Chapter 6
The ceremony was short because I had asked for it that way.
No long speeches about forever.
Forever had become a complicated word.
When the officiant asked if Nathan wished to speak, I turned to him in surprise.
That had not been in the plan.
Nathan reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded paper.
My heart jumped.
“Nathan,” I whispered, “you don’t have to—”
“I know.”
He looked at the guests, then at me.
“I was hired to stand here,” he said. “That’s the truth. Clara did not lie to me. She did not ask me to pretend love was something it wasn’t.”
A quiet shock moved through the garden.
My father lowered his head.
Nathan continued.
“But in the time I’ve known her, I’ve watched people try to shrink her life down to her illness. I’ve watched them speak around her, over her, and sometimes about her as if she had already become a memory.”
His voice tightened, but did not break.
“She is not a memory. She is here.”
I could not stop crying then.
Not loudly.
Just tears sliding down my face while I held the walker and tried to breathe.
Nathan turned fully toward me.
“I can’t promise you years we may not have,” he said. “I can’t promise I won’t be afraid. But I can promise you this. If you let me stay, I won’t treat loving you like a favor.”
Someone in the back made a small broken sound.
Maybe my mother.
Maybe me.
Evan stepped forward then.
“Clara,” he called.
The entire garden turned.
His face was full of regret now, but regret is easy when someone else has done the brave part.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “Please. Don’t do this just to hurt me.”
Nathan’s hand moved from my arm, giving me space to answer.
That mattered.
I looked at Evan, the man I once imagined waiting for me at the altar.
“I’m not doing this to hurt you,” I said. “I’m doing it because you taught me I still wanted to be chosen.”
Evan’s face crumpled.
My father stepped toward him, voice quiet but firm.
“You need to leave.”
Evan looked like he might argue.
Then he looked at Nathan.
May you like
And finally understood that the place he left empty was no longer his.
He walked away before the vows.
