I Do

“I’m sorry, Jack. I can’t keep doing this. I… I think it's time we own up to what we’ve done.” 

Jack stares at Sabrina. He’s still smiling as if, like he’s thinking to himself right now, this isn’t happening. 

They’re at their spot. Leaning against the railing of the bridge that overlooks the river, which several aluminum signs along the way have warned them is shallower than it looks. Sabrina looks at the water, at the full moon reflected in a milky trail on the water’s surface. How many times they’ve come here, she thinks, the two of them. Always after dark, never dark enough. 

Jack looks at Sabrina. Only here is he able, allowed to look at her like this. He takes in her long dark hair, hanging below her waist. Jack has always liked long hair, could never understand women who subjected themselves to bobs and pixie cuts. 

Sabrina wears simple, fitted clothes and no makeup; Jack likes that, too. Her stomach is flat, her limbs slender; Jack likes a slim figure. Her eyes are sharp, icy blue, so pale they’re near transparent. Only here can Jack look into them as long as he pleases. Everywhere else he doesn’t look into them at all, knowing full well he doesn’t have it in him to look away, and how would that look to everyone else? What would they think? The truth?

No, we can’t have that.

“Jack?” Sabrina says, finally turning to look at him. She hasn’t been able to bring her eyes to his until now, and when she does, he sees they’re brimming with tears. “Say something. Please.” Her voice catches on the last word; the tears spill over the brim. 

Instead of answering her, Jack looks out onto the water, perhaps seeing the same moon reflected on its surface, perhaps seeing nothing at all. His silence is killing Sabrina. She can’t stand to not know what he’s thinking right now, when on any other night they would share all of themselves with one another. 

She reminds herself once again that this is not like any other night. It’s three days until the wedding; she knows what she has to do. It shames her that it has taken her this long, disgusts her that she let it go this far. But she never thought it’d get this far, did she? Didn’t believe it really mattered until the engagement, and after the shock of that wore off there just never seemed to be a proper time to put an end to it. Not when everyone was so happy for them—even her parents, who were of the longstanding belief that nobody was good enough for their baby girl. She couldn’t ruin that… not yet.

So she’d told herself as the days came and went: not yet. She could never find the right time, but she had no trouble finding many wrong times. She’ll wait until the opportunity presents itself, she told herself, as each opportunity passed her by.

And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it no longer took flipping through the calendar to find the wedding date, the numbered square identified with a jeering heart. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, breaking it off became not just wrong but impossible.

Why now, they’ll say. You knew all this time, and you waited until now? And what would she tell them? That now hadn’t always been now? It’d been months and months, at first, nearly a year, then a few months, then one, then less than that—just a few weeks, then a week, and now it was three days until…

How is she ever going to come back from this? She won’t, she realizes with an acceptance not unlike the kind a person who has lingered too long on the train tracks experiences as the train comes hurtling towards them. This is going to be terrible, it won’t sting but it will sever, and she is going to do it anyway. She will never forgive herself if she doesn't.

She will never forgive herself, regardless.

This isn’t happening, Jack is still thinking. It repeats in his mind on a loop until suddenly he grabs it by the throat and squeezes it until it becomes this is not going to happen. 

“Sabrina,” Jack whispers, taking her face in both of his hands. She melts instantly, like she always does when he touches her; like he knew she would. He brings her in, lets her bury her wet face in his shirt, kisses the top of her head. “No.”

She stiffens. Slowly, she lifts her face to look at him. “Jack…” 

“Do you know what that would do?” Jack speaks gently, but the rest of him is firm. He lowers his hands to caress her neck, but for the first time since their first time, she pushes them away. “You’d tear your family apart. Maybe a few months ago, that could’ve been reconciled, but now?” He shakes his head, brows furrowed in what looks like concern. “Do you want to ruin everything? For everyone?” He cocks his head. “Max and Ellie? They’re only children, Sab.” It’s what her sister always calls her when she’s trying to soften her, convince her for or against something. “They need a father.”

Sabrina closes her eyes. She can’t stop the tears, but she’s glad she decided not to wear makeup. It’s stupid, really, but a part of her thought her uncharacteristically bare face would put a barrier between them. She likes to look natural, never anything too heavy, but she rarely leaves the house without at least mascara—which would be streaking down her face right now. (On the other hand, maybe that’s just what she needs.)

She thinks of Max and Ellie’s. Ellie and Max, who lost their biological father when they were so young they barely remember having one. And Jack, who is such a father to them already. She can’t bear to separate them, be the one to take that away.

She shakes her head. She has to end things, come clean. She just has to. 

“Don’t think of it as lying, Sab,” Jack whispers, pulling her into him with a bit of force. He holds her against him, tight. “Think of it as giving them the father they need.” Then he hisses, “Don’t be selfish. This is about more than you.”

The way he says it makes her stomach turn, but it's been doing that all night, and in fact it has been doing that for quite some time now, so she doesn’t notice. She closes her eyes, going limp like a ragdoll in his grasp. He strokes her hair. When she opens them again, she looks up to see him looking at the water, deep in thought.

Is Jack right? Is she being selfish? She knows that continuing on as she has is wrong. But is she really, truly doing this because it's what's right, or are her motives mainly self-concerned? Is it even more wrong to deprive Max and Ellie of a father? 

She sits up. “You can still be their father, Jack. They adore you. We all do—”

“And you think it’ll stay that way when they know the truth?” His voice is a snarl, his glare severe. Sabrina shrinks back.

Jack leans closer. “I’ll be gone in an instant. But you—” he scoffs. “You’ll be fine. But you know that, don’t you? They can’t get rid of you.”

