I Won't Wait for Later

On our wedding day, Eric walked out. He left me standing there in my dress, in front of a room full of guests, and went to find his daughter, who had vanished.

It was past midnight before he brought her home from his late wife's grave.

The girl was still crying. "I don't want Daddy to marry someone else." He held her and settled her down for a long time, and when he finally came back to our room, all he said was, "We'll do the wedding later." I asked if that was really it for today, and he turned it back on me. "What else?

She's twelve. You want me to make her stand there and watch her own father marry another woman?" And then I remembered something.

Back when we were picking the date, he had said, without much interest, that there was no harm in doing it later. I looked at him and asked, quietly, "The wedding didn't happen.

Were you relieved too?" Chapter 1 Eric was quiet for a few seconds. "Do you have to say all this to me today, of all days?" I didn't answer.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, and his voice came down a notch. "The wedding not happening doesn't mean I'm not marrying you." "She just lost control of herself today." "Give it some time.

Once she's come around, we'll do it again." He paused, then added, "I decided to marry you. I'm not backing out over something like this." Decided.

I looked down at the roses on my dress, already going limp at the edges. I made a small sound. "Got it." Eric looked like he could finally breathe.

He came over and worked the veil loose where it had caught in my hair. His hands were as gentle as they always were. "Get some sleep." "She just fell asleep.

I'll sit with her a while, so she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night crying again." I said, "Okay." The door closed. The room went quiet.

I sat down at the vanity and took my hair apart myself. The stylist had used a lot of bobby pins, and she had buried them deep.

Somewhere past the twentieth pin, my scalp had started to hurt. Partway through, my phone rang. It was the wedding planner. She asked carefully, "Ms.

Underwood, you're not asleep yet, are you?" "They cleared the room out in kind of a hurry today, and there are a few things I wasn't sure you still wanted." "The bouquet, the vow cards, and the champagne flutes you two were keeping as a memento — they're all still here at the hotel." I checked the time.

Two forty in the morning. I wasn't going to sleep anyway. I pulled a coat on and went downstairs. The ballroom was most of the way torn down already.

The corridor that had been packed with flowers a few hours earlier was down to a scatter of white petals on the floor.

The staff were taking down the blownup engagement photo at the entrance. In the picture, Eric was in a black suit and I had my arm through his. He wasn't smiling.

The photographer had worked on him for a long time that day. "Mr. Whitaker, you're getting married. Look happy." Eric gave him the faintest curve of his mouth.

I stood off to the side that day, laughing, and I explained him to the photographer. "He's just like that." "He isn't unhappy." Thinking about it now.

Apparently I have always been very good at explaining Eric. The planner came toward me carrying a cardboard box. "These are all yours." The two vow cards were sitting on top.

Mine was covered edge to edge in writing. Eric's was half a page. It was the first time I had seen his vows.

At the rehearsal I'd tried to sneak a look, and he had pulled the card out of my hand. "If you read it now, what's the point of tomorrow?" I was secretly happy about that line for a long time.

I thought it meant he had written something he didn't want me to know ahead of time. Chapter 2 Now I picked that thin card up. The writing on it was Eric's own hand.

Clean, decisive strokes.

The first line was: "I'm grateful for these years of knowing you." The second: "Thank you for being willing to accept my past, and thank you for always being good to her." Then further down. "From here on I'll work at being a decent husband." "We'll take care of her together as she grows up." That was all.

I stared at the last line for a long time. The planner was still beside me, packing things up. Something came back to her, and she told me with a smile: "Oh, Mr.

Whitaker's was originally longer than that." "After the rehearsal yesterday he came and got a new card from me." "He said a few of the lines weren't quite right, that he was worried they'd make his daughter uncomfortable." I asked, "Which lines?" "Let me think." She thought back for a moment. "Something about starting a new family, I think, and a family of three, that kind of thing." "Mr.

Whitaker said the girl lost her mom only a few years ago, and she's sensitive about words like that." "So he cut all of it." I nodded slowly. "I see." There wasn't really anything wrong with it.

She was twelve. Her mother had died young. It was normal for Eric to think about how she'd feel.

The same way he'd said, when we were picking the date, that there was no harm in doing it later.

The day we shot the engagement photos, she didn't want to come in for the set with all three of us, and Eric said then we wouldn't shoot it.

The planner suggested making her the ring bearer, carrying the rings up to the front. Eric turned that down too. "Don't push her into it." Every time.

I thought he was simply a very good father. If anything, it made me more certain. Marrying a man like that couldn't be a mistake. My phone lit up again.

