3 Days To A Wedding

Other than a small handful of people, this is something that I never shared with many. Sometimes, every so often, the truth is stranger than fiction. This is one of those stories.

The year was 1993 and it was spring wedding season. I anxiously looked forward to Saturday. My wedding was going to be at two o'clock in the afternoon and the reception later that night. After a long and turbulent time together my high school sweetheart and I were going to make it to the altar. We were almost there, at the end of a journey that included a ton of speed bumps along the way. For a young couple, twenty-one and twenty years old, it was an exciting time.

Three days before the wedding I was at work. Working as the head of a sales area in a discount store I was working on getting stock from a truck put out for weekend sales. These needed to be done before I left Friday as I wasn't going to be available for a few days. While running around constantly with a pallet jack behind me, unloading as quickly and as neatly as I could, my attention was pretty focused on getting things all set up before I left Friday afternoon. My boss wasn't particularly pushing me harder than normal but had asked I do my best to get the department set up ahead of time.

Being hyper-focused on what I was doing, I never noticed that I was being watched so carefully. On the other hand, my boss had noticed that someone was paying me a special amount of attention. I was back in our warehouse when Stan came to find me.

"Jason," he called out as he came into our area.

I popped my head around the corner and asked, "What's up?"

He stood there at the entrance to the warehouse, motioning with his hand to come over to the door. When I got there, I noticed he had a more boyish grin on his face than normal. It was oddly creepy.

"You've got an admirer," he announced, "and it's not the soon-to-be wife."

I asked him what he was talking about and he pointed through the warehouse door window. Peeking out the window, he told me to watch for the brown-haired cutie in glasses. I stood there a minute before I noticed that there was a girl continually walking back and forth around the end of the aisle leading to the warehouse. As I looked down the aisle, seeing the girl, it turned out to be an old friend of mine.

"She's probably just looking for help and afraid to ask," I told Stan. "I'll see what she needs and give her a hand."

"Just watch where that hand goes while you're still on the clock bud, and try to remember you're supposed to be getting married this weekend," he laughed as he walked down to the other end of the warehouse.

So, I had fibbed to my boss, but just a little. She was more than a friend. We hadn't seen each other socially for a couple of years. Wonderful girl, but just a little too young, or rather her mother insisted that I was just a little too old the minute I was approaching my eighteenth birthday. There was a two-and-a-half-year age difference and it freaked her mother out when she learned about me. Her mother had been one of those excessively controlling parents that didn't understand if she'd let her daughter go on dates then maybe she wouldn't sneak off to see guys. But, parents worry and nobody is ever going to change that.

There we were, she was obviously looking for me. I had no idea why but it was creating a scene at work and that was something I couldn't let continue. Taking a deep breath as I walked onto the sales floor, I was nervous, anxious, or maybe worried about what this was about. The timing wasn't lost on me, as my wedding was right around the corner. I walked to the end of the aisle and didn't see her anywhere. Walking the floor I finally found her playing with the car stereo display. I walked up to her and made my presence known.

"Cherie," I said, "what's going on? Can I help you with something?"

Have you ever met someone that looked at you in a way that made you feel like you were the most important thing in the entire world? She looked up at me that way, with a shy grin as she struggled to find words to use.

"I hear you're getting married this weekend," she announces. In a small town, nothing goes unnoticed, especially weddings.

"Yes...".

"Don't," she says. "It's a mistake, and I'm old enough that my mom can't really stop me from seeing you."

Jesus, as if my life wasn't complicated enough, this was happening. I'd been with a girl for over three years and we have a son that at that time was a year and a half old. I couldn't believe that the past was coming back to confuse things now, just days before the wedding.

"Come on," I told her. "You know I'm marrying Jen, why are you doing this now? Why here?"

"I just know I needed to talk to you about this because I have never stopped loving you," she said, running her hand down my arm, holding mine.

I was secretly glad I was at work. Had her mother not insisted that I stay away, I couldn't imagine a reason we would have ever split up. We could sit and talk for hours, laugh about anything, and enjoyed a lot of the same things. We never got to really enjoy what could have been, because she had to hide dating from her mom. Then, when her mom intervened, we had no choice. Eighteen-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds can lead to real problems for the guys involved.

