I was taken aback, not only by the insensitivity of her words but by the implications they carried. Lily wasn’t just a “part” of the wedding to be debated or discarded. She was my daughter, the center of my universe, and I had always visualized her standing with us, celebrating the love that had brought us all together. I asked Rachel to elaborate, hoping that I had misunderstood, that there was some logical explanation that would ease the growing knot in my stomach. What she said next, however, confirmed my worst fears.

Rachel admitted that she saw our wedding as a fresh start, a way to build a new life together — solely as a couple, without the “baggage” of previous relationships. In her vision for our future, Lily was merely an inconvenient reminder of my past, not an integral part of our present and future. She suggested that Lily stay with her grandparents on our wedding day to make things “less complicated.”