At my wedding, the mother-son dance was meant for my grandma — the woman who raised me. But when the DJ called us up, Grandma was missing… and my stepmom was on the dance floor, smiling like she’d won. When I found out what she did to Grandma, I had to make her pay.
I checked my watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. The ceremony had gone off without a hitch, but now my heart was racing for a completely different reason.
My grandmother Eleanor, the woman who had raised me since I was ten, was nowhere to be found.
“Have you seen Grandma?” I asked Maddie, my bride, as she adjusted my tie with gentle fingers.
Her eyebrows furrowed. “She said she was going to the restroom a while ago. Isn’t she back yet?”
I shook my head, a knot forming in my stomach. Something was wrong.
The DJ had just announced the mother-son dance, and Grandma Eleanor’s seat was empty. This wasn’t like her at all.
“She wasn’t at her table. Not in the hallway. Nowhere,” I muttered, scanning the reception hall one more time.
Grandma Eleanor had been my rock, my home, and my biggest supporter since Mom died.
When Dad remarried Linda ten years ago, she’d seemed nice enough at first.
But over the years, her obsession with trying to be my “real mom” had created a tension that never quite went away.