Chapter 144 -
Isadora took over the wedding planning on a Tuesday morning and did not ask anyone's permission.
She arrived in the sitting room at nine with a notebook, three fabric swatches, and the expression of a woman who had already made most of the decisions and was now informing the relevant parties. Rosa was already there with coffee. Lucia arrived two minutes later. Nia came in last, looked at the notebook, and sat down without saying anything.
"Flowers first," Isadora said. "Then the venue layout. Then food. We do not discuss dresses until we have agreed on everything else because dresses derail everything."
"The estate chapel," Rosa said. "It’s a forty-seat capacity building. That is the appropriate size."
"Sixty," Lucia said. "There are political relationships that require presence. You cannot invite the Ferrara seat and not the eastern bloc. You invite one, you invite all."
"Sixty people in the chapel is a fire risk."
"The chapel has two exits."
"Sixty people is not a wedding, it is a summit."
"Rosa." Lucia looked at her with the patience of a woman who had survived thirty years in the Cimmera's inner circle. "This is not a civilian wedding. The guest list is a statement."
"The guest list," Rosa said, "is my responsibility and I have been managing the guest lists of this family since before you were born."
Isadora looked between them. Then she wrote something in the notebook.
"Fifty," she said. "Final number. Non-negotiable. Next."
Both women looked at her.
"Flowers," Isadora said.
"White," Rosa said.
"Colour," Lucia said.
"This is a formal occasion—"
"It is also a celebration—"
"White roses with deep red accents," Isadora said, writing it down. "It's formal and it has colour. Next."
Micheal appeared in the doorway with a plate of Rosa's biscuits and the expression of a man who had identified a comfortable observation post.
"I'm just here for the biscuits," he said.
"Out now," Isadora said without looking up.
"I have a thought about the music."
"Nobody asked."
"I arranged Gabriel's birthday party last year—"
"You ordered thirty balloons and forgot to order food," Rosa said.
"The balloons were exceptional." He set the plate on the table, which was clearly the strategy all along, and leaned against the doorframe. "Two minutes."
Isadora looked at him. He gave her the look he had refined over thirty-two years: patient, mildly entertained, entirely unbothered.
"Two minutes," she said.
His music suggestions were genuinely good. She wrote it down without commenting. He left looking like a man who considered any outcome where he stayed two minutes a personal victory.
Nia watched Isadora from her end of the table with the expression of someone watching a force of nature in its natural habitat. She had seen Isadora organize a neighborhood community drive with twenty volunteers and zero budget. She had seen her manage a building water crisis for four days with pure logistics and willpower.
She had never seen her quite like this, precise and absolute and completely at home in a room full of people who were accustomed to being the most formidable person present.
Isadora was holding her own, even more than holding it.
"Seating," Lucia said. "The families cannot be mixed carelessly. Ferrara beside Vasquez is asking for a territorial conversation at the dinner table."
"Ferrara left, Vasquez right, DeSanto family and inner circle at center," Isadora said. "Nia between the two blocs. She is the bridge. That is the visual."
Lucia considered. "That's actually very good."
"I know," Isadora said.
Rosa looked at Nia. Nia looked at the ceiling.
"The ceremony itself," Rosa said. "Short or long."
"Short," all three of them said simultaneously.
There was a brief pause before Lucia almost smiled. Rosa almost smiled back.
"Short," Isadora confirmed, writing it down. "Fifteen minutes maximum. This is not a performance. It is a statement."
"The cake," Lucia said. "Simple or structured."
"Simple," Isadora said. "Three tiers. Classic. Nothing that competes with the room."
"Agreed," Rosa said, the first time she had agreed with anything since the meeting started.
Isadora made a note.
Gabriel came in from the corridor in his school clothes with his bag still on his back and stopped in the doorway. He looked at the women around the table. He looked at the notebook. He looked at Nia.
"Is this the wedding meeting?" he said.
"Yes," Nia said.
He came and sat beside her with great seriousness, depositing his bag on the floor and folding his hands on the table.
"I am the ring bearer," he said. "I need to know the plan."
Isadora looked at him. Something in her face softened in a way it only did with Gabriel.
"The plan is that you walk in first," she said. "Very slowly. Very carefully. The rings are on a small cushion and you hold it with both hands."
Gabriel absorbed this with the gravity of a general receiving a briefing.
"I will not drop them," he said.
"I know you won't," Isadora said.
"Uncle Nardo said they are very important."
"He's right."
"I have been practicing walking slowly," Gabriel said. "With a book on my head. Papa showed me."
Rosa made a sound that might have been a laugh, quickly converted.
"You will do perfectly," Isadora told him.
Gabriel nodded. He unfolded his hands and picked up a biscuit from the plate Rosa had left on the table and ate it with the measured calm of a man who has received his orders and is now conserving energy for the task ahead.
Micheal's face appeared at the doorway window.
Isadora pointed at the door without looking up.
The face disappeared.
Nia looked around the table: Rosa with her coffee, Lucia with her swatches, Isadora with her notebook, Gabriel eating his biscuit with ring-bearer focus and his bag still on his back, and felt, with an ordinary and complete certainty, that this was hers. All of it.
The arguments about guest lists and the biscuit plate and the small boy who had been practicing walking slowly with a book on his head because his father showed him and he took the responsibility seriously.
This was the life she had not planned for and would not trade.
Outside, Leo crossed the courtyard toward the east wing, phone to his ear, already working, already tracking Santiago. She watched him and he did not see her and that was fine. She would be here when he came in.
Micheal's face appeared at the window again.
Isadora pointed without looking up. The face disappeared.
"Vows," Isadora said. "Written or traditional."
"Written," Nia said. The first thing she had contributed in forty minutes.
Everyone looked at her.
"He'll do it properly if they're his own words," she said. "I know him."
Isadora wrote it down. Rosa nodded once with the expression of a woman who had watched Leo DeSanto for twenty-two years and knew Nia was right.
And outside, Micheal pressed his face to the glass one final time and mouthed something at Isadora that was either "the music" or "thank you." She did not look up. She did not need to.