Mrs. Parker looked at Daniel, then back at me like she was trying to decide whether to say it out loud.
Finally she sighed and sat down slowly on the edge of the dresser stool.
“Honey,” she said to me, “Daniel faints at the sight of blood.”
I honestly thought she was joking.
Daniel looked absolutely miserable standing there in his wedding shirt holding a tiny first aid kit from the hotel bathroom.
Turns out while opening the champagne earlier, he sliced his thumb on broken glass trying to impress me by sabering the bottle like some YouTube video he’d watched.
Tiny cut.
Barely anything.
But apparently this had been a problem his whole life.
Mrs. Parker started talking before he could stop her.
“When he was twelve he passed out during a flu shot and hit his head on a Walmart cart. We still have the paperwork somewhere.”
“Mom,” Daniel said quietly.
She ignored him.
“When his father had surgery, Daniel fainted in the hospital cafeteria because somebody described stitches.”
At that point I was trying so hard not to laugh I had tears running down my face.
Daniel looked offended for maybe five seconds before he started laughing too.
Then his mother opened the first aid kit and said, completely serious, “I brought apple juice and crackers because his color already looks bad.”
That somehow made it worse.
I laughed so hard I slid halfway under the blanket.
And honestly, that was the moment I stopped feeling nervous about being married.
Not romantic music.
Not the wedding.
My new husband sitting pale as printer paper while his mother handed him apple juice like a Victorian child.