“Don’t worry about daycare anymore. Natalie will take care of all three kids starting Monday.”
I heard my fiancé say it through a half-open door.
Ten minutes before our wedding.
I was standing in the church hallway in my wedding gown, holding the skirt bunched up in both hands so it wouldn’t drag on the carpet.
His sister’s three children were all under six years old.
I had a full-time job. And I had never once agreed to take care of them.
Then Seth laughed.
“Once we’re married,” he said, “she won’t have much choice.”
I stood there in that hallway and tried to make those words fit the man I’d loved for three years.
They wouldn’t fit.
Seventy guests were already sitting in the pews at First Methodist. That morning, my mom had cried when she saw me in my dress. My best friend Paige had spent twenty minutes pinning up my hair. The whole church smelled like white roses. Somewhere down the hall, the organist was running through our processional music one last time.
The day was supposed to be perfect.
Five minutes earlier, my biggest worry in the whole world had been a loose hook on the back of my gown.
I’d left the bridal room looking for Paige. She’d gone to find a safety pin. That’s when I heard Seth’s voice coming through the partly open door of the fellowship room.
I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.
Then he said my name.
“Are you absolutely sure?” his sister Heather asked.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“It’s a lot, Seth. All three of them. Five days a week.”
“She loves the kids.”
“Loving them isn’t the same thing as keeping them all day.”
For one second, I was grateful Heather was asking.
Then Seth said marriage would leave me no choice.
I stepped closer to the door.
My name is Natalie Pierce. I’m thirty-four years old. And for almost seven years, I’ve worked at Bennett Family Dentistry, a dental practice in Westerville, just outside Columbus, Ohio.
Three days before my wedding, my boss, Dr. Bennett, had offered me the office manager job.
A promotion I’d been working toward for years.
And my future husband apparently thought my career didn’t count.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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