My parents were about to get into the wedding car when my fiancé stopped them.
"Mom, Dad, you two don't need to come to the wedding today."
I stared at him, thrown. "What do you mean?"
Sebastian Henson's smile was gentle, without a single flaw for anyone to point at. "Your parents both have cerebral palsy. It doesn't look good. It isn't appropriate for them to attend a Henson wedding. Today Beatrice Gilbert's parents will stand in for yours, and that will be fine."
His so-called buddy, Beatrice, was wearing a bridesmaid dress more lavish than my gown. She waved her bouquet at me. "We're all pals here. Feel free to borrow my folks whenever you need them."
I forced back my tears and asked, "And if I don't agree?"
Sebastian looked at me as if I were putting him in a difficult spot. "It's only a ceremony. Beatrice's parents are respectable, important people. If anything, you're the one coming out ahead."
With that, he stopped bothering with me. He climbed straight into the wedding car and locked the door. "If you insist on being stubborn, then you can take your parents on the Route 21 bus and get to the reception hall yourself."
Beatrice, sitting in the passenger seat, gave a soft laugh. "Disabled people even ride for free. Three bucks and you marry into the Hensons. Quite a bargain."
They drove off in the wedding car, kicking up a cloud of dust, and the Route 21 bus pulled in right on time.
...
My hands were shaking as I held my parents' hands, and finally I drew a deep breath and said, "Mom, Dad, let's go home. I'm not getting married."
I tried to pull them back toward home, but they stood like two mountains that wouldn't move.
"Mom? Dad?" I looked at them, startled.
My father tilted his head and said, his words slurred, "It's all right. As long as he's good to you, that's enough."
He was wearing his finest suit, the one he'd bought only recently for nearly half his savings.
But now he could only fidget with the hem of it, helpless. However calm he made himself look on the surface, I still saw it: his callused hands were trembling.
"We're the ones dragging you down."
My mother has cerebral palsy, but she has never thought less of herself. This was the first time I had ever seen shame and helplessness on her face.
She had put on makeup on purpose, combed her hair up, thinking she would attend her own daughter's wedding looking dignified.
But when Sebastian pulled her down out of the car, the hair she'd worked so hard to fix now hung in disarray around her cheeks.
The pain cut through me like I was being flayed, my eyes brimming with tears. "Mom, Dad, if you hadn't picked me up out of the snow, I'd have been gone long ago. I can go without getting married, but no one gets to look down on you..."
"It's not the same. As long as Sebastian's good to you, that's enough. We're all right."
My father grew frantic, straining to force out every syllable.
For as long as I can remember, my parents believed it was their fault that I had no friends, that no one dared to like me.
In grade school I was frozen out, and my parents ached over it so much they couldn't sleep for nights on end.
Then they came up with a plan. They'd treat the whole class to snacks. As long as the kids played with me, every one of them could come to my parents after school and get a treat.
But selling tofu, they made maybe a hundred dollars a day, and some days the snacks ate up fifty or sixty of it.
So they'd go hungry all day, drinking only cold water, and then at night, as if nothing were wrong, sit down and eat dinner with me.
Later, when I found out, I marched into the classroom and started hitting anyone I saw.
Even after I grew up, though I was pretty and well-educated with plenty of suitors, the moment they saw my parents, they all vanished.
My parents worried themselves gray over it, and there was nothing they could do, until Sebastian came along.
He didn't hold my family against me. He took my hand and solemnly promised my parents that he would love only me for the rest of his life.
He said he'd turn on his own parents for me, as long as he could marry me.
So now that I refused to get in the bus, they would rather drag and haul me until they'd pulled me on board.
There was no doubt we were the strangest sight on that bus: a bride with her makeup cried into ruin, and two old people with twisted limbs.
Every gaze fell on us, and the space around us cleared out like a dead zone no one would step into.
My phone buzzed twice. Sebastian had sent me two photos.
One was of me and my parents standing there on the bus, in disarray.
I turned around and met the eyes of the wedding videographer.
The other was of Beatrice's parents and Sebastian's parents standing at the hotel entrance, greeting guests. Both couples looked refined, gracious, and every bit the part.
Sebastian sent a few lines with them.
"Monica Merrick, I knew you couldn't bear to lose me. No one else will marry you. No one else will overlook your background the way I do."
"Do you understand my position now? Your parents aren't fit to be seen."
"This was my mother's request. Just nod and agree to it, and you'll be the Henson daughter-in-law in style. I'll make it up to your parents afterward."
Sunlight poured in through the window, and the fire off the diamond ring on my hand stabbed at my eyes.
I didn't hesitate for a second. I typed back, "This wedding. I'm not going through with it."
