Our wedding was small.
I thought we’d put the subject aside.
Lenald wore a black suit; I wore white.
His friends Mara, Felix, and Jonah occupied most of one row, looking like they’d coordinated their outfits with the groom.
Mara had helped me fasten my bracelet before the ceremony.
Felix had arrived carrying spare safety pins and a sewing kit, which proved useful when Dad caught his cuff on a chair.
I wore white.
Just before the ceremony, I saw Mom speaking to Lenald near the entrance.
She touched his sleeve. He looked toward me, then back at her.
I smiled at him.
He smiled back, but he seemed distracted when he joined his best man.
At the altar, he took both my hands.
I saw Mom speaking to Lenald.
“You look incredible,” he whispered.
For a while, I forgot every warning I’d ever heard.
***
We ate, danced, and posed for photographs.
Mom asked the photographer to move Felix to the end of one group because of his tall boots.
“I could sit, if you’d like,” he told her.
I forgot every warning.
Lenald laughed, and I relaxed. Whatever had been bothering him seemed to have passed.
***
That night, we finally reached our hotel room.
I kicked off my shoes.
“We actually did it.”
Lenald closed the door. For several seconds, he stood staring at me.
We finally reached our hotel room.
“Lenald?”
He reached for my hand and led me to the edge of the bed.
“There’s something I need to ask you about.”
My smile faded.
“Lenald?”
He took out his phone, found an audio file, and pressed play.
My voice came through the speaker.
“… he’ll give it up one day.”
A pause. Then Mom’s voice:
“You — are planning to — persuade him.”
My voice came through the speaker.
The middle words sounded slightly quieter, as though she’d turned her face away.
Then I heard myself again.
“I… ask him to change. I want to.”
The recording ended.
“You — are planning to — persuade him.”
I stared at the phone.
I knew those words. I’d said them at our kitchen table, with ribbon scraps beside my elbow and Mom holding her phone.
But I hadn’t said that.
“She recorded our conversation and edited it.”
I hadn’t said that.
“What did you actually say?”
“That I’m marrying you, not waiting for a different version. She had no right to record me.”
“But the part about asking me to change?”
His voice stopped me.
I was furious with her, but he was still trying to understand what he’d heard.
“What did you actually say?”
“She said I could persuade you. I said, ‘I can ask him to change. That doesn’t mean I want to.'”
He looked down at the phone.
“And I said maybe you’d give it up one day. Maybe you’d still wear black when you were 80. She kept the first bit.”
Lenald exhaled.
“She kept the first bit.”
“I thought something was wrong with it.”
“What did she tell you when she sent it?”
“That I should know before I married you. You expected me to settle down and leave all this behind.”