"I can't deal with this right now, I've got too much to do. If you're not going to buy something, please leave."

"I'll go, but I'm not going to let this go. I know you love me too, and even though you love Jen, I know you love me more," she said, before turning and leaving. She was right, about everything she said. I did love her. I always would.

I couldn't help but think about my visitor as I continued working throughout the day. The revelation that there might still be a chance of something with my first real love was making my head spin. I loved the mother of my child, loved her dearly, and I was committed to a life with her and our son. The rest of the workday, all I could think, was why me and why now of all times? Going out the front door at the end of the day my boss stopped me. There was the boyish grin again and I could tell he found something funny.

"Looks like you've got a surprise outside," he said.

"Great..." I sighed, trying to think of anything to really say at the moment. If she was outside I would have talked to her, admittedly at the time having no idea what to say. It wasn't Cherie, but a half-dozen roses on the car. I picked them up, and with trepidation looked at the note.

I won't give up, somehow I'm going to convince you not to make the biggest mistake of your life.

I about cried I was so confused. I took a detour home just to give myself time to think. I wanted more than anything to give my son a normal, stable, loving set of parents. Neither myself nor his mother, had that advantage growing up. As much as I hated to do it, I decided to dispose of the flowers. I took them to my grandmother's grave and laid them there, in my head telling her to wish me good luck the next few days.

The next day was a repeat of the last. My ex-sweetheart came back to see me. She didn't stay long, she just wanted to know what I was doing after work.

"Meet me, give me a chance to show you that it should be me and not her," she pleads with me.

The guys were planning a send-off for me that night. It wasn't going to be much, just the typical trip to a strip club. Lapdances and beers as they give me grief about hanging up my single life. There was no way I could have met her, even if I wanted.

"Franks picking me up tonight and the guys have something planned for my bachelor party. I'm sorry, but tomorrow at 2:00 I'm marrying Jen and starting a life with her and the kid," I told her.

"We'll see," she said, giving me a peck on the lips and walking away.

Everything went smooth for the rest of the day. I honestly believed I might be free and clear of all the confusing sentiment that had been bombarded my way the past two days. All I had to do was get home and be done with this mess, go to my wedding, say "I do" and I was off to start my life. Little did I know, there were powers at play that were unseen. I would never at that point have been able to connect all the interconnecting lines it would have taken for this to make sense. This person knows that person, that person knows another, another knows Franks girlfriend, and so on. Somehow, they were there.

"Are you ready to roll?" Frank asked.

It was a quarter until 8:00 and we were just about ready to leave. As we started to pull away the sudden sound of screeching tires behind us alerted us to stop. A four-door mid-80's Oldsmobile was parked behind us, blocking the driveway, and three girls, all between eighteen and twenty, got out of the car. The driver got out and it was Cherie. I was honestly, at that time, both annoyed and a little impressed by the commitment I was seeing but the way she carried it out was putting the future, at least the one I saw, at risk.

"What the hell?" I demanded.

"Lap dances, beers, and laughs. If that's what the guys want, then we've got that covered. This way I have some time to convince you not to go through with it," she told me.

I can't answer why because there literally years of hindsight now, but I said no. As it would happen, it would be the third biggest mistake I made that weekend. I hated to send her away like that and I certainly felt horrid to see her crying. It wasn't something that I ever wanted to cause. We left after the girls pulled the car away, headed two towns over, and I sat contemplating what I was about to do. I knew what I wanted to see happen, I just didn't know any longer if it was the right thing or not.

The next day came, and like most young bachelors that make the mistake of having the party the night before, I had a terrible headache. More than anything, I was a little jittery. The entire morning I wondered-I wondered if I was right. At the end of the day, I knew that I loved my boy's mother, and I honestly believed she loved me. She had been the one that proposed. We'd been friends for so very, very long. It all added up on paper. How could this be the wrong thing to do?

I pulled into the parking lot to get married and I remember it was about 1:30 that afternoon. I was all dressed and ready to go. As I made one last check of my hair, calmed my nerves, and got out, I heard her voice yell hey. She was walking around the corner of the building, wearing a black mini-dress.

