My Sister's Baby Was My Husband's, So I Wed Beside Them novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: All Right

Hailey proposes a double wedding in two days, Marina says all right, and Ivy grips her hand and whispers that Hailey's room upstairs is already painted.

Nobody offered me a seat in my own kitchen.

Hailey took the chair by the window, the one I always sat in, and settled the baby against her shoulder.

Dalton stood behind her with his hand on the back of the chair.

Ivy sat at the table with a bowl of cereal and her rabbit, swinging her feet.

I stayed standing by the counter.

"Marina," Hailey began, in the soft voice she used when she wanted something. "I know it's a lot. I want to make it right."

"You can start by leaving."

"This is Dalton's house, honey," she said gently.

My husband looked at the floor.

He said nothing, and that was an answer too.

I picked up my coffee and drank it cold.

"Fine," I said. "I'll sign. I'm going to have my own lawyer read every page first, and I'm taking Ivy with me."

Dalton looked up quickly.

"We'll talk about Ivy."

"We'll talk about it in front of a judge."

Hailey sniffed and wiped one eye with her knuckle.

"I don't want a fight. You're my only sister. I'd be lost without you."

"You should have thought about that eleven months ago."

"I know." She nodded and cried quietly. "That's why I want to give you something."

She glanced up at Dalton, and he gave her a small nod.

"You've been so brave," she said. "And you've said you'll let him go. Since you're willing, Marina, why don't you have your wedding on the same day as ours?"

I did not move.

"Ours?" I said.

"Saturday morning. Day after tomorrow, at St. Brendan's. Dalton and I have had it booked for months. The guests, the flowers, the church, the pastor. We don't even need another planner."

"I thought you were in a hospital bed this morning."

"I'm fine." She smiled up at me through the tears. "The doctor says I'm young and strong. We'll take care of everything for you, I promise."

"Everything," I said.

"The church, the cake, your dress, the seating. The courthouse paperwork can wait until the divorce clears. Ohio makes you wait weeks. But the ceremony is the one the whole town is coming to see."

She said it so lovingly.

I understood her perfectly.

Two hundred people were coming on Saturday, and every one of them would see the wife who had been cast off, sitting alone in the front pew in her good dress.

Or they would see me stand up and bless it, smiling.

Dalton shifted his weight.

"It's generous," he said, and cleared his throat. "Marina, you don't have to answer now. It might be too much."

He did not want me to say yes.

He had expected me to scream and slam out of the house, and then he'd have the whole town watching me do it.

"What would I wear?" I asked.

"Whatever you like." Hailey spread her hands. "We'll find you something. And a groom, if you have someone in mind. I'm sure there's someone. I'd hate for you to be alone on a day like that."

She meant: you have nobody.

It was the kindest-sounding insult I had ever heard.

Dalton stared at me with his mouth slightly open.

I did not have a groom.

I had five hundred dollars in my checking account and a daughter with a fever.

I had a recording in my pocket and a hundred and twenty pages of a divorce I'd never agreed to.

And I had forty percent of a company that was due to renew its loan on Monday.

I looked at my sister's wet blue eyes.

I smiled at her.

"All right," I said.

The baby gave a thin cry on her shoulder.

Hailey's smile stayed exactly where it was, but her hand tightened on the blanket.

"All right?" Dalton said.

"Saturday. St. Brendan's. Tell the pastor I need the left side of the church for my guests."

"You have guests?" Dalton asked.

"I will by Saturday."

I did not look at his face again.

I picked Ivy up out of her chair, rabbit and all, and carried her up the stairs.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and held on tight.

Inside her room I closed the door and sat on the floor with her in my lap.

"Mommy," she said, very small, "are you sad?"

"A little."

"Are you going to marry someone else?"

"I might."

She nodded slowly, with her face against my collarbone.

"Aunt Hailey's room is already yellow," she whispered. "Daddy painted it when you were at your sister's baby shower."

"What room?"

"The one at the end. With the crib."

I put her down on the bed, kissed her head, and walked down the hall.

The door at the end of the hall was shut.

I had thought it was a storage room.

I pushed it open.

The walls were pale yellow and freshly painted, and a white crib stood under the window with a mobile of paper stars.

On the wall above it hung a wooden sign, painted blue.

WELCOME, LITTLE ONE.

I checked the receipt taped to the crib's box.

Dalton had ordered it seven weeks ago.

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