\u201cHas she signed anything yet?\u201d<\/p>\n
I heard David\u2019s mother ask the question while my wedding dress hung beside me, still wrapped in the white bag from the alterations shop.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I thought Margaret meant the venue paperwork.<\/p>\n
Then David laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot yet. She wants to read everything properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it with an affectionate sort of contempt, as though my caution were a habit he had learned to tolerate.<\/p>\n
I stood very still.<\/p>\n
Three minutes earlier, his face had filled my phone screen. He was at his parents\u2019 house, holding two folded table runners against his chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlush or red?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBlush. There\u2019s enough colour in the flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThought you\u2019d say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Someone had called him from another room.<\/p>\n
\u201cHold on. My mom needs me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The screen went dark. I assumed he had covered the camera or put the phone face down.<\/p>\n
I waited because there were still things to discuss. Whether his father had collected the buttonholes. Whether we needed an extra chair for Ruth. Whether he remembered that Beth would only walk down the aisle if Lucy walked beside her.<\/p>\n
Now Margaret was asking about my signature.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat exactly is she frightened of?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe isn\u2019t frightened. She just gets particular about money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, she can afford to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
My bedroom window was open. Somewhere outside, a wheel caught against a crack in the pavement. A bin scraped, stopped, scraped again.<\/p>\n
I watched a loose thread on the garment bag move in the breeze.<\/p>\n
David lowered his voice, but not enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter tomorrow, it\u2019ll be easier. She wants us settled. With those kids, stability is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those kids.<\/p>\n
My son, Harry, was fourteen. My sister\u2019s twins, Lucy and Beth, were nine. They had lived with me since their mother died three years earlier.<\/p>\n
David had never called them those kids in front of me.<\/p>\n
He called them our lot. The girls. Harry, my mate.<\/p>\n
Once, after helping Beth glue a cardboard roof onto a school project, he had said he hoped that one day they might feel comfortable calling him Dad.<\/p>\n
I had gone into the kitchen afterward and cried quietly beside the sink.<\/p>\n
Not because I wanted anyone to replace my sister, or because I thought a man could repair what death had broken. Because he had seemed willing to belong to us without asking us to become easier first.<\/p>\n
Margaret spoke again.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the house?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll do that once we\u2019re married.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the bedroom door.<\/p>\n
On the landing stood a narrow bookcase I had sanded and painted during the first winter after the twins arrived. Harry had helped me fit it between the banister and the wall. The girls kept their bedtime books on the bottom shelves.<\/p>\n
The house was not grand. One bathroom, a kitchen drawer that jammed, a patch of damp by the back door when the rain came from the east.<\/p>\n
But it was ours.<\/p>\n
I had bought it before I met David. I had paid the mortgage while raising Harry, then rearranged nearly every room to make space for two grieving little girls and all the things they had brought from their mother\u2019s flat.<\/p>\n
David knew what it had taken.<\/p>\n
He knew because I had told him.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoint account first,\u201d he said. \u201cThen the property. Once she sees how much easier it is, she\u2019ll stop asking questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then?\u201d<\/p>\n
A short silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce it\u2019s all shared, I won\u2019t need to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words were ordinary. That was what made them difficult to understand.<\/p>\n
He might have been discussing when to leave a restaurant.<\/p>\n
I pressed my thumb against the edge of the phone case.<\/p>\n
Margaret gave a low laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve certainly put the hours in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t remind me. The school things alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
I could hear a cupboard closing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarry watches everything I do. The girls are easier, but there\u2019s always something. Homework. Pickups. Somebody crying.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ended the call.<\/p>\n
I did it deliberately, finding the red symbol with a thumb that had begun to tremble. I did not want another sentence to attach itself to one of the children\u2019s faces.<\/p>\n
Then I stood in my bedroom and waited for the explanation that would make the conversation mean something else.<\/p>\n
None came.<\/p>\n
Downstairs, the washing machine finished. Its tune floated up through the floorboards.<\/p>\n
My dress hung beside the wardrobe.<\/p>\n
Lucy had tied a little blue ribbon around the hanger that morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor luck,\u201d she had said.<\/p>\n
Beth had corrected her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something blue. There are rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
They had argued gently about whether the ribbon counted if I didn\u2019t actually wear it. David had been making tea downstairs. I remembered hearing him call up that brides were allowed to invent their own rules.<\/p>\n
I sat on the edge of the bed.<\/p>\n
My name is Clara. I was forty-three years old, and until that afternoon I had believed I was about to marry a kind man.<\/p>\n
Not a perfect one.<\/p>\n
He left wet towels on chairs. He interrupted films to explain things I had understood. He sometimes grew quiet when the girls talked about their mother, and I had assumed that was uncertainty rather than impatience.<\/p>\n
Those were things I could live with.<\/p>\n
I had been living with them.<\/p>\n
What I had overheard was something else.<\/p>\n
A knock came at the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cMum?\u201d<\/p>\n
