"In-laws, Anthony, I'm so sorry, today's all our fault, we really are sorry!"

"Let's just head to the venue and get the ceremony going!"

Mom and Dad kept glancing past Tyler and April, looking for Karen and finding no sign of her. Dad's brow furrowed as he asked,

"Where's Karen?"

Tyler pulled out a cigarette, angling to draw my father off toward the balcony.

But my father planted himself in front of me and didn't budge.

"Where is Karen?"

Seeing there was no way around it, Tyler gave a sheepish laugh.

"In-laws, Karen really can't get away right now. How about we just go to the venue, start the reception, keep the guests settled, and sort things out from there?"

My father crushed the cigarette in his fist.

"So she's made up her mind. She's not coming back to marry my son, is that it?"

"In-laws, that's not what we meant! Didn't we make it back within the half hour?"

"Anthony, honey, explain it to your parents. This is how Karen always treats Marvin, and you've always supported that, haven't you?"

April grabbed hold of me and shot me a look.

"What did you just say? She regularly neglects Anthony for some man who's nothing to her?"

My father's voice rose, disbelief written all over his face.

Meeting my parents' eyes, so full of pain for me, my nose stung hard.

My head filled with every time Karen had dropped me for Marvin.

When Marvin fought with his fiancée because their wedding photos came out ugly, she handed over the bridal photo package I'd booked so they could reshoot.

When the two of them came down with the flu, she boxed up the meals I'd worked hard to cook and carried them all over to them.

When he couldn't get tickets to his favorite singer's concert, she gave away the tickets I'd stayed up night after night to snag, straight to the two of them.

Every time, she'd say a childhood friend was no different from a real brother, and ask me to be understanding.

I had complaints I couldn't voice, because Marvin's girlfriend never seemed to mind any of it.

Karen didn't want me getting jealous over nothing, so I learned to treat Marvin like her brother, the way she did.

But she shouldn't have taken the new car I gave her and handed it off to Marvin as a wedding car in a pinch, then coaxed my father with the lie that she'd be right back.

April sensed the mood had turned. She pasted on a smile, took my hand, and tried to slip an emerald jade Buddha over my head.

"Anthony, this is a little something from your father and me, don't hold it against Karen, all right? We drove like maniacs the whole way just to make it back. Let's go to the venue first, and once Karen gets here we'll do a simple version of the ceremony. What do you say?"

I stepped aside and refused the jade Buddha, the one meant for the toast, the moment I'd call her Mom.

"Ma'am, I don't blame her. You've had a long, hard trip back and forth. Go on home and rest..."

At that, April broke into a grin so wide she couldn't rein it in.

"Anthony, I always knew you were a sensible boy who knew how to handle things. We're about to be one family. Time to start calling me Mom!"

Ignoring what I actually wanted, she insisted on forcing the jade Buddha over my head.

My mother caught the cold edge under my words and yanked her away.

"One family with who? Her mother is standing right here! Don't go claiming relatives that aren't yours!"

April lost her grip. The jade Buddha hit the floor with a clatter and split in two.

She stared at the broken pieces, her eyes reddening with grief.

"Anthony, what is your mother trying to say?"

"You can be angry that Karen didn't come back, but you don't take it out on a family heirloom like this jade Buddha, do you?"

My mother rolled her eyes and said it flat out.

"How much is it. We'll pay for it, and once we do, our two families are done with each other!"

April froze for a second, then pulled out her phone and called Karen on the spot.

"Sweetheart, that wonderful husband of yours has quite the temper! You'd better coax him yourself, because your mother can't handle one bit of this!"

Karen quickly asked what had happened.

April cut off the front and the back of the story and just said my mother had smashed the jade Buddha and wanted to sever ties with the Simmons family for good.

"Karen, he hasn't even married you yet and he's already letting his own mother look down on me. What happens once you're actually married?"

Tyler hurried to hold her back before she could say anything worse.

Karen's voice went cold at once.

"Mom, put Anthony on the phone!"

