My Husband’s Mother Destroyed My Marriage (Her Marriage in Crisis #34)

Prologue

Andrea

The courthouse smells like floor polish and old paper, and I’ve never been happier in my entire life.

My dress cost forty-seven dollars at a consignment shop downtown. It’s ivory, not white, a little too tight across the ribs and a little too long in the hem, but Kirk looked at me when I walked through those double doors the way men look at couture. The way men look at miracles.

His tie is borrowed from his father. Navy blue with tiny gold diamonds. William pressed it into Kirk’s hands this morning with tears in his eyes and said, “Your mother will come around. Give her time.”

She won’t. We both know she won’t. Ethel Graham doesn’t come around. She digs trenches and waits for surrender.

But today, standing in this tiny room with water-stained ceiling tiles and fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look vaguely ill, I don’t care about Ethel.

I don’t care about the venue she refused to fund or the guest list she wouldn’t approve or the caterer she said was “simply unacceptable for a Graham wedding.”

I care about this man. This ridiculous, wonderful man who wrote his vows on a cocktail napkin at two in the morning because he couldn’t sleep.

“I had this whole speech planned,” Kirk says, unfolding the napkin with shaking hands.

The justice of the peace, a kind-faced woman named Margaret who’s clearly seen a thousand of these ceremonies, pretends to study her notes.

“I was going to talk about destiny and fate and all that stuff. But then I realized I don’t believe in any of it. ”

I laugh, and it comes out watery. My mascara is definitely not going to survive this.

“I don’t believe we were destined to meet.

I don’t believe the universe conspired to put us in the same coffee shop on the same Tuesday morning.

” He looks up at me, and his eyes are wet too.

“I believe you chose me. Every day for the past two years, you’ve chosen me.

And I’m going to spend the rest of my life being worthy of that choice. ”

Margaret hands me a tissue. I didn’t even realize I was crying.

“Andrea Burke,” Kirk continues, voice cracking, “you are the bravest person I know. You fight for everything you have. You don’t expect the world to hand you anything.

And you looked at me, at all my baggage and my impossible mother and my complete inability to cook anything that doesn’t come from a box, and you said yes anyway. ”

“The box thing is a real concern,” I manage, and Kirk laughs, and then we’re both laughing and crying, and Margaret is definitely pretending not to notice.

“I promise to choose you back,” he says. “Every day. Even when it’s hard. Even when my mother is being-” He stops, glances at Margaret. “Difficult. Even when the world tells us we don’t make sense. You’re my person, Andrea. You’re my whole heart.”

I don’t have vows written on a napkin. I didn’t prepare anything because I knew I’d just say whatever came out when I looked at him.

“Kirk Graham.” My voice wobbles. “You’re the first person who ever looked at me and saw someone worth betting on. Not where I came from, not who my parents were, not my bank account or my pedigree. Just me.”

He squeezes my hands. His palms are sweating. So are mine.

“I promise to be your partner. Your teammate. The person who holds your hand when your mother makes you feel small. The person who reminds you every single day that you are enough.” I take a breath. “More than enough. You are extraordinary, and I will never let you forget it.”

Margaret clears her throat. “By the power vested in me by the state-”

“Wait.” Kirk’s voice is urgent. “One more thing.”

I blink at him. “Kirk-”

“Promise me one thing first.”

His eyes are so earnest, so full of love, that I forget we’re standing in a government building under unflattering lights with a stranger watching us.

“Anything,” I whisper.

“Promise me you’ll never let me turn into someone who stops believing you.”

A door opens in my chest. A future unfolds behind it.

I squeeze his hands and feel the worn platinum of his grandmother’s ring, the only family heirloom Ethel couldn’t take back, pressed between our palms.

“I promise.”

He kisses my forehead, and I close my eyes, and the whole world narrows to this moment. This man. This choice.

“And promise me one more thing,” I say against his lips.

“Anything.”

“Promise me you’ll always believe in me. Even when everyone else doesn’t.”

He pulls back far enough to look into my eyes. The fluorescent lights catch the gold flecks in his irises, and I think: I will remember this moment forever.

“Always,” he says. “You’re my whole heart.”

Margaret clears her throat, dabs one eye with professional efficiency, and mutters, “Every year I say I’m getting a desk job.” Then she straightens her notes.

Margaret pronounces us husband and wife.

Kirk dips me in a kiss that makes her chuckle.

Somewhere behind us, Melissa, our entire guest list, is crying louder than both of us put together and documenting everything on a disposable camera she will later drop twice.

Somewhere outside, a car honks, and a child screams, and life goes on the way it always does.

But in here, in this moment, we are infinite.

We are unbreakable.

We are beginning.