My hand stopped halfway toward my coffee.
“What job?”
He frowned as though I were being deliberately difficult.
“At your wedding.”
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“I know.”
“What job?”
“The walking.”
He pointed vaguely forward.
“The middle part.”
“The aisle?”
“Yes.”
Then he straightened.
“Can I walk you?”
For eleven months, I had avoided that question.
Who would walk me down the aisle at Cedarbrook Chapel?
My father had been supposed to do it.
Of course he had.
From the time I was a little girl, Dad joked that someday he would walk me slowly enough down the aisle to give my future husband one last chance to run.
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Then, eleven months before my wedding, he died.
Suddenly.
One ordinary Tuesday morning.
There was no long illness.
No goodbye carefully prepared.
One phone call, and the person who had always been part of the picture simply wasn’t there anymore.
For months, whenever anyone asked about the processional, I changed the subject.
My mother offered to walk me.
An uncle volunteered.
Adrian told me I could walk alone if that felt right.
Nothing felt right.
Every option seemed to emphasize the same absence.
Dad wasn’t there.
Then Ethan asked.
I stared at him.
He became nervous.
“I can walk slow.”
My eyes filled.
He misunderstood immediately.
“I practiced walking slow before.”
“What?”
“With Dad.”
I covered my mouth.
Ethan nodded as though this were completely normal information.
“A long time ago.”
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