And then the DJ’s voice came over the speakers.
“All right, all the single ladies! It’s time! Come on down to the dance floor. The bride’s got a bouquet to throw!”
There was the usual laughing and shuffling as women got up from their tables. A gaggle of them gathered in the middle of the floor — Claire’s friends, some cousins, a few of the younger women.
And Claire, standing there with her bouquet, looked over at our table. Right at Mia.
“Come on, Mia!” she called out, laughing. “You too, sweetheart! Get in there!”
Mia froze. She looked at me, eyes wide. “Me?”
“Go on,” I said. “You heard her.”
I could see Mia’s whole body fill up with a shy, thrilled kind of joy. I wheeled her out onto the edge of the dance floor, and the other women — bless them, every one of them — made room. They shuffled aside and pulled Mia’s chair right into the middle of the group, patting her shoulders, one of them fixing a curl that had come loose, everyone smiling down at her. For a moment, my daughter was not the broken girl in the corner. She was one of the girls. She was in the circle. She belonged.