April screwed up her mouth and dropped the phone in my lap, annoyed.

Karen's impatient voice came through.

“Tony, what is this supposed to mean? It's not like I'm refusing to come back and marry you. Do you really have to blow it up like this?”

The sting in my nose vanished in an instant.

“Karen, after Marvin set his wedding date, I offered to move ours so you and your family could go to his. What did you say then?”

The line went quiet for a few breaths. Karen sighed.

“How was I supposed to know Marvin's wedding car would break down? Maybe it's all fate, maybe I'm meant to be there to see him happy. Can't you be a little more understanding? I'll tell my mom to let the Buddha thing go. We'll call it even!”

“No, we won't.”

I threw her own refusal back at her, word for word.

“You said our wedding date and the ceremony time were both picked by someone my parents brought in, that they were the luckiest possible timing for us, that they couldn't be changed.”

“And now, for Marvin, you've blown right past that lucky hour, and you want to strip the whole wedding down to nothing but guests sitting around eating.”

“You're trampling on everything I feel for you, you're throwing away everything my parents poured into this day, you're making a joke of my family and friends. And you think a jade Buddha squares that?”

Listening to me pour out everything at once, all the grief and anger, Karen felt she'd wronged me too, and unease welled up in her.

She covered the mouthpiece and turned to Marvin beside her.

“Marvin, I have to go.”

But Marvin's voice caught, thick with emotion.

“Kari, if you leave, and they take the after-party too far, and start giving your friend's wife a hard time, what then? If I step in to stop them, it'll only get worse.”

Thinking of all the ugly wedding-night stunts she'd seen online, Karen steeled herself and coaxed me.

“Tony! Your mom smashed the Buddha anyway, and there's no way to run the wedding the way it was planned now. So why don't we just not do ours today? Pick a new date, and I'll marry you in style!”

When I was the one asking to move the date, she wouldn't hear of it. Now she's left me hanging all day, my love and my dignity both gone, and she finally decides she's willing to reschedule. Too late.

In the family and friends group chat, dozens of people were asking me what was going on, whether the wedding was still happening.

Through tears, I typed one word.

【Happening!】

But to Karen, I said it plainly.

“Fine. We won't.”

She'd been about to hang up, but she caught the catch in my voice, and something in her chest clogged up and set her on edge, and she changed her mind again.

“Babe, if you really want the ceremony to feel like something, just grab anyone to walk through the motions. Once I'm done with the after-party and back, I'll apologize to everyone myself!”

Her idea and mine happened to line up.

I dialed my childhood friend.

“I'm short a bride at my wedding. Would you come?”

“Tony, are you sure?”

The next second, I heard Annabel Delgado start her car.

Last night, red-eyed, Annabel had made me a promise.

“Tony, if you're not happy after you're married, will you give me a chance? Whenever you need me, I'll be there.”

Last night I'd been so caught up in the joy of taking a wife that I swore up and down I'd grow old happy with Karen.

I never thought it would fall apart this fast.

My mother suddenly cried out at her phone, her face green with fury.

“This is too much! They don't see my son as a person at all!”

She handed me the phone to look.

It turned out Marvin, having made out like a bandit, had actually posted an update on social media, and it was blowing up.

【Thank you to my godmother for the heirloom jade Buddha, it's gorgeous! Thank you to Kari, who didn't even care about her own wedding and drove her brand-new bridal-gift car over to be my wedding car, and insisted on giving me the car too! My family, you're amazing! I'm so happy!】

The caption ran over a photo of April fastening the emerald jade Buddha around his neck, and another of the car keys I'd handed Karen when I went to bring her home this morning.

The comments were split down the middle.

A small number of people envied him for having family who spoiled him like that, with no blood between them.

But most of them said:

【Your happiness is built on the misery of Kari's husband. Please, everyone, like this so it gets to the top! Let the groom see it before he jumps into the fire!】

That comment got liked by countless people.

My parents' faces couldn't have looked worse. They met my eyes and gave one firm nod.

