“Make sure she signs it for him early tomorrow, Cassandra, and while you are at it, you should thank him for still wanting to marry you with two kids.” Those words were not said to my face, but I overheard them during a phone call that simply did not cut off.
On the night before my wedding, my living room looked like a frantic craft store filled with white tulle and keepsake boxes. I had spent hours assembling details for the Sunday event until my fingers were sore from the glue and my back ached with exhaustion.
It was nearly nine o’clock on Friday night when my eight year old son, Toby, appeared in the hallway clutching his stuffed dinosaur. This was the very toy Jasper had claimed was far too childish for us to take to our new house.
“Mom, is Jasper coming back tonight?” he asked me in a very quiet and hesitant voice. I forced a smile and told him that Jasper was staying at his mother’s house because of a wedding tradition.
I saw him relax so significantly at that news that I should have realized something was wrong right then. Instead, I kept telling myself that children just need time to adjust and that a single mother cannot be too picky when she finds a stable man.
“Good night, Mom,” Toby murmured before heading back to the room he shared with his five year old sister, Lulu. I went back to gluing ribbons as if everything was perfectly fine until my phone began to vibrate with an incoming video call.
“Hey there, handsome,” I said with a tired smile as Jasper’s face filled the bright screen. He looked perfectly groomed and confident while sitting in the front seat of his expensive truck.
“I just wanted to know if you used the ivory or the charcoal table runners because my mother worries about the colors,” he said smoothly. I laughed softly and told him that I chose the charcoal runners so his mother could finally breathe easy.
“I knew I could count on you, but the signal is terrible here so I might lose you,” he added before the image froze. The screen went black, yet I realized the call did not actually end.
I heard the sound of a heavy car door slamming followed by the sharp voice of my future mother in law, Prudence. “Have you convinced her to sign those papers yet?” she asked with a tone that made my blood run cold.