Chapter 1 - The Debt of Arthur Brooks
Seven days before my wedding, I found an invitation with my stepsister Harper Brooks’s name printed beside my fiancé’s—and when I went to demand an explanation, I heard my mother calmly explaining why Harper deserved to marry him before I did.
At first, I assumed the printer had made a mistake.
I stood in the foyer of my mother’s house holding two ivory invitations. Mine said, Barbara Weber and Jeffrey Sullivan request the pleasure of your company. The second said exactly the same thing except the bride was Harper Brooks. Same groom. Same hotel. Same Saturday. Same noon ceremony.
I carried both invitations down the hall toward Mom’s bedroom. Her door was nearly closed, and I raised my hand to knock when Harper’s voice stopped me.
“But what about Barbara?” She was crying.
Mom sighed with the weary patience she usually reserved for explaining why I needed to make another sacrifice. “Marry Jeffrey first,” she said. “Once the baby is born and things settle down, he can go back to Barbara if that’s what everyone still wants.”
My fingers tightened around the invitations.
Harper whispered, “They’ve been together twelve years.”
“One marriage certificate doesn’t erase twelve years,” Mom replied. “Your situation is different. Your baby needs a father.”
Then she added the sentence that had controlled most of my adult life. “Barbara owes you.”
I closed my eyes.
Thirteen years earlier, Harper’s father, Arthur Brooks, had died in a car wreck on my birthday. Mom married him when Harper and I were teenagers, and after his death, the story became family scripture: Arthur had supposedly gone out late to buy the cake I wanted.
Because he died “for me,” I owed Harper. If Harper wanted my bedroom, I switched rooms. If she needed tuition money, my savings waited. When she ruined a vacation reservation, I apologized for making her feel bad. Every sacrifice was placed beneath the same stone. Her father died because of your birthday.
I stepped away from the door before either woman noticed me.
Suddenly, dozens of moments rearranged themselves into a new picture. Three months earlier, Jeffrey had missed my final wedding-dress fitting. He said an emergency meeting had come up. I had joked when he finally arrived that evening, “Stand me up at the altar and I’ll have to find another groom.”
Jeffrey had smiled, adjusted my veil, and kissed my forehead. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the only man you’ll ever marry.”
Now I drove home with two crumpled invitations on the passenger seat. Jeffrey was waiting in the kitchen. He took one look at my face and knew. He did not deny anything.
“Barbara, listen to me.”
“How long?”
His eyes reddened. “One night.”
“With Harper?”
“Yes. And she’s pregnant.”
I gripped the edge of the counter. Jeffrey stepped closer. “I was drunk. I barely remember it. But the baby is mine, and I have to take responsibility.”
“So you’re marrying her.”
“Temporarily.”
I stared at him. He actually said the word as if marriage were a storage unit.
“I love you,” he continued urgently. “I’ve loved you since we were eighteen. This doesn’t change what you and I are.”
“It changes who your wife is.”
“Only on paper.”
He reached for me. “I’ll marry Harper because the baby deserves legitimacy and security. Once things settle down, we’ll figure out how to unwind it. My heart is yours.”
Harper would be his legal wife. I would become the woman waiting quietly in the shadows for my own fiancé to return to me. My mother apparently considered that reasonable.
Jeffrey mistook my silence for surrender. “Please say something.”
I looked directly into his eyes. “Okay.”
His shoulders dropped with relief. “Thank God.”
Then he handed me a handwritten list. “Harper’s moving in tonight. Her morning sickness has been awful, and your room is closest to the master bath. Could you pack some things?”
“This is my house.”
“Our house.”
“I paid the down payment.”
“I know, but this is temporary. The guest room for now. Or your mom’s place.”
When I returned after buying packing boxes, my door code no longer worked. Jeffrey opened the door from inside. “Sorry. Harper was nervous about too many people knowing the code.” The replacement code was Harper’s birthday.
In our bedroom, our framed photograph was gone. An ultrasound picture stood on Jeffrey’s nightstand. My wedding dress was missing from the closet. The bridal boutique confirmed Jeffrey had authorized Harper to pick it up for alterations.
“That dress took me three months to design,” I whispered.
Jeffrey rubbed his face. “Barbara, it’s a dress. Do we really need this drama right now? Harper has nobody. Her father died because he was going out for your birthday.”
Before I could answer, Jeffrey’s phone rang. Harper’s frightened voice came through the speaker. “Jeffrey, my stomach is cramping.” He grabbed his keys and left without his coat.
That evening, I returned to Mom’s because there was nowhere else to go. When I opened my old bedroom door, I found a pink nursery. My belongings were packed into three cardboard boxes in the hallway closet.
Mom appeared behind me. “We needed a nursery. Don’t compete with Harper right now. She’s pregnant.”
Something inside me finally went cold. They had erased the room where I was supposed to return.
Late that night, I called Clifford Nash, my closest friend from high school. He answered on the third ring. “Barbara?”
“Will you come get me on my wedding day?”
There was a pause. Then he said, “Tell me where.”
May you like
I gave him the hotel address. Afterward, I called the hotel manager. “I need the small ceremony room beside the ballroom reserved at exactly twelve-twenty.”
Because Jeffrey was going to marry Harper on Saturday. He just didn’t know I planned to marry someone else.
