Page 15 of The Bride
By the powers invested in the judge by the state of Montana, we were legally a family.
But then the judge said it. Thekiss the bridepart. Probably out of habit. It wasn’t like he was trying to be lurid or anything. Jake turned and kissed my forehead right in the center.
My dad used to do that. Whenever I was the most upset. Screaming or carrying on about anything. Crying. It didn’t matter. He would hold me by the shoulders until I calmed down, and then kiss my forehead.
He was never going to do that again. He wasn’t just gone. He was dead.
He was dead and he wasn’t coming back ever. I was never going to talk to him or hug him again. I was never going to hear his voice when he called my name. He wasn’t going to be at my real wedding. I wasn’t going to dance with him. He wasn’t going to know my kids.
I could feel this horrible ugly thing rolling around inside me. Like all the air and blood and guts had suddenly been sucked out of me. I was breathing and my lip was wobbling and I couldn’t think hard enough to stop any of it.
“Ellie…”
I was holding on to Jake’s forearms. Squeezing them as hard as I could to stay standing.
“My dad is dead,” I sputtered out even as I felt the tears start pouring out of me. Except I didn’t want to do this here. Not in front of Howard and his secretary, Sue Anne.
Not in front of Jake, because he might think I was weak and he wouldn’t want to be married to a weak person. But I couldn’t stop it. “He’s….really dead…”
As if everyone around me didn’t know that. As if I was offering up new information. They all KNEW. They knew he was dead and they knew I was going to feel this way but none of them told me.
“I can’t… I can’t… breathe.”
I was trying to draw in breaths but the sobs kept pushing them out. I felt snot running down over my lip and I wanted to run away. Only I knew the second I let go of Jake, it was going to happen.
I was going to fall.
I was going to faint.
Maybe I should let it happen.
The next thing I knew, Jake was bending around me and suddenly I was being carried in his arms. I was no little girl anymore, but this was a man who handled calving season like they were kittens being born. My weight probably barely registered with him.
Instinctively, I put my arms around his neck and buried my face against his suit. I thought about Janet and her running nose in his shirt and realized Jake was going to have to get this suit dry cleaned again.
I cried the whole way out of the courtroom with everyone watching me, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
My dad was dead. Forever.
* * *
Jake
It was almostsurreal watching it happen. I heard Judge Michaels saykiss the brideand I winced because the thought of actually kissing Ellie was bizarre to me. But then I realized what I had told her was true. She was now my family. In every sense of the word. It was some odd instinct that made me kiss her gently on the forehead.
Like a reverse fairytale, instead of the handsome prince waking up the princess it was like I broke through and destroyed all her defenses. Taking her down to her knees, because I knew that’s exactly where she was going before I lifted her up into my arms.
Howard gave me a worried look but I shook my head.
I knew what this was. The shock of Sam’s death and all that it meant had finally worn off. Ellie had come to grips with the reality that her dad was gone forever.
I knew what this was, because I had felt this kind of pain. I hadn’t sobbed out loud. I hadn’t let big wet tears stream down my face. No, I was too tough for that. But looking at Ellie, that was exactly what I had felt inside.
In a strange way, I liked holding her through this. I liked being able to show in my arms what my own internal pain had looked like.See everyone, this is what grief is.
This is what it means to lose the most important thing in your life.
I lifted her higher in my arms, and it didn’t matter that everyone in the courthouse was staring at us. I held my head high and walked my sobbing teen bride out of the room, down the hall and out onto the street where my truck was waiting to take us back to the ranch.
