At 2:00 PM, the guests were seated. The string quartet began a haunting arrangement of a song I didn’t recognize. Beth walked down the aisle alone, a choice she said represented her independence before joining Nathaniel. She stood at the altar, beaming, her eyes fixed on the closed double doors at the back of the chapel.
We all turned to the doors, waiting for the “symbolic entrance” Nathaniel had promised.
Nothing.
One minute passed. Two. The quartet looped the melody, the notes sounding thinner and more desperate with each repetition. Beth laughed, a sound that didn’t reach her eyes. “They’re just building suspense!” she called out to the crowd. “He loves a grand gesture!”
Five minutes passed. The whispers started. The air in the room felt heavy, like the atmosphere before a massive storm.
Then, the back doors didn’t open. Instead, our father, who had been conspicuously missing from the front row for the last ten minutes, walked up the center aisle. He wasn’t walking toward the pews; he was walking straight for the altar.
Dad’s face was the color of ash. In one hand, he reached for the officiant’s microphone. In his other hand was a small, tattered pink journal.
I recognized it instantly. It was the diary Beth had kept during her time in Sedona—the one she said she’d lost on the flight home.
Dad’s voice shook, vibrating through the speakers. “I’m sorry. I’m honestly shocked right now. This wedding… is canceled. You all need to leave. NOW.”