Eric. [She's awake, she's looking for me.] [I'm sleeping in her room tonight.] A few seconds later he added one more. [Don't read into it.] I wrote back: [Okay.] The planner finished packing and asked, offhand, "So do you still want me to hold dates for the makeup wedding?" "There are two good weekends in October." I looked down.

I was still holding the vows Eric never said out loud. I used to think it was fine. Fine that the wedding came later. Fine that his daughter didn't take part.

Fine that the vows were short. Eric was the man I was going to spend my life with anyway. What did any of those formalities matter? It wasn't until that day that I noticed.

Every time, the one who said "It's fine." Was always me. I put the vow card back in the box. "You don't need to hold anything." The planner blinked. "Then if Mr.

Whitaker settles on a time later—" "Have him call you himself." I smiled a little. "I'm the one who's handled this whole wedding." "Next time." "If he still wants one, he can come do it himself." When I woke up the next day it was almost noon.

The dress was still in a heap on the couch. I'd been too tired when I got in to take off more than half my makeup. There were more than a dozen missed calls on my phone.

I assumed they were from my family. When I opened it, I found that most of them were from the hotel and the wedding planning company.

The wedding had been called off with no warning, and the catering, the flowers, the photography, and the guest rooms all had to be reviewed and settled separately.

I answered them one by one. Halfway through, there was a knock at the door. Eric pushed it open and came in.

He was still in yesterday's shirt, the collar badly creased. "You're up?" I hummed something back.

Chapter 3 He glanced at the invoices next to my hand. "You don't need to deal with those." "Let my assistant handle it." I kept my head down and went on checking the numbers. "They're mostly handled already." Eric stopped for two seconds.

He was probably thinking about yesterday.

He came over and sat down beside me. "Still angry?" I said, "No." He gave a thin smile. "Every time you're angry you say no." That was true. I had always been like that.

There was a night he'd promised to take me to a movie.

Right as we were leaving, his daughter got into it with another kid at her private day school, and the teacher called for a parent to come in.

Eric didn't even have time to change his jacket before he was out the door. I sat in the theater alone and watched it to the end.

When he got home that night he asked if I was angry, and I said no then too.

Eric put his arms around me from behind, chin on my shoulder, and said, low: "I know it isn't fair to you." "I'll make it up to you next time." They brought that movie back later for an anniversary run.

We didn't make that either. I've half forgotten the exact reason. Something to do with his daughter again.

When I didn't say anything, Eric reached up and smoothed my hair. "About the wedding.

Once Hailey settles down a little, I'll make it right with you." "I put you in a bad position yesterday." I looked up.

It was the first time since the night before that he had mentioned me at all. Not that his daughter couldn't take it. Not that we'd do the wedding later.

But that he had put me in a bad position. For a second I thought I ought to feel better about it. At least he knew. A room full of guests had been waiting yesterday.

My parents had come in two weeks early for that wedding. My bridesmaid had gotten up with me at four in the morning to do my makeup.

I'd waited in that dress from morning until night. And one "we'll do it later" didn't erase a second of it.

I asked, quietly, "And Hailey?" The tiredness in Eric's face got heavier. "She just ate something." "She cried well past midnight last night." "This morning she woke up and asked me over and over whether we were already married." He paused there. "I told her we weren't." My fingers stopped. "What did she say?" "She calmed down a lot." Eric didn't seem to hear anything wrong with that sentence. "Her therapist is coming this afternoon." "I'm planning to spend more time with her for a while." I nodded. "You should." He looked at me for a moment. "Good, as long as you understand." I'd heard that sentence a lot of times.

The first time Hailey threw out a birthday present I gave her, he said: "She just lost her mother.

Try to understand." The first time she wouldn't let me sit in the front seat, he said: "Her mom used to sit there. She can't take it yet.

Try to understand." The first time she called during a date and made Eric come straight home, he said: "I'm all she has.

Try to understand." After a while I learned not to wait for Eric to say it.

Anything to do with Hailey, I would say it first. "It's fine." "I understand." Maybe I said it too many times. Even he came to believe I could understand anything.

My phone started buzzing. The hotel again. I picked up. The staff member went through a few of yesterday's cancellation charges with me, and at the end of it she asked: "Ms.

Underwood, do you still want us to hold the honeymoon suite as originally planned?" I blanked for a second. "What?" There was a pause on her end too.

Chapter 4 "You didn't know?" "Your honeymoon was booked through our concierge desk as well." "The resort in the Maldives and the flights — Mr.

Whitaker already called us once to cancel them." I looked at Eric without meaning to. Something moved across his face.