“Jack,” Sabrina whispers. “They have to know.” At least she thinks so; she was so sure as she drove downtown to the river. But now, having talked to Jack, she’s less certain. 

“Do they?” He’s looking at her the way she fears her parents, her sister, her whole family will look at her when they find out. She can’t bear seeing that look, so she looks away. Looks to the moon—but there’s a face there, too. She squeezes her eyes shut. “It’s not like it’s happening anymore, is it? It’s over, right?”

It’s what she’s here to do. So why does hearing him say it make her stomach sink? “Yeah,” she says. “It is.” She has to force the admission out; it doesn’t seem to fit on her lips. 

She doesn’t realize how long it’s been without either of them speaking until she feels Jack staring at her; for once, his gaze doesn’t send excited shivers down her spine. It feels wrong, but everything feels wrong, so she doesn’t notice. 

“Look at me, Sab,” Jack says, his voice gentle again. She’s going to, until his hand is caressing the back of her neck and he’s leaning in as if for a kiss. And she knows that if she turns her head to face him she won’t look away until he’s convinced her there really is another way, and deep down she knows there isn’t. 

There’s only one, and in it she stands up, turns away from him.  

“I think I should go, Jack,” Sabrina says softly.

 She waits for Jack to reply, but he doesn’t. She doesn’t look back at him as she walks to her car. Jack watches her for a long time, long after she’s gotten in the car and driven out of sight. 

There’s a bumblebee in Lily’s wedding bouquet. But she doesn’t see it; for now, all she sees is Jack. Her… well, she can’t call him that yet, but soon.

She’s trying not to cry through her makeup, which she had professionally done. She’s trying not to trip, also. Heels are elegant but rarely practical. But all that is subconscious; right now all her heart, all her mind, all her soul, and all of her strength is his. Jack wipes a tear from his cheek. Her chest squeezes; she’s never seen him cry before. 

Lily steps onto the altar, clutching her bouquet to her chest before she remembers she’s meant to hand it off to Sabrina. Before she does, the bumblebee latches onto her dress.

The wedding dress was her mother’s. Lily wore it for her first wedding, but this time it needed to be fitted. She feels ridiculous remembering how she cried to Jack about it, but warms as she remembers, also, his words of consolation: You gave birth to two beautiful children. There’s no body so special to me as yours. 

If Sabrina chooses to wear their mother’s dress whenever she gets married, if ever, she’ll need it sized down at least three times over. Lily and Sabrina used to share all of their clothes, but Sabrina remained where Lily changed. Sometimes Lily envies her a bit, sometimes a lot.

Sabrina is looking at Jack. Lily doesn’t notice. The locked gaze she’s sharing with Jack is quite possibly the most intimate they’ve ever been with one another. Lily never wants to close her eyes, wants them locked on his forever.

But she has to turn away to watch her son walk down the aisle. He’s so small but so big in her eyes. She’s so proud of him; he’s always been timid, but Jack has brought out another side of him. A side Lily can’t imagine ever losing now that she’s seen it. She’s smiling so big her cheeks hurt as he steps onto the altar, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in intense focus. Has she ever been this happy? Maybe twice; maybe never.

Then Max trips, and there’s a collective gasp. 

Lily’s heart forgets its meant to beat; her smile falters. Lily’s band rolls to Jack’s feet, and some of the tension is released as he holds it up to show everyone. Yet still some remains; where has his ring gone? 

Lily tries to keep smiling as the bridesmaids and best men search the floor. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” someone says, and those gathered laugh nervously.

Then a sigh of relief, and Lily’s heart rediscovers its rhythm. Her strained smile fills out with sincerity. She turns to see Sabrina holding the ring in her palm, staring at it with a strange sort of focus.

Then she walks towards Lily, slowly, and places the ring in her hand. Sabrina remains zeroed in on the ring as she places it in Lily’s palm, but Lily’s vision has gone blurry with the tears of relief welling up in her eyes, and she does not notice. Everything is so real.

The rest of the ceremony goes smoothly; soon enough the small blunder is all but forgotten. As Pastor Thomas gives his words of welcome and introduction, it’s Max and Ellie Lily is thinking of. It’s Max and Ellie she sees in Jack’s eyes. Max and Ellie will always come first for her, and for that reason she had convinced herself she’d never get another day like this. Most men aren’t terribly interested in committing to women with two children from a previous marriage. But Jack isn’t most men.

From the moment she introduced them, holding her breath as she brought Jack home for the first time after several months of dating (she had to be sure; she didn’t want to get their hopes up, confuse them more than was inevitable), it was instant. He’d said all the right things. Max and Ellie loved him, loved him. Ellie was a people person if there ever were one, telling strangers at the grocery store that she was going to be her mother’s flower girl, then demonstrating her expertise by strutting up and down the fresh produce section with an invisible basket of rose petals. 

Max, on the other hand, still cries and clings to his mother each time she drops him off at his pre-school. Her sweet, shy boy. But he’d opened up instantly, eager to introduce Jack to the glorious world of dinosaur monster trucks. 

Only the family cat had a hard time adjusting to the new addition; Lily has seen the scratches he’s left on Jack’s back. But what do cats know, anyway?  

She thinks of their journey together and knows more than she’s ever known anything that this is right. While she relives what has undoubtedly been the greatest, most beautiful year of her life, the bee makes a nest in her hair. Settles into the intricate bun the stylist did. Will anyone notice; will anyone tell her? 

Not while the vows are shared. Not while rings are exchanged. Not when Jack affirms his part.

And not when Lily affirms hers. Tears finally prickle down her cheeks, but oh, who cares? She’s getting married. 

“I do.”