Chapter 3
“Making good choices,” I singsong under my breath as I drive toward the courthouse. It’s 9:23 in the morning, meaning I have a whole seven more minutes to run screaming the other way.
My hands grip down too hard on the steering wheel. Right now, I have no clue if what I’m doing is the right thing or if I’m suffering from the kind of postdivorce reckless impulsivity that makes for good movies and very bad actual life choices. A manila folder rests on the passenger seat of my truck, my purse parked on top of it so if I slam on the brakes, my birth certificate and the freshly printed prenup from my very worried lawyer won’t go flying. The courthouse has everything we need, including a notary for the prenup.
There isn’t a waiting period in Idaho. Once we have the marriage license, we can get married today. No state requirement to take a step back and think this one over. No witnesses needed, which is a relief. I doubt anyone I know would agree to this wild plan of mine, let alone sign as a witness.
Well, Jess would. They would probably find it highly entertaining, even if somewhat alarming.
I’ve kept the prenup simple. Everything Guy brings into the marriage is his. Everything I bring into the marriage is mine. After the marriage, there’s an equal distribution of any combined assets, which won’t exist. I’ve learned my lesson about combined assets. Honestly, it’s possible I won’t see him more than once or twice after this until it’s time to get a divorce.
My knuckles pale on the steering wheel. I guess I hadn’t thought about the idea of being a two-time divorcée.
“That’s future Sienna’s problem,” I mutter to myself, glancing at the clock. It’s 9:25 a.m., meaning I now have five minutes to get there on time. “Focus on the present. You’re getting married today.”
Oh man. I’m getting married today. I glance down at my clothing, wondering if I’m overdressed or underdressed. No one ever told me what to wear to a not-fake-but-kind-of-fake wedding. Slacks and a nice sweater seem right. For a few horrifying moments, I imagine myself getting out of the truck in a massive white wedding dress, walking up to a stranger, bouquet in hand, then I shudder.
I park my truck across the street from the courthouse, wondering if I hallucinated all this as I cross the street and head up the steps. Maybe this is just a prank, to see if I’d fall for it? Maybe this is real, but Guy changed his mind, like a rational human being about to marry a complete stranger might?
Or maybe he’s standing outside the courthouse doors, holding a little girl with a massive, sparkly rainbow bow on her headband. She’s wearing a Christmas-red dress with equally sparkly rainbow-colored boots and a fluffy child’s jacket. Emma’s hair is wispy thin but a deep brunette color. Her eyes are the same ice blue as her father’s, and the combination is striking.
She might be the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen.
Guy has her wrapped up in a second, larger jacket, the same heavy Carhartt he was wearing yesterday. Suddenly I feel guilty for driving five miles under the speed limit all the way to the courthouse. They’re waiting outside for me, and I wonder how long they’ve been here. Clearly Guy doesn’t want his daughter to get too cold.
“Good morning,” I say, because it seems like a logical greeting. Good morning, what are we actually doing? Good morning, we’ve both lost our minds. Except seeing his daughter’s shy look as she presses her cheek against Guy’s shirt, maybe I haven’t lost my mind at all.
“Hey,” he says, looking as anxious as I feel. He starts to move toward me, then hesitates. Do we hug? Do we shake hands? I want to laugh at how incredibly awkward this is, but it’ll probably come out sounding a bit hysterical.
Was Guy this tall yesterday? He’s wearing a tie around the neck of his collared shirt, and his boots look like another round of scrubbing happened after our breakfast date yesterday. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he offers me a tentative smile, softening the harsher angles of his jaw. I want to feed him. It’s a bizarre compulsion that’s hit me twice now. If the Department of Ill-Advised Impulsivity and Borderline Insurance Fraud ask, I think he’s handsome and I want to feed him.
“Emma, this is Sienna. She’s a new friend of mine.”
“Hi, Emma.” Focusing on his daughter is easier than looking at Guy. I smile at her and earn a shy smile in return, then she turns her whole face into Guy’s shoulder. “I like your boots,” I add.
“They’re her favorite. We weren’t sure what to wear today.” He clears his throat. “You look nice.”
“Daddy,” Emma says, tugging his sleeve. “Don’t forget.”
He looks down at her and then murmurs, “Oh yeah. We brought these for you.”
Guy digs into the bag looped over his shoulder and gives something to his daughter. When he takes a closer step toward me, Emma hands me a small bouquet of white roses. I have wedding flowers.
“They’re beautiful,” I say, because two people are looking at me with nervous uncertainty. Wishing I had brought something other than paperwork to give them, I take one of the prettiest roses and hand it back to Emma. Then I break off a second rose two inches beneath the bud and tuck it into Guy’s shirt pocket. “There,” I decide. “Now we’re all ready.”
Emma’s smile is brighter and no longer as shy, instantly warming my heart. A marriage for love sure didn’t do a thing but cause me a whole lot of misery. Yesterday morning, I’d have sworn I’d never say “I do” again, unless the question was if I wanted another cupcake. But marrying a man to help this little girl? The queasiness in my stomach doesn’t settle so much as just stops getting worse by the moment.
“I guess we just go inside?” I say, because I suppose this is it. There’s a clerk with a form or something in there.