"What are you doing to me?" I desperately pled with her.

She kissed me, softly, her hand behind my head as she put her arm around me. I relented to the kiss, confused as my world spun around me. How could this be happening to me?

"Don't do this," she warned, "you'll end up getting hurt."

"I have to, you don't understand...god why now?"

"I know why you're really doing this, and it's not a good reason to marry someone, even her."

"Look, you've got to let me go. Please, this is something I have to do."

I walked off, saying I was sorry, wishing the impossible, that I'd wake up and there would have been a time machine. I could have fixed so many things but we don't get do-overs in life. Cherie followed me into the building and as I went to the chapel I was sure that this was all going to blow up in my face. Not that I was guilty of anything, other than trying to do what I thought was the right thing, to do right by those that I loved. At the end of the day, however, I couldn't do that for everyone.

Jen came out as the music started. She was beautiful. She never saw our unexpected guest there, as Cherie waited until the very end of the procession to show herself. Fortunately, if you're not a little nervous at your first wedding, some things are probably wrong with you. So the nervous shakes didn't stick out too much. As I stood there nervously waiting until the important part of the ceremony took place, I heard the minister utter those all too familiar words.

If anyone can show just cause why these two people should not lawfully be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.

In movies and television series this is the moment where you might hear something sounding like a "bum, bum, bum." In my case, it was the first few beats of my heart. If she burst through the doors, telling the minister that I was in love with her, Cherie would have been telling the truth. I don't know if I'd have had the strength to answer her challenge to our wedding. I don't know how would the two women would have reacted, but have always suspected that if it had gone that way I'd have been bailing someone out of jail. What I do know, is that she spared me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wave of her hand as she turned and left, a tear running down her cheek.

For "five" minutes I was certain that I'd done the right thing. For five months I was married to my son's mother. I'd given the mother of my child what she swore she wanted most in the world, to be my wife. Five months at twenty days later she would come to me and explain the part of the story I didn't know yet. That, now that is an entirely different story.

In December of 2009, I finally heard about the one that got away, the one behind the door I should have chosen. It was at my grandmother's funeral. I was standing there with my brother and my father when a woman walked up to me and said, "Hey there stranger." I looked down at the five-feet or so of salt and pepper hair-haired lady as she asked me, "Remember me?"

"Your face looks very familiar," I told her. I was at my grandmother's funeral so faces weren't really clicking, and it wasn't someone that I was overly friendly with. Her name was Susan Robinson, Cherie's mother. I hadn't seen her since the spring of 1993.

"Hi," I said, for lack of any other thing to say.

She made the usual funeral pleasantries, before telling me how she went to the same church and my grandmother did. While my grandmother was in the hospital, she'd spent quite a bit of time visiting her. Susan described running into my dad, and that being when she put two and two together. She knew everything that had gone on in my life the past sixteen years or so.

"I'm impressed," she told me. "Head of security to shift Sargent in the Sheriff's Department. I hear you bought your own house and have raised your son all on your own."

"Yeah, that's pretty much my story," I told her.

I stood there, looking around, trying to find a distraction during this uncomfortably weird meeting.

"You ever hear from my daughter?" she asked me.

I shook my head. I didn't know where she was going but I was suddenly that seventeen-year-old kid again, remembering her venomous threats to have me thrown in jail if I saw Cherie one second after I turned eighteen.

"I haven't seen or heard from her in years. I sort of lost track of her after I started my career."

"I'm sorry about that," she told me. "Actually, I'm sorry for a lot of things. I know what I did wasn't the right way to handle that whole situation."

I was stunned. To hear her say she regretted separating us meant something to me. When it happened, she'd almost made what I shared with Cherie seem like a bad thing. Now, nineteen years later, I was vindicated.

"I want you to know if I could turn back the clock...what am I saying, you wouldn't have your son if I could turn back the clock."

I looked at her, with the closest thing I could muster to a forgiving smile, and replied, "Sure I would, he'd just call you grandma."

Ah, what could have been?

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