“When he said I wouldn’t have much choice after we got married,” I said. “What did you think he meant?”
Heather’s face turned red.
“I didn’t like it.”
“But you didn’t say anything.”
“I asked if you really wanted to do this.”
“And when he said yes?”
She looked away.
“I wanted to believe him. I’d already canceled daycare. I was scared of losing the arrangement.” She swallowed hard. “I know that doesn’t make it okay.”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”
She nodded. She didn’t ask me to make her feel better.
My phone lit up. Seth. The fourth time he’d called since I left the bridal room.
I stared at it. Then I answered.
“Natalie, thank God. Where are you?”
“Still at the church.”
“Can we please talk?”
“We are talking.”
He sighed.
“Look, I’m sorry about how things happened.”
“How things happened?”
“You know what I mean.”
I looked at Heather.
“Did you tell your sister she’d forgive your six-thousand-four-hundred-dollar loan if I watched her kids for a year?”
Silence.
“Heather told you.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“It’s not what it sounds like.”
“How many different ways can that sound, Seth?”
His voice went quiet.
“I was trying to fix two problems at once.”
“Your debt. And your sister’s daycare.”
“Right.”
“With my job.”
“I never said you had to quit forever.”
“You told Heather I’d already decided to quit.”
“I figured maybe you’d work something out with Dr. Bennett.”
“After you promised somebody I’d be available fifty hours a week?”
He didn’t answer that.
“You don’t understand the pressure I’ve been under,” he finally said.
I closed my eyes.
“You told me you paid for that truck out of savings.”
“Because I was embarrassed.”
“You could’ve told me.”
“And then what? You’d have lectured me about money.”
“I might have asked how you were going to pay it back.”
“Exactly.”
He sounded almost relieved. Like I’d just proven his point.
“You made a promise you couldn’t keep,” I said. “And then you made another promise using something that didn’t belong to you.”
“Don’t talk about yourself like you’re property.”
“Then stop making decisions like I am.”
He was quiet.
Across the little room, Heather covered her face and turned away.
“Look,” Seth said. “I panicked. Heather kept asking about the money. The wedding was coming. I didn’t want us starting our marriage with that debt hanging over us.”
“So you decided I could work it off.”
He didn’t deny it.
“I thought once we were married, you’d understand.”
“No,” I said. “You thought once we were married, I’d feel trapped.”
He sounded exhausted.
“Can’t we just start over?”
“How?”
“We postpone everything. Take a few weeks. Then do something smaller.”
“And Heather’s kids?”
“We help her out until she figures something else out.”
We.
Even now. After a canceled wedding. He was still treating his promise like my job.
“I won’t be watching the kids on Monday,” I said.
A pause.
“Not even Monday?”
“No.”
“Natalie, come on. They don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Then you and Heather need to figure that out.”
His voice turned hurt.
“I can’t believe you’d take this out on the kids.”
For one second, it worked.
I pictured Maddie with her little pink backpack. Ben asking for pancakes. Owen reaching his arms up for me to pick him up.
They didn’t do anything wrong.
And Seth knew exactly how much I loved them. He knew exactly which button to push.
I looked over at Heather. She was watching me.
“I’m not taking anything out on the kids, Seth,” I said. “I’m refusing a job I never agreed to do.”
He sighed.
“Then I don’t know what you want from me.”
“The truth would’ve been a good place to start.”
And I hung up.
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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