e y

ke a lifetime, other

s always there, fresh and sha

ed would be part of our dream wedding. Ryan Sto

full under the silk. He had held my face in his

whispered, "the whole wor

out, all right. Just n

ds and family, my smile waiting for

nt, Sarah Jenkins, w

wedding ring that wasn't f

g in the shocked silence of the church. "But there seems to

lungs. The room

ld and triumphant

oman is, pretending to be his

to my parents, who were sitting in the front r

espected marriage counselors, auth

t you? The experts on marriage. It' s a shame you couldn' t teach your own da

d him. He was standing near the back, half-hidden in the shadows b

His face was a mask

moment my wor

broken heart. It

ed together from whispers and headlines. Rya

other woman' s affair and extensive financial fraud. That woman was Sarah Jenkins' s mother. The public shame, the financial ruin... it was too much. She drove

e could destroy it in the most public way possible. He wanted to

ucce

re brutal. My mother, who had built her life on integrity and helping others, couldn't take it. The stress, the shame, the thousand

e grand staircase in their home, the one I used to slide down as a kid. The

sn' t f

icles, the doctored photos, the narrative he had created. He painted me a

ee in architecture. Then they

hitect, was gone. In her place

s had sent me into early labor. He was tiny, fragile, and came into a

ater, after all that,

d fou

he owned the whole broken-down street. He said he want

ted to fix wha

' t be fixed. They