The Wedding Without a Groom

A red sun appeared on my wedding dress before the wedding. The little girl who painted it was wearing my wedding shoes. Her mother was wearing my pajamas.

The two of them were living in the house my fiancé and I were about to move into.

My fiancé, Christopher, came rushing over, and his first instinct was to shield the frightened mother and daughter behind him. "She's a student I used to sponsor.

Her husband beats her. I'm only letting them stay for a few days." I didn't lose my temper. I'd been a wedding planner for eight years. Handling the unexpected was what I did best.

I found the mother and daughter a new place to stay, got them all the clothes and essentials they'd need, and made an appointment to have the dress restored.

Last of all, I canceled our appointment for the next day to get our marriage license. "Let's just not get married, then." Chapter 1 The little girl was maybe four or five.

The moment she saw me, she hid her marker behind her back. Too late. The red sun took up most of the skirt. Around it were blue clouds, green birds, and three wobbly stick figures.

Christopher had once told me, laughing, that none of the dresses in the bridal shops felt like me.

My wedding dress, he said, should be one of a kind, the only one like it in the world. So I went through thirteen versions of the design.

I learned patternmaking and handsewing from scratch alongside a designer friend and worked on it, on and off, for eleven months.

Every flowering sprig and every pearl on the skirt, I had sewn on myself, stitch by stitch, night after night when I got home from work. Christopher laughed at me again.

Eight years of planning weddings, he said.

All those grooms who ran, all those brides who backed out, all those guests sitting there unmoved—how could I still pour so much into a dress I'd only wear once?

I was threading a needle at the time.

I smiled at that. "It's because I'll only wear it once that it deserves some care." Now it was certainly more one of a kind than I'd ever imagined.

The girl kept her head down. "Miss Annabel, I didn't mean to. It just looked so empty right here.

I wanted to give it a sun." The woman I'd never seen before hurriedly set down her cup. She was wearing my silk pajamas.

The sleeves were too long and had been rolled up to her elbows. A large bruise, not yet faded, spread from the corner of her left eye. "I'm sorry.

I'm so, so sorry." She clutched the hem of the pajama top. "Ruby had nightmares all last night, and she's been upset ever since she woke up. She said this dress was so pretty.

I only went to take a shower. I had no idea she'd draw on it…" The girl tipped her head back and looked up at her. "But Mommy was watching me draw the whole time.

When I drew the sun, Mommy even laughed." The living room went quiet for a beat. The woman's expression shifted.

She quickly crouched down and took the girl by the shoulders. "Mommy thought you were drawing on paper. You're remembering it wrong." The girl blinked, confused. I didn't press it.

My eyes went to the girl's feet. One foot was bare. The other was in my wedding shoe. The heel was too high. She could only stand there on tiptoe, wobbling.

I crouched down and slipped the shoe off her foot. "The floor's cold. Go put some socks on first." The girl didn't move. She looked at her mother first.

Only after the woman nodded did she hug her markers to her chest and run off into the primary bedroom, knowing exactly where to go.

I stood up and asked, "How long have you two been living here?" The woman clutched the cuff of the pajama sleeve. "Three days." Three days.

For those three days, Christopher hadn't come to see me once. The first night, he said he was having dinner with coworkers.

The second night, he said he had to go out and visit clients. Chapter 2 The third night, he didn't bother with an excuse. He just said he was busy.

That night, I sat alone at the dining table, packing the one hundred and twenty candy favors for the wedding a week away.

Last month, on a solo trip to Japan, I'd lugged home a full one hundred and fifty packs of fruit gummies from a littleknown spot off the tourist trail.

Now there weren't even enough for one hundred and twenty.

I turned the place upside down looking for them. "Christopher, have you seen them?" "Didn't notice." His face showed nothing. "How many are you short? Stop looking.

I'll have someone buy more." Over video, Christopher spent ages helping me hunt down the same kind.

We went through three online resellers that specialized in Japanese snacks before we finally got an order placed. By the time we were done, it was two in the morning.

Before we hung up, he leaned back on the couch, looking worn out. The lights behind him stayed off the whole time. All I could see was a blur of darkness.

He said, "Get some sleep, Mrs. Aldridge. Once we've got the license, we'll officially move in.

Into a brandnew house nobody's ever lived in." Ruby got her socks on and came running out of the primary bedroom. In her arms was a halfeaten pack of gummies. Pale pink wrapper.

Peach flavor. Exactly like the gummies I hadn't been able to find enough of last night, no matter how hard I looked.

She noticed where I was looking and immediately hid the candy behind her back. "Mr. Christopher gave it to me. He said if I didn't cry, I could have another pack." "How many did Mr.