Guy sets Emma down on the concrete and follows me up the steps.
“Wait, Sienna.”
Yes, please stop us from making this mistake. My internalized nesting button has lodged into the On setting, and I can’t stop myself from making bad choices.
“Are you taking my last name, or am I taking yours?” he asks.
Oh yeah, because married people do that sometimes, and they usually know before reaching the courthouse. I have no idea, so I stare up at him, blinking rapidly as if it’ll make my brain function better. “Ummm… Do you want to hyphenate?”
I get the feeling my indecision amuses him. “You want to be Sienna Naples-Maple?”
“Hmm, good point. You could be Guy Maple-Naples.”
We start laughing because this is ludicrous, but it’s happening. The people near us are looking at us like we’ve lost our minds, and even Emma giggles. I turn to her, kneeling down to her level.
“Emma, what do you think? Should we be Naples or Maple?” Let the cutie-pie in the sequined bow decide this one.
She giggles again, giving me a toothy grin. “Maple.”
The Maples we will be. And isn’t this going to make my ex-husband completely lose his mind if he ever finds out, considering I refused to take Micah’s last name?
Writing a different last name on the marriage license is easier knowing Emma’s keeping hers. I finish and twist the form toward Guy. He hesitates as he looks at the marriage license, then glances at me. I see it in his eyes, the momentary panic, as if he, too, is struggling with what we’re about to do. Then his gaze goes to Emma, sitting on the chair next to us, and Guy’s expression softens. I can’t read what it means, but unlike mine, his hand doesn’t tremble when he signs his name. Then we both reach for our wallets to pay the thirty-dollar fee for the wedding.
“I don’t mind covering it,” Guy promises, even as I nudge my card toward the clerk.
“Want to split it fifty-fifty? Might as well go into this thing as equals,” I joke, cringing internally at myself.
Guy just nods in understanding, seeming unbothered with the clerk’s annoyance at running two cards.
My last wedding was an overly excessive event. My father had grumbled more than once, and I secretly agreed with him. But Micah liked bigger, better, and brighter, so we had a massive wedding at his family’s luxurious mountain lodge home with me stuffed into a fluffy white dress and my father walking me down the aisle.
Standing in front of a court officiant in a dark wood-paneled office with unidentifiable stains on the threadbare green carpet is a far cry from the wedding of anyone’s dreams.
If I want out of this, now is the time. Grab my nonexistent veil and run for the hills. But there’s no one outside with a boom box held over their head, blasting love songs. No one knows or cares I’m here except the man next to me and the little girl in the corner. Fighting kidney failure for three years of her four-year life. The wrongness of her situation overrides the wrongness of marrying a stranger.
They start the ceremony and ask if we want to say our own vows. I shake my head because I have no idea what to say. I’m unaware I’m shivering slightly until Guy takes my hands. I can feel the roughness of the calluses there. Men who do physical labor for a living have hands like these, and it gives me a momentary relief, my poor brain desperate for something familiar to latch on to. Everything else about him is different, but these hands I understand.
I wonder what it’s like on his side of this. I wonder if his heart is pounding in his chest so hard it’s making it hard to hear out of his ears too.
Guy’s eyes gaze down at me intensely.
“Sienna, I know we just met, and all this is a lot. We don’t know each other, and I’m not expecting anything here. But I promise I’ll be a good husband to you. I’ll stand at your side, and I’ll have your back. I’ll be your friend and your partner. Whatever you need from me, I’m here. I’ll be loyal to you, and I’ll be good to you, from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep and all the minutes in between.”
It’s nice. And in his own way, Guy’s vows are a whole lot more honest than my last exchange of vows had been. I wish I could think of something to say back other than “I’ll feed you.” I think he deserves better than my wordless presence or my trembling fingers gripping too hard on his own.
I really didn’t expect this reaction from myself. Yeah, I’m pretty much scared to death.
The officiant continues in a calm if not particularly emotionally invested voice. “Guy Maple, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, ’til death do you part?”
Until his daughter’s life…or death…do we part.
He squeezes my hands gently, holding my eyes. Then his quiet voice says, “I do.”
“Sienna Naples, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, ’til death do you part?”
I freeze. I absolutely freeze. Whatever words I think I’m going to say stick in my throat. I just got divorced, and it was awful. It was so awful, and I haven’t even begun to process what went wrong and why. Yet here I am, saying these words all over again. I haven’t even stopped bleeding from the wound that is my divorce, let alone had time to heal and deal with the scars.
Then Guy’s hand is gently cupping my jaw, his body close to mine as he leans down and whispers in my ear. “It’s okay. If you can’t do this, it’ll be okay.”
Guy knows I’m scared, and he’s giving me an out. He’s giving me a chance to pick myself when I don’t remember a time in my life when I got to put myself first. I can go home. I can be done with this. Life won’t be any easier, but it won’t have to be harder.
It won’t have to be like theirs.
I look over at Emma, and she’s holding on to the white flower I gave her like it means something special to her. This little girl is dying, and her father is emotionally bleeding out on his feet. I’m a Naples, now a Maple, and it’s time for me to be as brave as everyone else in this room.
Guy’s hand is still touching my face when I look up into his eyes. “I do.”