Chapter 14 - Alicia Chooses A Smaller Ceremony
The second wedding cost less than one quarter of the first.
Not because Alicia believed expensive weddings were wrong.
She simply no longer needed the room to prove anything.
Evelyn’s garden held forty-two guests.
No ballroom.
No luxury convoy.
No seven-tier cake.
Robert approved the budget in writing.
Alicia made him sign twice.
Nathan’s mother sat in the front row.
Robert sat across the aisle.
Evelyn wore blue and cried before the ceremony started.
Daniel received an invitation addressed:
TO THE MAN WHO RUINED THE FIRST WEDDING.
Underneath:
THANK YOU.
He framed it at his office.
Before the ceremony, Alicia stood in Evelyn’s bedroom wearing a simple ivory dress.
Three years earlier, she had stood in a far more expensive gown while Robert shouted about an invoice.
She thought the biggest question was whether Nathan had lied about his parents.
Then came David.
Thomas.
Samuel.
Charles.
The trust.
The DNA result.
Caroline’s letter.
So many adults had treated truth as something to schedule.
After the illness.
After the birthday.
After the wedding.
Later.
Later.
Later.
Alicia had one rule now.
Important truths did not become safer simply because they were delayed.
The night before the ceremony, Nathan admitted weddings still frightened him.
Alicia admitted the same.
They considered city hall.
Then laughed.
“We actually want this one,” Alicia said.
“Yes.”
Robert knocked.
“You ready?”
Alicia looked at him.
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He offered his arm.
Before they went downstairs, he said:
“You know the DNA test changed nothing for me.”
“I know.”
“I need you to know it anyway.”
She squeezed his arm.
Then they walked into the garden.
Nathan waited beneath an oak tree.
No investigator interrupted.
No courthouse photograph appeared.
May you like
No one discovered a dead parent was alive.
When Alicia said yes, she knew exactly who she was marrying.
