Page 51 of Just (Fake) Married
I glanced over at Harmony, and all the wistfulness that was missing from her voice when she talked about her wedding day, was here for this conversation about babies.
She wants children.
I could add that to the list of things I knew about her.
Mabel shuffled into the room, an ancient boom box in hand.
“You ready?” Mabel asked, and Judge Lee came to stand in front of us.
“Sure am,” Judge Lee said, and Mabel pressed play on the old CD player. Seal’s smash hit,Kiss From A Rose,came out of the tinny speakers.
“Really?” I said. We were getting married to the theme from a Batman movie?
“Someone left the CD in Lost & Found,” Mabel said.
“In 1999?”
Harmony jabbed me with an elbow and I knew she was saying to just let this happen.
The song ended and Judge Lee asked the basic questions about marriage. There was no obeying. There was respect. There was sickness and health and we dutifully said yes to all of them.
“Do you have rings?” Judge Lee asked us.
“No,” Harmony answered.
“Actually, one,” I corrected her. “We have one ring. For Harmony. I don’t wear rings.”
I could feel Harmony’s gaze on the side of my face. She was stunned and touched and suspicious. Which seemed about right.
“Wonderful,” Judge Lee said, like none of this was strange. “Please present the ring.”
From the pocket of my coat, I pulled out the old, black, velvet box with worn corners I’d found in my mother’s jewelry box.
It wasn’t meant to be sentimental. We were supposed to be engaged. We wanted to make a show of it for the town. That meant a ring. But when I opened this box, Harmony would know that I’d been thinking about her when I picked it out.
I opened the box, revealing a ring that had been passed down by the women in my family for years. A two-carat emerald surrounded by pearls, all set in gold.
It was a little old-fashioned, but also timeless. The emeralds reminded me of her eyes. And the pearls gleamed like her skin. The ring, once I saw it, was so exactly like her it was a no-brainer.
“Ethan,” she gasped. “It’s beautiful. It’s…”
I pulled the ring out of the box, grabbed her hand, and slid it on her finger. “Too big,” I said.
I reached to take it back, thinking we’d get it sized, or even pick something different. Something not so…specific. But she curled her hand into a fist and pulled it away.
“I love it,” she whispered. Our eyes caught and I couldn’t believe how closely hers matched that emerald. It was eerie.
She was beautiful. Like a painting. I couldn’t give her a dress or babies or even the kind of day a bride deserved, but I could give her that ring.
I smiled at her, and it took her a second, but she smiled back.
There were other things we said, promises we wouldn’t keep. As a doctor, that hurt. I believed in the oaths I took when I became a doctor, but the McGraws and the Calloways had always been locked in a devil’s bargain.
This marriage was no different.
Judge Lee said. “You may kiss your bride.”
I leaned forward as Harmony leaned back. Then she glanced over her shoulder as if she realized Mabel was still…witnessing.