I put the phone beneath my thigh.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry opened the door halfway.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you seen my grey tie?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKitchen chair.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the cardigan.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stayed where he was.<\/p>\n
Fourteen was an awkward age for him. He had grown suddenly that spring and seemed uncertain what to do with his arms. He folded them now, then unfolded them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou all right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorting something out.\u201d<\/p>\n
His eyes moved to the dress, then to my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it the seating?\u201d<\/p>\n
I nearly laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you can put me wherever. I don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did care. He had asked three times whether he would be seated with me or with the children.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour seat is fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded without leaving.<\/p>\n
I understood then how closely he watched adults. He had watched his father leave when he was small. He had watched his aunt die after an illness everyone kept calling manageable until it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Now he was watching me pretend I could breathe normally.<\/p>\n
\u201cRuth said she was baking,\u201d I told him. \u201cWould you take the girls over? Ask whether those biscuits are ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, please.\u201d<\/p>\n
He searched my face once more.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the front door closed, I walked downstairs and checked that the latch had caught.<\/p>\n
The kitchen looked offensively ordinary.<\/p>\n
A spoon lay in a puddle of yoghurt. Someone had drawn a face on a banana. The place cards were stacked beside the toaster, with Margaret\u2019s name on top in Lucy\u2019s careful handwriting.<\/p>\n
I turned the stack over.<\/p>\n
My first instinct was to call David.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to hear what he had done to me. I wanted to ask when it had begun, how much had been real, whether he remembered Beth falling asleep against him in the car after the school fair.<\/p>\n
But if I called while I was shaking, he would have time to explain.<\/p>\n
He would tell me I had misunderstood.<\/p>\n
He would say his mother brought out the worst in him, that people talked nonsense, that marriage was about trust.<\/p>\n
And I did not yet know whether anything he had asked me to do had already left us exposed.<\/p>\n
I put the kettle on.<\/p>\n
I never made the tea.<\/p>\n
Instead, I called Nina.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease tell me this isn\u2019t about the table runners,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
I stared at the open cupboard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to change tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her voice altered immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
I told her that David had left our call connected. I told her he and Margaret had been discussing my finances and what they expected me to sign after the wedding.<\/p>\n
I did not repeat the remarks about the children.<\/p>\n
Speaking them aloud felt like bringing something dirty into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want me to cancel everything?\u201d Nina asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what I want yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it isn\u2019t. Everyone\u2019s coming. His aunt\u2019s already at the hotel. Ruth bought a dress. The girls\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cClara.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t need to solve the whole day on this call.\u201d<\/p>\n
I pulled out a chair.<\/p>\n
She waited while I sat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can still be changed?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe schedule. Who gets access to which rooms. Whether there\u2019s a ceremony. Whether guests are told before they arrive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan David change anything without me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot under our agreement. You\u2019re my client.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had arranged the wedding and paid the main deposits. David had offered to transfer his share after we combined finances.<\/p>\n
Another ordinary detail acquired an edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake him off every instruction list,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd Margaret. Nobody changes arrangements unless you hear it from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd please don\u2019t tell them yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no excitement in her voice, no suggestion that we could make a spectacle of it.<\/p>\n
That steadiness helped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need advice before I decide what happens tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen get it. I\u2019ll keep the day still until you\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
After we hung up, I opened the drawer where I kept Elaine\u2019s card.<\/p>\n
She had dealt with the practical wreckage after my sister\u2019s death: the guardianship arrangements, the insurance correspondence, the money that needed to be kept separate for the girls.<\/p>\n
She had a way of asking simple questions that made tangled things lie flat.<\/p>\n
Her receptionist put me through.<\/p>\n
\u201cClara?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry. I know it\u2019s Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
This time I told the whole thing.<\/p>\n
I cried when I repeated the line about not needing to stay.<\/p>\n
Elaine let me finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you signed anything he sent you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything at all? Electronic forms, an authority, a transfer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I kept asking for time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood. Send me every version.\u201d<\/p>\n
I opened my laptop.<\/p>\n
There were three attachments in an email thread David had titled Our next chapter.<\/p>\n
I remembered the evening he sent it. He had been sitting opposite me at the kitchen table, helping Harry work out a maths problem.<\/p>\n
He had looked up and said, \u201cJust some boring grown-up things. We\u2019ll get them out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