Christopher give you?" She lifted her chin proudly. "Lots! They're all in my little backpack." I didn't say anything. I turned toward the study. The door wasn't closed.

Christopher's jacket lay on the sofa bed. Next to it were his laptop and charger. And a thin blanket, folded halfway. A crayon drawing was taped to the corner of the desk.

In it, two stick figures, one tall and one short, were holding hands with a man in a suit. Exactly like the three on the skirt of my dress. "Mr. Christopher sleeps here at night.

He said as long as he's here, the bad guys won't dare come." For a moment, I couldn't speak. Christopher hadn't told me anything.

He hadn't told me someone was already living in the new house. And he definitely hadn't told me this.

While I'd been looking forward with my whole heart to starting our life together in our new home, he had already been here ahead of me, three nights running, staying with another woman and her daughter.

The smart lock beeped. Christopher pushed the door open and came in. He must have run the whole way. His tie was askew, a few loose strands of hair falling over his forehead.

His usually composed face showed a rare urgency. In his left hand was a paper pharmacy bag. In his right, a little bunnyshaped nightlight.

Ruby's eyes lit up. "My bunny!" Christopher crouched down and switched it on for her.

Warm yellow light fell across Ruby's face. "Turn it on at night, and it won't be so dark." He looked up as he finished. Saw me, and froze. "Annie?

What are you doing here?" The woman hurried over to him. "Mr. Aldridge. I'm sorry, Ruby got Ms. Mercer's wedding dress dirty.

I don't know what to do…" Christopher looked at the dress.

The next second, casually, as if it were nothing, he stepped forward and put the mother and daughter behind him. "Why did you suddenly come over?" I looked at him.

All of a sudden, I found it a little funny. I set the cardboard box down on the entryway cabinet. "Isn't this supposed to be our future home?

I can't come over?" Christopher was silent for a moment. "Don't read into this. Her name is Lacey. She's a student I used to sponsor." Chapter 3 I remembered the name at once.

Five years ago, Christopher had brought her up over dinner. Lacey had excellent grades.

She'd made it out of a remote, poor rural town and into the computer science program at a top university. Christopher paid her tuition and living expenses for four years.

He'd lined up internships for her and helped her map out a career.

But less than a year into a job at a major tech company, Lacey married her boss, quit, and became a stayathome wife.

At the time, I couldn't help saying, "She worked so hard to get out.

Why would she hand her life over to another man?" Christopher didn't agree. "I didn't sponsor her so she'd live the way I expect her to.

If she likes her life now and she's happy, then I've still helped her." "But being happy and having no way out are two different things." It was one of the few heated fights we ever had.

Christopher felt I was forcing my values on another woman.

I believed a person could of course choose to lean on someone she loved, but she shouldn't hand over her ability to leave along with it.

In the end, neither of us convinced the other. After that, I never heard Christopher mention Lacey again. I never imagined the first time I'd meet her would be in our new home.

Christopher explained briefly. "Lacey's husband is abusive. A few days ago he even showed up at the preschool to corner the kid.

She had to take her daughter and run in the middle of the night.

She couldn't get used to the emergency shelter, and she was too scared to stay alone in the apartment I found for her." Lacey's eyes reddened. "The shelter is full of strangers.

The second I close my eyes at night, I hear him pounding on the door. And Ruby kept crying for Mr.

Christopher." When she finished, she grabbed Christopher's sleeve without thinking. Then quickly let go, seeming to realize it wasn't appropriate.

Christopher's brow creased slightly. "Besides, we haven't officially moved in yet." "We haven't moved in yet, so, as my fiancé, you get to spend three nights in a row living here with them?" Christopher paused. "Ruby wakes up in the middle of the night.

Lacey can't handle it alone. I sleep in the study so I can keep an eye on things." "Then why didn't you ask me to come help?" "It was an emergency. I was afraid you'd read into it.

I was going to tell you once they were settled." I said nothing. I looked at the pajamas Lacey had on. Then at the wedding dress with the sun painted all over it.

Christopher followed my gaze. At last, a flicker of discomfort crossed his face. "The pajamas and the dress—I honestly didn't know.

And not talking it over with you first, that was thoughtless of me." He paused, and his voice softened. "I'm sorry, Annie. It really isn't right for them to keep staying here.

And if I keep staying here with them, people will talk. Tonight, I'll get them settled somewhere. I promise." Christopher rarely apologized.

He was always rational, composed, and almost never wrong. In the past, whenever he did back down for once, I'd let it go. This time was the same.

The string pulled tight in my chest loosened a little. I thought he finally understood what it was that bothered me. I thought owning a mistake and fixing it was enough.

