King was willing to do whatever it took to get his daughter back. He proved that when he was willing to let me go. Now it was my turn to do this for him.
Choosing something to wear to a wedding where I’d be the reluctant bride was a daunting task. I didn’t want to pretend the marriage was something it wasn’t. I skipped over the rows of knee-length sundresses, pausing for a moment at a white one with a halter top, but it was too ‘wedding,’ and this wasn’t a wedding.
It was just paperwork.
Business.
Family business.
I finally decided to pass on the dresses altogether and instead chose a pair of dark jeans and a fitted black V-neck.
I was doing this for King. I wasn’t ready to be a show pony led around by her halter. King would have liked my choice of outfit. And the senator may have succeeded in containing me, but I was never going to be tamed.
I wasn’t about to wear white and pretend to be an angel, when I’d lived and fallen in love with the devil.
There was a wild part of me that flourished when I was with King. I liked who I was with him. I knew who I was with him. That part, the part that couldn’t be controlled, belonged to King, and no matter where I was or where he was or what either of us were doing, no one could ever take that from me.
At the courthouse I fully expected to sign some papers. Signature and stampings. That was it. But when Tanner and I had finished signing the license and the woman behind the desk handed us our IDs, she stood and slid her chair back against the linoleum floor. To my great surprise, and horror, she started to speak. “Do you Tanner Redmond take—”
“Wait,” I said. “I thought we could just do the paperwork.”
The woman looked down at me through her thick glasses in a manner that made me feel like I was nine years old. “Miss, the ceremony is less than a minute long, and in the state of Florida, a ceremony needs to be performed to make the marriage legal, and since you checked the box that you’d like to file the license today…shall I continue?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Tanner grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I was tired of him needing to feel like he had to reassure me. I didn’t want reassurance; I wanted to stop having to go through things that required it. I nodded and the woman started back up. She was right, the ceremony was short. Just under a minute.
“Do you take Tanner to be your lawfully wedded husband…?” They weren’t romantic words, but nonetheless they were promises. Promises spoken out loud in front of the clerk and whatever God might be up there listening. I robotically recited my vows, lying to Tanner with each false promise I spoke. In order to push down the need to flee, and make it through without running screaming down the courthouse steps, I imagined playing with King’s daughter. Pushing her on a swing set. Building her a treehouse. Running through the sprinklers with her. Then the picture shifted, and I was exactly where I was standing, in the courthouse reciting vows, but only it wasn’t Tanner I was making promises to. It was King. And they weren’t lies at all, they were real. My heart soared and I smiled, happily imagining that I was promising to love King in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, until the end of our days.
When the officiant said, “You may kiss the bride,” I’d gone as far as leaning in, before I came back down from my daydream, turning my head at the very last second, so that Tanner only caught the edge of my mouth. When he pulled back, despite my obvious aversion to his kiss, he was smiling as if I really was his wife.
Then it hit me.
I really was.
I must have looked like I was about to have the stroke I was almost positive was about to happen, because the officiant kept asking me if I was okay. “Mrs. Redmond, are you alright?” I nodded and smiled the best I could manage. Tanner paid the forty-two dollar fee for the license and filing. I didn’t speak again. I couldn’t. Because if I’d answered her question, if I’d opened my mouth to speak at all, I was afraid the truth would have come tumbling out of my mouth. So, I kept quiet and Tanner and I walked in silence from the courthouse and remained silent during the entire drive home. I didn’t even say good-bye when he’d dropped me off at my house.
I didn’t speak again until I was alone on my bed in a room I didn’t remember, in a life I didn’t want, in a family that was built on a foundation of lies. I rolled over and pressed my face into the pillow.