On My Wedding Day, Mom DIED!

Dawson introduces his mother to other people as the live-in help he has hired. Her name is Luna Lester. She ran a chicken-slaughtering stall in a country town for most of her life, and after her husband died young she raised Dawson alone, paid his school fees, and bought him a flat in the city. She has come north because he is about to marry and his bride is pregnant, and because a doctor has just told her that her heart is failing and she has seven days left. She wants to see the wedding. Dawson finds her country manners embarrassing, which is why he calls her the help. The bride's mother cares about how the family looks, decides Luna is a stain on it, complains about the smell of chicken feathers on her, and works to get her out of the flat. Luna says nothing and smiles through it because she wants to be there for the day. Dawson sides with his mother-in-law every time it comes to a choice, since the marriage is his way up. Luna packs and leaves without telling anyone, meaning to see out the time she has left on her own. Dawson does not know that his mother is dying. The wedding goes ahead, and at the point in the ceremony where custom calls for it he kneels to the bride's mother.