Madly Yours novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: I Do, in Sign

Leland laughed.

It went on too long, high and breathless, and broke into a cough.

His uncle's smile slipped.

Leland wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and looked at him with wide, bright eyes.

"She won't hear me," he said pleasantly. "Lucky her. You hear me every night, don't you?"

"Leland."

"Through the wall. Through the floor. You lie awake and listen to me."

He leaned closer on the cane.

"One night I'll come and say it to your face."

The uncle took a step back before he caught himself.

Then he laughed too, too loud, and patted Leland's shoulder.

"Get some rest, son. Big day."

He nodded at me and left.

The front door shut.

Leland straightened up, turned the page on the desk face up again, and didn't say a word.

His hand on the cane was white at the knuckles.

I didn't know yet which of them had frightened me more.

The dress came at seven the next morning.

It was Lexi's.

Lexi was five foot ten.

A seamstress had worked on it all night, taking six inches off the hem and two off the waist.

She knelt at my feet with pins in her mouth and talked to my mother like I wasn't there.

"Same dress, different girl. Do they think nobody will notice?"

My mother said nothing.

She was zipping me in with shaking hands.

In the mirror her eyes met mine, and she mouthed, I'm sorry.

I looked away first.

My stepfather came in at noon in a grey suit.

He held my good hand and didn't say a thing.

He just squeezed it, twice, the way he used to before my recitals when I was fourteen.

The chapel sat in the garden behind the house.

Forty guests.

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