One attachment concerned the house. Another set out arrangements for shared funds. The third proposed giving him authority to deal with certain financial matters on my behalf.<\/p>\n
They were not signed.<\/p>\n
They had no power merely because he had attached them to an affectionate email.<\/p>\n
But seeing them together, after hearing what he expected, made my stomach pull tight.<\/p>\n
I forwarded the entire thread.<\/p>\n
Elaine asked where he lived.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe still has his rented flat. He stays here several nights a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes he receive post there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKeys to your house?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAccess to your banking?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows roughly what\u2019s there. He doesn\u2019t have my login.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s keep it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
She did not tell me that marriage was harmless or that every asset I owned would remain untouched whatever I did. She explained that my circumstances needed proper advice and that the wedding itself was different from the documents he wanted signed.<\/p>\n
For tonight, the important facts were simpler.<\/p>\n
I still controlled my accounts.<\/p>\n
The house remained in my name.<\/p>\n
The arrangements we had already made for the children were separate from David\u2019s proposed documents.<\/p>\n
Nothing she had seen suggested he had acquired rights simply by planning a ceremony with me.<\/p>\n
I could choose not to proceed.<\/p>\n
I could choose not to sign.<\/p>\n
The relief was physical. I bent forward until my forehead almost touched the table.<\/p>\n
Then the next thought arrived.<\/p>\n
He had known how much I feared failing the children.<\/p>\n
He had used that knowledge to make his involvement feel necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cElaine?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWill you come tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n
She was quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the venue?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore anything starts. I need to speak to him, and I don\u2019t trust myself to hear his answers properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can come.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll pay for your time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll deal with that separately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Afterward, I checked the accounts.<\/p>\n
I did not move money around in a panic. I changed passwords where I had reused them, removed David from the household shopping account, and checked the contact details on the children\u2019s records.<\/p>\n
The work steadied me.<\/p>\n
Each completed task had an end.<\/p>\n
Heartbreak did not.<\/p>\n
At half past five, Ruth brought the children home carrying a tin that smelled of butter and warm sugar.<\/p>\n
She took one look at me and asked Harry to find plates.<\/p>\n
When he had gone, she set the tin down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth lived next door. She had known my sister. She had watched the twins while I filled in forms after the funeral, and once, during a winter sickness that moved through our house person by person, she had appeared with clean towels and said nothing about the state of my kitchen.<\/p>\n
I told her David and I might not be marrying.<\/p>\n
Her mouth tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes he know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you safe?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen tell me what you need.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked whether she could keep the children with her at the venue while I dealt with something privately.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd afterward, whatever happens, could you come home with us?\u201d<\/p>\n
She put her hand on my forearm.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
We did not discuss revenge. We discussed which bag held Beth\u2019s cardigan and whether Harry would eat breakfast if he was nervous.<\/p>\n
Those things mattered.<\/p>\n
David rang while the children were having supper.<\/p>\n
I took the call in the utility room, beside the humming freezer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ready for tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice was so familiar that for one weak second I wanted to step back into believing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about seeing you walk in.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at a pair of Lucy\u2019s muddy trainers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course. You sound tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot to arrange.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter tomorrow, let me take some things off your plate.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
He had said that before. At the school gates. Beside a leaking radiator. When I was too tired to finish a sentence.<\/p>\n
I had loved him for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll talk tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLove you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words waited.<\/p>\n
I could not make myself return them.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood night, David.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I came back into the kitchen, Harry was scraping sauce from Beth\u2019s plate onto his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d he said when he saw me looking.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wasn\u2019t eating it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
After supper, I gathered the children in the sitting room.<\/p>\n
I had spent an hour trying to find words that were true without being cruel.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething has happened between David and me,\u201d I said. \u201cWe need to have a serious conversation tomorrow. The wedding may not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucy immediately looked at her dress bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it because of us?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I said it too sharply. She flinched, and I moved closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, sweetheart. It isn\u2019t because of anything any of you have done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beth sat very upright.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he say he doesn\u2019t want to?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said some things that made me realise I need to stop and think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry was watching the carpet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you going to make us talk to him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked up then.<\/p>\n
