My team from the West Coast sat with their characteristic discipline. Officers from my current station filled the middle sections in their formal uniforms.
And then I saw the empty space.
The Absence That Spoke Volumes
The first three rows on one side of the church were completely vacant. Conspicuously, painfully empty.
The ushers had followed tradition, marking those rows as reserved seating with white ribbons. Now those decorative touches looked more like barriers marking off something tragic.
My father, my mother, and my brother were not there. Not a single member of my immediate family had shown up.
My stomach twisted with a feeling that had nothing to do with typical wedding day nerves. I pulled my phone from a hidden pocket in my dress one final time.
I’d called my brother in desperation twenty minutes earlier. The only response was a text message glowing on my screen with just a few cold words: “Don’t expect much from us.”