The nerves I'd held taut all day suddenly went slack.

I said to Annabel, light now.

“I'm sure. Wait for me to come marry you.”

But she said:

“No need. I'm almost at the hotel!”

The heirloom jade Buddha was one of a kind.

April had already handed it to Marvin, so what was that broken jade Buddha lying on the floor supposed to be?

Call me a fool.

I looked at April for a long moment, and I let it go. I didn't call her out. I just took my parents and left.

Annabel came quickly.

We'd barely reached the hotel when she started climbing out of the car in her wedding dress.

I hurried over and stopped her.

"We already shortchanged you by skipping the whole ceremony of coming to fetch you. You can't step out of that car on your own."

My mother rushed over and pressed a thick red envelope into her hand.

I crouched down, ready to carry Annabel down on my back.

April had followed us, and seeing this, she assumed I was just insisting on going through the motions with somebody. Her face went dark.

"Anthony, didn't you agree with Kari to hold the wedding another day? Why did you call someone in to run through the ceremony?"

I didn't want any more trouble. I said flatly,

"It's your daughter who told me to do it this way."

But April still felt it wasn't right. She blocked Annabel from climbing onto my back.

"Anthony! I know it hurts, waiting this long. But is the ceremony really that important?"

"We'll hold the wedding another day, we'll do everything properly. Isn't that better? Whoever heard of letting someone stand in and finish the wedding after the lucky hour has passed? Where does that leave Kari's face?"

Now she remembered the lucky hour. Now she remembered her daughter's face.

She just couldn't remember how she and her family had ground my face and my parents' faces into the dirt.

I ignored her and told Annabel to hold tight around my neck.

As I carried her down the aisle, everyone cheered together at how beautiful the bride was.

I couldn't help smiling as I asked her,

"So you came prepared?"

She whispered,

"The lucky hour was almost here and you still hadn't managed to bring your bride home, so I started getting ready."

My worn-out heart warmed in that instant, just from those words.

The love Karen couldn't give, someone else would.

The person Karen couldn't treasure, someone else would hold like a treasure.

I curved my lips and pressed a light kiss to her arm.

Tyler and April exchanged a look and moved in from either side, trying to pull Annabel down by force.

"Anthony, if you absolutely have to hold the wedding today, fine! But it can't be her! I'll stand in for Kari and go through the ceremony!"

April's words stunned everyone in the room.

The videographer, who'd been filming the whole time, couldn't hold it in.

"Don't tell me the mother of the bride's going to stand in for the ring exchange and the kiss too? Isn't that absurd? People will laugh themselves sick over it!"

Tyler's face burned. He shot April a hard, cutting look.

"Look at the rotten ideas you come up with!"

Tyler, who still had some shame left, stepped back a few paces and clasped his hands toward Annabel.

"Thank you for your trouble!"

Annabel heard him and smiled.

"It's no trouble."

"How could it be any trouble, marrying the man I love?"

That last line she said low, close against my ear.

My whole face went red in an instant, and I hoisted her up steadier and firmer on my back.

My parents wiped the tears from the corners of their eyes and followed behind, on the phone arranging for the wedding company to change out the bride.

Tyler and April heard it and froze on the spot.

"What do you mean, change the bride? Didn't you just hire her to fill in for the ceremony? How is it now—"

No one paid them any attention. Annabel and I were already standing at the doors of the banquet hall.

When the emcee announced the bride, Annabel, and invited her in, Tyler stamped his feet in a panic.

"Oh no, this is bad! They really are changing the bride! Hurry, call Kari and get her back here!"

April knit her brows and twisted her mouth, refusing to budge.

"I don't believe it! You've seen how devoted that boy is to our Kari, haven't you? After she saved his life, he'll belong to this family even in death! He's putting on this show now just because Kari won't come back, so he found somebody to play hard to get and lure her in!"

"If he actually marries some other woman, I'll take his surname!"

But Tyler still dialed Karen's number.

"Kari, get back here now! Anthony's holding the wedding with some other woman!"