\u201cPromise?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girls asked practical questions.<\/p>\n
Would we still go to the venue? Yes, unless I changed that plan.<\/p>\n
Would Ruth be there? Yes.<\/p>\n
Would they have to walk down the aisle? No.<\/p>\n
Did they still have to wear their dresses?<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly if you want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beth wanted to. Lucy did not know.<\/p>\n
Harry asked nothing else until the girls had gone upstairs.<\/p>\n
Then he followed me into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow bad?\u201d<\/p>\n
I put both hands on the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cBad enough that I can\u2019t marry him tomorrow without dealing with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
For a moment I thought he would offer to help. I braced myself to tell him that he was a child and this was mine to handle.<\/p>\n
Instead, he said, \u201cCan Ruth bring those lemon biscuits?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later, I found him sitting on the landing outside the girls\u2019 room, reading something on his phone while they fell asleep.<\/p>\n
I went back downstairs before he saw me.<\/p>\n
Nina called at nine.<\/p>\n
I had made my decision by then.<\/p>\n
There would be no legal ceremony.<\/p>\n
The registrar would meet with me before the scheduled time, confirm that I was withdrawing, and remain in the side room until the arrangements were clear.<\/p>\n
David would be told privately first.<\/p>\n
The children would be elsewhere.<\/p>\n
If guests arrived before the conversation ended, they would be seated and offered refreshments. Nobody would be asked to listen to an accusation over the public-address system.<\/p>\n
The meal could still be served.<\/p>\n
The people who had travelled would not have to leave hungry because I had discovered something terrible too late to stop their journeys.<\/p>\n
Nina asked about the flowers.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe photographer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTell him there won\u2019t be a ceremony. No photographs of the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe music?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlay it while people arrive. Stop it when we go inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd your dress?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the stairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m wearing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nina did not ask why.<\/p>\n
I was not entirely sure I could have answered.<\/p>\n
Partly because I had chosen it myself. Partly because I did not want Margaret to see me arrive in yesterday\u2019s clothes and decide I was confused.<\/p>\n
Mostly because I could not bear to surrender every good thing about the day before I knew which ones still belonged to me.<\/p>\n
Near midnight, I untied the blue ribbon from the hanger.<\/p>\n
In the morning, I would wear it around my wrist.<\/p>\n
I slept in scraps.<\/p>\n
At four, I heard the cat knocking something from the kitchen counter. At five, rain ticked against the window. By six, the clouds had begun to thin.<\/p>\n
I stood beneath the shower until the water cooled.<\/p>\n
Ruth came through the back door with breakfast.<\/p>\n
Harry\u2019s tie turned out to be exactly where I had said it was.<\/p>\n
The girls argued over hair clips, and for two minutes the house sounded like any other Saturday.<\/p>\n
Then Beth asked whether David would be angry.<\/p>\n
I knelt in front of her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he is, the adults will handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot Harry?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot Harry.\u201d<\/p>\n
She glanced toward him.<\/p>\n
He was pretending to study the toaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I repeated. \u201cNot Harry.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the children went to get their shoes, Ruth helped fasten my dress.<\/p>\n
Her fingers paused at the last button.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t owe anybody a performance today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I met her eyes in the mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The venue was a converted mill with pale stone walls and a courtyard full of flowering pots. I had chosen it because the children could run safely in the enclosed garden.<\/p>\n
Nina met us at the side entrance.<\/p>\n
Elaine had arrived.<\/p>\n
The registrar understood.<\/p>\n
The staff had the revised instructions.<\/p>\n
I spoke to the registrar alone. She asked me a direct question, and I gave her a direct answer.<\/p>\n
I did not consent to the marriage taking place.<\/p>\n
Saying it aloud made my knees feel strange.<\/p>\n
Afterward, I sat for a minute in an empty room while someone tested the music outside.<\/p>\n
Ruth brought the children to me.<\/p>\n
Harry had done his tie badly. I straightened it.<\/p>\n
Lucy touched the ribbon around my wrist.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt counts now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d I said. \u201cIt counts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then David arrived.<\/p>\n
He crossed the courtyard with the easy confidence I had once found reassuring.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He kissed my cheek. I could smell the cologne I had bought him at Christmas.<\/p>\n
Margaret was inspecting the blush runners. She looked up, smiled, and lifted two fingers in a little wave.<\/p>\n
Guests began settling into their seats.<\/p>\n
Beyond the glass doors, Ruth handed lemonade to the children.<\/p>\n
David moved toward the flowers at the front, then stopped when Nina quietly shifted a chair.<\/p>\n
The venue manager closed the folder containing the ceremony schedule and opened the revised running order.<\/p>\n
David looked at him, then at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened to the registrar?\u201d<\/p>\n
I took the breath I had rehearsed in the mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s in the side room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause there isn\u2019t going to be a wedding ceremony today.\u201d<\/p>\n
END PART 1<\/p>\n