Christopher took my hand. His palm was as warm as ever. Six years ago, it was this same hand that had gotten me justice.

Back when I was still fairly new to the industry, my boss held back my commissions and even wanted me to pay the damages for a wedding that had gone wrong.

Everyone told me to just let it go. Chapter 4 Only Christopher helped me put the evidence together and went with me to file a wage claim with the state labor commission.

On the day of the hearing, he handed me a cup of warm coffee. "Being accommodating doesn't give anyone the right to push you around. What's yours is yours.

Don't give up a single cent." Later, he turned down the position his father had lined up for him. With a few other lawyers, he formed a pro bono legal services team.

When things were hardest, he even sold the car his father had given him to pay the young lawyers on the team. He really was good.

He was willing to give up huge amounts of time, money, and his own future to help one person after another who had nothing to do with him. That was why I fell in love with him.

But over time, his goodness reached further and further. And the share of it that went to me grew smaller and smaller.

For my twentyseventh birthday, he booked the restaurant a month in advance. The cake was chestnut, my favorite. The white chocolate on top was shaped like my cat.

I had just closed my eyes to make a wish when a client whose husband was stalking her called.

Christopher, who had lit the candle for me, blew it out himself. "When I get back, we'll make the wish again." He grabbed his coat and rushed out.

I waited alone at the restaurant until closing. In the end, a server boxed the halfmelted cake back up. I took it home, and it sat in the fridge until it went bad.

When I was hospitalized for acute gastritis, he was the first one there too. Paperwork, a caregiver, hot soup. He had everything arranged, thoughtfully and perfectly.

When the needle went into my vein, he sat by the bed holding my hand. I had only just started to think that being sick wasn't so hard to get through. Then his phone rang.

A boy abused by his father had no one to get him to sleep. Christopher tucked the blanket in around me. "Just this once.

Someone needs me more right now." On our fifth anniversary, I went to pick him up from work.

Through the floortoceiling windows, I saw him patiently calming a girl who had broken down.

Once she was calm, he reminded her gently, "If you get scared tonight, call me anytime." But once he got in the car, the smile faded from his face. "We'd better hurry," I said. "The movie starts in twenty minutes." Christopher leaned back into his seat instead and closed his eyes. "Some other time." I froze. "…But today's our fifth anniversary." He was quiet for a moment, and a note of weariness crept into his voice. "Annie, I'm really tired today.

You're the only one I can be around without having to keep managing everyone else's feelings. Can you just let me have a little quiet, okay?" I didn't say anything else.

I just drove us home in silence. Every choice he made had a reason more important than me. And those reasons were so heavy. So heavy that even feeling hurt made me seem unkind.

I took out my phone and called my friend Frankie. Above her private bridal studio was a small apartment sitting empty.

After hearing what had happened, Frankie agreed right away. "Perfect timing, I'm at the shop today anyway. I can stay with them tonight.

There's food in the fridge, and the bedding's freshly washed." I thanked her. Then I called a driver I knew and asked her to come pick them up.

When I hung up, Christopher visibly relaxed. "You always think of everything." He squeezed my fingers. "That place really is safer than a regular apartment." I looked down and opened my notes app.

Out of habit, I started logging the unexpected situation. I hadn't finished typing when Lacey suddenly spoke. "Will Mr.

Aldridge be coming with us too?" Chapter 5 I looked up. "The driver is a woman, and there'll be a woman staying with you tonight too. Only a few of us know the new address.

It's very safe." Lacey bit her lip. "But I don't know them. I only trust Mr. Aldridge." Ruby ran over too and wrapped her arms around Christopher's leg. "Mr.

Christopher, don't send us away." Christopher looked down at her. Bit by bit, his expression softened.

When he looked up again, he already sounded like he was negotiating. "Annie, they've only just settled in.

A sudden move to somewhere unfamiliar—the kid might not handle it well." I looked at him. "So?" "Maybe let them stay two more days." The string that had only just loosened pulled tight again.

I reminded him, "You're the one who just said it wasn't right for this to go on." "I know." Christopher paused. "So I won't stay here.

Annie, you stay here with them for a couple of days." He went on explaining. "You're a woman, and Ruby listens to you.

With you here, it's safer than moving them anywhere unfamiliar right now.

Oh, and Lacey has a followup at the hospital tomorrow morning for her injuries, to get the abuse documented.

I have to go with her." He glanced at Ruby again. "She's got a bit of a cough. She shouldn't be dragged around first thing in the morning.

So tomorrow morning, you stay home and look after her." He said it calmly and sincerely. I waited a while. The rest never came.

So I had to remind him. "But tomorrow at nine a.m., we have our appointment to get the marriage license. Do you remember?" "Of