be here helping, and nothing was going to ease the ache of knowing she couldn’t.

“OH, MADDIE! You so shouldn’t have brought me here,” I whispered as I took in all the dogs whimpering and barking in their kennels at the shelter a few days later.

“Why?” She turned to look at me with worried eyes. “Are you afraid of dogs or something?”

“No, now I want to take one home with me!”

“Ha! They’re sweet, and looking at them like this just breaks your heart, doesn’t it?”

My eyes latched onto a skin-and-bones pitbull that looked like he was ready to cry. “That’s the understatement of the year. How do you work here and not take all of them home with you? I start bawling whenever I’m watching TV and I hear Sarah McLachlan start singing, because I know abused and depressed-looking animals are about to follow.”

Maddie threw her hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter as she led me through a maze of dogs. “Oh God, that’s so true! It’s like you can’t find the remote and change the channel fast enough!”

A dog so ugly he was cute smashed himself against the gate next to me, and in my mind I was hearing him beg me to take him home. “We need to go before I adopt all of them. Why did you bring me here?”

“I need to check on my babies. When I came in about a week ago, someone had abandoned a dog and her puppies at the door. Like, literally left her tied to the handle of the door, and the box of her puppies next to her. They just became available for adoption two days ago, and I hate not seeing them every day, and I just know they’ll all be gone by the time I come back in on Saturday.”

I want to take you home! And you, oh you’re really sad-looking, I need to stop looking at you. This is such a bad idea, I need to get out of— Oh, I want to take you too! “Maddie, I’m not joking, we need—”

“Aww, just you two left?”

My jaw dropped and I stopped walking. “Oh. My. Word.”

“Aren’t they precious?”

“I’m in puppy love,” I whispered as Maddie pulled a little golden retriever puppy out of a smaller kennel.

“This one is such a trip. I swear he’s the flirt of the bunch. Indifferent toward males, loves all females.”