The rehearsal dinner at the country club was full of people wearing jewelry that cost more than my annual salary. I found my seat at Table 15 which was located right next to the kitchen doors and far away from the stage.
“My mother is the woman who taught me grace,” Felicity announced during her toast while the room applauded her performance. She thanked Kenneth for being a hero and then turned her gaze toward the back of the room where I was sitting.
“And this is my stepsister, just a nurse,” she said with a smirk that caused half the room to chuckle. Kenneth laughed the loudest while Monica sipped her wine with a look of pure victory on her face.
I noticed that Silas Montgomery was the only person who did not laugh because he was staring at my mother’s pearl earrings. He whispered something to his wife and then stood up to walk toward the microphone after the toasts were supposed to be over.
“I have been looking for a specific person for three years,” Silas said as the room went quiet and the servers stopped moving. He described the accident on the highway and the woman who had saved his life by kneeling in the glass and rain.
“The paramedics told me that if she hadn’t held my neck still, I would be paralyzed or dead,” Silas told the shocked crowd. He looked directly at me and told everyone that the “angel” he had been searching for was sitting at the back of the room.
The silence was so heavy that you could hear the air conditioner humming in the background of the ballroom. Silas walked down from the stage and came straight to Table 15 where he took my hand in front of everyone.
“You told me your sister was unstable and struggling,” Garrett said to Felicity while his face turned a deep shade of red. He asked her why she had lied about a woman who had literally saved his father’s life.
Felicity tried to say that she was just trying to protect the family’s privacy, but the lie didn’t work this time. Silas announced that he was giving me a two hundred thousand dollar grant for my medical education through his foundation.
Kenneth tried to come over and act like a proud father, but Silas blocked him and asked why his daughter was sitting by the kitchen. My father had no answer and looked down at his shoes while the rest of the guests began to clap for me.
I realized then that I didn’t need their approval because I had already built a life that mattered without them. I left the dinner with my head held high and a bright future that my sister could never take away from me.