He took the phone out of my hand. "Let me." Then he stood and walked to the window. "Yes. Cancel it." "Just refund it to the original card." She must have said something else.

Eric's voice dropped. "No need to rebook." "We'll deal with it later." The call ended, and the room went dead quiet.

I looked at him. "When did you cancel it?" Eric didn't answer right away. It took him a moment. "Last week." Last week. Seven days before the wedding.

I'd spent those days confirming the guest list. Confirming the table flowers. Confirming the car to the airport the next morning.

I was even worried about Hailey being on her own here while we were gone, so I'd arranged for a few of the classmates she got along with to come over and keep her company, one after another.

That night, I lay on the bed showing Eric photos of the honeymoon resort. "They have an underwater restaurant." "Didn't you say once you wanted to go?" Eric was reading a document.

He looked up when he heard me. "Mm." "That's nice." Then I asked, "Should we stay a couple extra days?" He said, "Up to you." So even then. He had already canceled the whole thing.

I asked, "Why?" Eric was quiet for a moment. "Hailey found out a few days ago that we'd be leaving the country after the wedding." "She wasn't handling it well." I let out a short laugh. "So you canceled it." His brows drew together. "It's only the honeymoon." "We can go anytime." I nodded. "Sure." Later again.

The wedding later. The movie next time. The trip whenever. It seemed that as long as the person on the other end was me, anything could be pushed back.

Because I would always still be there. Eric must have thought I was taking it too calmly.

He reached out to touch me. "I was going to tell you after the wedding." I shifted a little to the side, just enough to miss his hand. It was a small movement.

Eric's hand stopped in the air. It was the first time I had ever pulled away from him.

He looked at me for two seconds. "Madeline?" I put my head down and slid the last invoice on the table into the folder. "It's nothing." "You don't have to explain." I paused.

Then something else came back to me. "Oh, right." "The planner asked me yesterday whether she should hold dates for the makeup wedding." "I told her not to." Eric's forehead creased all the way. "Why?" I looked over at him. "Because I just realized something." "It seems like you were never in any hurry." "So I'm not in a hurry either." Eric started to say something else.

My phone went off several times in a row. My bridesmaid had tagged me in the group chat. [Madeline, don't go on X right now.] And right behind it: [Never mind.

You should probably look.] I opened the link she'd sent. It was a video from the ceremony the day before, shot from the back row of the guest seating. The frame shook a little.

The officiant was up front, repeating, awkwardly: "The groom has had something come up." "Please bear with us a few more minutes." The camera drifted sideways and caught me.

I was in my dress, standing alone in the doorway of the bridal suite. Behind me my bridesmaid was calling somebody, over and over, and staff kept crossing back and forth.

At the end of the video. Somebody asked: "Is the groom even coming back?" Chapter 5 I said: "He will." The whole thing was maybe fifteen seconds.

It already had a few hundred thousand shares. The top reply wasn't anyone cursing out Eric.

It was a comment from someone with inside knowledge. [The groom's daughter is only twelve, her mom died a few years ago, she can't handle a stepmother, and on the wedding day she ran off to her mom's grave and cried there all day.] More of it came out fast underneath. [I heard the bride chased him for years.] [Some people will marry into money and never once ask the kid how she feels about it.] [At twelve she understands everything.

Her own dad is in a rush to start a new family. That poor girl.] [If I were that little girl I'd have run too.] Somebody even found my Instagram.

The most recent post was from three days earlier. Makeup trial photos.

The caption was one word. [Tomorrow.] The comments under it were packed now. [So did you get your wedding or not?] [Does it feel good, making a kid with no mom call you mom?] [His daughter ran to a graveyard and you're still standing there waiting to get married?] I kept scrolling down.

Eric reached over and took the phone away from me. "Stop looking at it." His face had gone cold.

He turned away and called his assistant. "Have the lawyers send letters to the account that posted the video and to the platform." "Anything with Hailey's information in it, flag it as involving a minor and get the platform to take it down." "And tell the school she isn't coming in today." He hung up, and somebody knocked.

Eric's head of communications had arrived, holding a statement that had just come off the printer. "Mr.

Whitaker." "This is blowing up too fast." "The priority right now is getting the child out of it." He handed the page across. "This is our draft." I took it.

The first line: [Regarding the postponement of yesterday's wedding, I'm very sorry for the trouble this has caused.] The second line: [During the planning, I was too caught up in my own happiness and overlooked how sensitive Eric's daughter still is, so soon after losing her mother.] I stopped there.

I kept going. [The postponement was a decision Eric and I reached together.] [Hailey has done nothing wrong, and I hope people will stop speculating about a minor and attacking her.] The name at the bottom