Chapter 5 - Morning of the Vows
The garden at the estate was bathed in early afternoon sunlight. The June air was fragrant with blooming boxwood, white hydrangeas, and damp earth. A string quartet played a delicate arrangement of Bach near the stone fountain.
Upstairs, looking through the lace curtains of the bridal suite, I watched the guests arrive.
Daniel’s family was already seated—dozens of warm, smiling faces, cousins holding toddlers, aunts admiring the floral program. On my side, Uncle Ron and my cousins sat awkwardly in the third row, looking subdued.
Mom was there. She wore a lavender dress—she had discarded the baby pink—and sat stiffly in the front row, staring straight ahead, refusing to look at anyone. Dad was beside her, looking uncharacteristically small.
Chloe and Tyler had not arrived.
“Do you want to wait for her?” Maya asked gently, adjusting the train of my ivory silk gown.
I looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror. My hair was swept up in classic coils; the simple diamond drop earrings Daniel had given me caught the light. I didn't look like a woman who carried ten years of family debt on her shoulders. I looked like an adult stepping into a life of her own choosing.
“No,” I said. “We start at three o'clock sharp.”
When the music shifted to the bridal march, I walked down the stone stairs alone. Dad had assumed he would give me away; we hadn't even discussed it after the rehearsal dinner. But when I reached the back of the garden path, Daniel was waiting at the end of the aisle under an arch of white gardenias and eucalyptus.
His eyes were shining. When our gazes locked, every shred of residual family anxiety melted away, replaced by an immovable, radiant calm.
May you like
I walked down the aisle with my head held high, looking neither left nor right, only at the man who had seen my burden and helped me set it down.
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