THE SEVENTH CHAIR

Six weeks before the wedding, I began receiving calls of regret.

First was Aunt Adèle, my mother’s younger sister.

“I’m so sorry, Camille, but Margaux’s party at Le Meurice is just too grand to miss. You understand, don’t you? After all, it’s the first grandchild in the family.”

Then Uncle Marcel, my father’s older brother.

Then two cousins, a close friend of my mother’s from her youth, even the old neighbors from Rue Oberkampf I’d called “auntie” and “uncle” since childhood.

Each call followed the same structure: a brief apology, a reason involving how Margaux’s party was “more important” or that they’d “already committed,” and a hollow congratulations at the end.

I logged each name that dropped from the list in a small notebook, not because I wanted to remember, but because I needed concrete proof that this was really happening, that I wasn’t imagining it.

By the end of May, my list of forty-two guests had only fifteen names left unconfirmed as withdrawals.

I called my father, hoping he would be the one to stand firm.

“You’ll come, won’t you, Dad?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

There was a long pause on the other end.

“Camille, you know how important Théo’s party is to your mother.”

“I’m asking about you, not Mom.”

“I… I’ll try to stop by your wedding for a bit, after the party.”

“My ceremony starts at four in the afternoon, Dad. Margaux’s party starts at the same time.”

“Then I’ll come to you first, and go there after,” he said, but there was no certainty in his voice at all.

I knew, right then, he was lying to both of us.

Two weeks before the wedding, I visited my parents one last time, bringing a reprinted invitation with the time and place clearly marked, as if seeing it in black and white would make it more real in their eyes.

My mother was busy wrapping a gift for baby Théo, an expensive carved wooden cradle custom-ordered from an artisan in Provence.

“Look, isn’t it beautiful?” my mother asked me, her voice bright as a young girl’s, not noticing the invitation in my hand at all.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, setting the invitation down on the table beside the pile of wrapping paper. “I just want to make sure you remember the time for my wedding.”

My mother looked up at me, and in that instant I saw something flicker across her eyes — maybe guilt, maybe just irritation at being bothered.

“I know, Camille. Don’t make such a fuss.”

“I’m not making a fuss, Mom. I’m just asking whether my family will be attending my wedding.”

“Of course the family will be there,” she said, but she didn’t look me in the eye when she said it, bending back down to continue wrapping the gift for the grandchild not yet born.

I left the apartment that day with a strange feeling — not anger, but a hollow sadness, as if I were watching a film whose ending I already knew, yet still hoped would turn out differently.

I didn’t tell Marcus everything that night.

I only said: “Brace yourself. Our wedding might not be as full as we planned.”

He held my hand, asked nothing further, only said: “Even if it’s just the two of us standing there, I’ll still marry you.”

I didn’t know then how close to the truth those words would turn out to be.

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