**The Last One at the Wed­ding — Chap­ter Sum­ma­ry**

The nar­ra­tor reflects on the trag­ic death of his wife, Colleen, who suc­cumbed to a brain aneurysm while work­ing at Michaels, leav­ing behind their ten-year-old daugh­ter, Mag­gie. This event pro­found­ly affect­ed their lives, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Mag­gie faced the tur­moil of ear­ly ado­les­cence with­out her moth­er. The nar­ra­tor grap­ples with feel­ings of guilt, often wish­ing he had tak­en Colleen’s place, believ­ing she would have raised Mag­gie well while he sup­port­ed them from his Team­sters pen­sion. The nar­ra­tor acknowl­edges his short­com­ings as a father, espe­cial­ly giv­en his strained rela­tion­ship with Mag­gie, who had stopped speak­ing to him for three years.

Fol­low­ing this somber back­drop, he nar­rates Mag­gie’s sur­prise announce­ment of her engage­ment to Aidan. How­ev­er, he is appre­hen­sive about the sud­den news, par­tic­u­lar­ly after real­iz­ing she and Aidan are already cohab­it­ing. The nar­ra­tor is not shocked by this rev­e­la­tion, under­stand­ing the eco­nom­ic pres­sures of liv­ing in Boston, where hous­ing is cost­ly. Mag­gie’s pre­vi­ous apart­ment was a mis­er­able space infest­ed with sil­ver­fish, which she detest­ed. Con­se­quent­ly, her deci­sion to move in with Aidan was like­ly a relief.

Despite his con­cerns about the state of their new liv­ing arrange­ment, the nar­ra­tor insists on cel­e­brat­ing the engage­ment at a restau­rant rather than at their apart­ment. He offers to pay for the meal, want­i­ng to make the occa­sion spe­cial, but Mag­gie deflects this, insist­ing that they gath­er at her place instead. This rais­es alarm bells for the nar­ra­tor, who ques­tions the safe­ty of the area they live in, espe­cial­ly giv­en alarm­ing news reports about local crime.

While he tries to con­ceal his wor­ry, he’s still hes­i­tant and wants to ensure his daugh­ter is safe in her new envi­ron­ment. His con­cern under­scores his pro­tec­tive nature as a father, yet he ulti­mate­ly seeks to sup­port Maggie’s choic­es, request­ing her to text him their address as he pre­pares to meet her and Aidan. The chap­ter con­veys a mix of grief, appre­hen­sion, and a desire to recon­nect with his daugh­ter amid the com­plex­i­ties of their evolv­ing fam­i­ly dynam­ics.