The Point of No Return

The Point of No Return

“I object.”

There are two words a bride should never have to hear on her wedding day.

My veil isn’t even lifted when the warning drifts over the ivy-covered gate, trailing behind a boy on a bicycle who was not invited to my wedding. His voice carries just long enough for me to hear the words before he disappears down East Bay.

For one strange, suspended second, I hear my brother Tyler.

I forget he’s dead. His photograph is on the mantle inside, frozen at whatever age he happened to be when someone captured him standing still. I hear him alive, mischievous. About to do something ridiculous because he knows how everyone will react. The audience is made of my family and my fiancé’s high school friends, who were in my brother’s grade. Tyler would know exactly who was watching.

“So like Tyler to pull something like this,” I think.  Then I remember. Nine years.

Dad has just delivered me to the end of the aisle. I squeeze his arm, steady as always, careful not to wrinkle the blue linen. The moment I loosen my grip and sigh; he looks at me. The music begins.

"You okay?" he whispers.

I nod.

Before the doors open, the wedding planner smiles with the enthusiasm of someone trying very hard not to panic.

"Two more minutes."

Two minutes.

The courtyard is baking beneath a ninety-four-degree Charleston sun. One hundred and twenty-five people are dressed in garden-party attire, which sounded beautiful during the planning in January, and slightly cruel now. Linen jackets have surrendered to the humidity. Satin dresses are in the process of making regrettable decisions, clinging where they ought not to. People are fanning themselves. Even the glasses of lavender lemonade are sweating, and I find myself wishing I had ignored the caterer and ordered Bourbon, instead.

Nobody has considered the bees.

I can hear one buzzing now, somewhere behind the gate, far too quietly to save me from the excruciating embarrassment of this moment.

The courtyard garden is breathtaking. Of course it is. And this too, is a part of the problem. The historic mansion rises behind us, its windows reflecting the afternoon light. The courtyard is overflowing with coral charm peonies and ivy. Everything is beautiful enough to make this feel almost okay.

There’s no going back now, I tell myself.

I have made it through the questions and doubts that have stacked up in the recent months. I have endured the first time Wes raises his voice in a way that surprises me. The first apology. The second.

I tell myself he is stressed. That I am safe. That I should believe him. I tell my friends, “He's really wonderful,” explaining away things I shouldn’t have to explain.

Every decision makes the next one harder to undo. The dress, the making of it, the idea and the dream. The invitations, the promise. The deposits have been paid, and I have a responsibility to the staff. I have promised Parker a family. One that is unkind to him, but a family, nonetheless.

It can all be fixed, can’t it? I can do it, can’t I?

Momentum has a way of disguising itself as inevitability.

Weeks earlier, I slipped into a recording studio to record a song as my wedding gift for Wes. I wanted it to be the kind of surprise that would mean more to him than anything we experienced that day.

Something just for him. And perhaps, something that might make us both believe this could work.

I knew that if I tried to sing it live, my voice would crack. My emotions have a pesky habit of settling into the folds of my voice. It took three takes in the studio to get through the song without my emotions overtaking it all. 

I listen to the song in the car between drop-offs and pick-ups, imagining the exact moment that Wes will hear it and understand. I imagine my husband standing at the altar, hearing my voice before he sees me, hearing the love in my voice.

I imagine him crying.

I want to believe that this song can say what I cannot.

Wes’s son shoots his sister a look, and the bickering begins. She takes off running. The planner stops smiling.

“Shut up and get back here,” he barks. “I said NOW.”

Nobody moves. My shoulders tense without permission.

My first instinct isn't concern, but logistics. How do we get everyone back where they are supposed to be? Who needs comforting? How do we make sure this doesn’t become awkward?

Did anyone hear him?

I’ve spent my whole life confusing love with crisis management. In this very moment, I want to scream, turn and run. Yet, I’m hard wired to do differently. Being adopted, I spent more time learning how to be chosen than to choose. I recognize where I stand and scoff at the bride in me. Dumb girl. Like he tells you: you are lucky to be here. Just get married.

I take a deep breath as the music swells toward its final crescendo. The scent of my peony perfume fights with my bouquet and makes me dizzy. My hands are slick with sweat. Dad’s jaw is set. I fix my smile and say a silent prayer.

When the doors open, I smile blindly at my loved ones, passing by them beneath the relentless sun, with some form of grace still intact. I don’t want to head this way.

My college roommate smiles at me. My cousin sniffles and blows her nose into a crumpled tissue. The wedding planner stands perfectly still, holding her earpiece like a security guard. I wish she could save me now.

The bouquet weighs on my left hand as I grip dad’s arm. I manage not to cry or trip on the lace hem of the custom-made gown, or curse the fact that it is currently digging a hole into my sacrum.

When I make it to the end of the aisle, I kiss my father and hand the bouquet to my sister, the matron of honor. I look up at my husband-to-be, waiting for the look that every bride looks for.

The one that says,

“There you are. And you are everything.”

Instead, he looks past me, toward the commotion.

And that’s when I hear it.

“I object.”

I swallow the shock and hear giggling behind me. I adjust my stance, my gaze moving to my groom for reassurance as the minister adjusts his robes to find his Bible.

Nothing.

Instead, I stare at the large bumblebee dancing in one of the coral charm peonies on the gate. For a moment it disappears into the center of the flower, and I envy it. The florist has crafted an elaborate monogram representing our new last name as though the name already belongs to us.

I look toward Parker. He is standing off to the side, near the front row. He looks at me. His big blue eyes are flooded with sorrow. He’s been sad all day, which tells me everything I need to know, and nothing that I am ready to admit. I’ve spent the entire morning finding reasons for it. He’s tired. He’s overwhelmed. He’s adjusting. There’s always a reason when you practice explaining things away.

Children don’t usually have the words for what they know, but they know.

Parker is the ring bearer. He has been so proud of that job. But when he opens the box, the rings aren’t there. They are already in Wes’s breast pocket.

Nobody has explained it to him. Nobody stops long enough to tell him he hasn’t done anything wrong. He is just standing there, holding the empty box, trying to understand why the role he was so proud of has disappeared without anyone noticing.

Parker’s eyes meet mine. It is enough to make me wonder if he feels it too. If I am the only one pretending this is the happiest day of my life. I swallow hard and press my heels into the warm Charleston bricks, willing myself to stay in place instead of taking Parker’s hand and leaving through the garden gate.

The minister clears his throat.

Then, I look beside me as Wes’s daughter tugs at the sleeve of his wedding jacket. Without hesitation, he bends down, sweeps her into his arms, smiles at her, and says,

“You will always be my first true love.”

Everyone melts.

I watch him hold her, and something inside of me goes very still. It is a beautiful moment. And somehow, I can feel myself disappearing.

I blink hard and smile, no longer sure whose wedding I am attending.

It hits me so suddenly I almost laugh. I am standing at the center of the biggest event of my life and somehow, none of it feels like it belongs to me.

How did I get here?

How many times have I been here without realizing it?

So, I do what I know how to do best.

I smile.

I believe that if I love hard enough, organize enough, anticipate enough, fix enough, everyone will finally be okay.

I simply forget to include myself in the equation.

The most frightening part is not seeing it. It is that I stay.

The minister smiles and continues the ceremony. His words drift past me while my thoughts drown each one.

Wes reaches for my hands. One hundred and twenty-five people lean forward to hear the words they’ve all come to hear.

I lift my chin. I take a deep breath.

Then, I say,

“I DO.”