The Voice Behind the Groom’s Door

Three months after I buried my fiancé, I was carrying a bucket of white roses down the hallway of a wedding venue outside Columbus when I heard his mother say my name.

“Rachel?”

I stopped so fast that water splashed over the rim and onto my shoes.

Linda Miller stood twenty feet away in a dark green dress, holding a small white corsage against her wrist.

A corsage labeled MOTHER OF THE GROOM.

For a few seconds, neither of us moved.

I had last seen Linda beside Jason’s casket.

She had held my hand through most of the funeral.

Now she looked at me as if I were the person who had come back from the dead.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

I glanced at the corsage.

“Working.”

She immediately lowered her hand.

That was the first thing that bothered me.

The second was that she didn’t hug me.

Linda had hugged me every time she’d seen me since Jason died. At the funeral home. At the cemetery. At my apartment two days later when she brought over a casserole I never ate.

But now she stepped backward.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

I tightened my grip on the flower bucket.

“Why?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Then someone called her name from around the corner.

“Linda? They need the groom’s mother upstairs.”

Linda’s face lost what little color it had left.

She turned without answering me.

I watched her disappear through a set of double doors.

For several seconds, I just stood there with white roses dripping onto the carpet.

My assistant, Kayla, came around the corner carrying two boxes of greenery.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

I wasn’t sure why I said that.

Nothing about it felt okay.

I had taken the wedding because I needed to start working again. My little flower shop had survived three months mostly because Kayla and my part-time designer had kept it running while I moved through my days like somebody had turned the volume down on my entire life.

Jason had supposedly died six weeks before our wedding.

We had already paid the venue deposit. My dress was hanging in my mother’s guest-room closet. Invitations had been mailed.

Then came the phone call about the accident.

And after that, everything became paperwork, flowers, sympathy cards, casseroles, and people telling me I was strong.

I wasn’t strong.

I just kept waking up.

This wedding was supposed to be my first large event since the funeral.

Instead, Jason’s mother was here wearing a groom’s-mother corsage.

My first thought was Eric.

Jason’s older brother was thirty-seven and single the last time I’d seen him, but three months was enough time for something unexpected to happen.

Maybe he’d gotten married quickly.

Maybe Linda hadn’t told me because she thought hearing about a Miller family wedding would upset me.

It wasn’t a perfect explanation.

But it was an explanation.

I carried the roses into the ballroom and tried to keep working.

For about seven minutes.

Then I put down my scissors.

“Kayla, finish the centerpieces.”

She looked up.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to check something.”

I walked toward the hallway where Linda had disappeared.

That was when I heard his voice.

“Mom, stop messing with it. The tie is fine.”

My body went completely still.

There are voices you can mistake.

Jason’s wasn’t one of them.

I had heard that voice beside me in bed, across grocery-store aisles, through hundreds of phone calls, from the shower, from the kitchen, from the other side of our apartment when he couldn’t find his keys.

I walked toward the half-open door.

A small brass plaque beside it read:

GROOM’S SUITE.

Through the opening, I saw Linda first.

Her hands were at a man’s collar.

Then he turned.

Jason.

Alive.

Wearing the gray suit we had bought together for our wedding.

For one strange second, the only thing I noticed was the tie.

I had picked it.

Navy blue.

He had complained it was too plain.

Then Jason looked toward the door.

His eyes met mine.

His entire face changed.

“Rachel.”

I dropped the wedding program I hadn’t realized I was holding.

Twenty Minutes Until His Wedding

Jason didn’t move toward me.

That detail stayed with me.

If someone you love believes you’ve been dead for three months and suddenly finds you alive, you’d think instinct would make you move.

Toward them.

Away from them.

Something.

Jason just stood there.

Linda lowered her hands from his tie.

“Rachel, please.”

I stared at Jason.

He looked thinner. There was a faint scar near his hairline that hadn’t been there before. Otherwise, he looked exactly like the man I had kissed goodbye the morning of his accident.

“You’re alive.”

Jason swallowed.

“Yes.”

I waited for more.

Nothing came.

“You’re alive.”

“Rachel, I can explain.”

I looked at his suit, then at Linda’s corsage.

Then I noticed the boutonniere on the table.

White rose.

Eucalyptus.

Exactly the combination I had ordered for the groom.

My hands started shaking.

“Is this your wedding?”

Jason looked at his mother.

That was answer enough.

I stepped backward.

“You’re getting married?”

Linda moved toward me.

“Rachel, not here.”

I held up my hand.

“Don’t touch me.”

She stopped.

Jason finally took one step forward.

“Can we go somewhere private?”

“I’m standing in your groom’s room twenty minutes before your wedding. I think we’re already somewhere private.”

His jaw tightened.

“It’s complicated.”

I laughed once.

I couldn’t help it.

“I went to your funeral.”

Nobody answered.

“I watched them close your casket.”

Linda looked at the floor.

That was when I knew.

Not suspected.

Knew.

“You knew.”

Linda’s eyes came back to mine.

“Rachel—”

“You knew he was alive.”

“It wasn’t that simple.”

I looked at Jason.

“How long?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

It was something he always did when he didn’t want to answer a question.

“How long have you been alive?”

“Obviously I’ve been alive the whole time.”

The irritation in his voice was so familiar that for half a second I felt like we were arguing in our kitchen again.

Then I remembered the cemetery.

The folded flag wasn’t there because Jason hadn’t been military. But there had been white roses on the casket. I had placed one there myself.

I turned and walked out.

“Rachel.”

Jason came after me.

I kept going until another man stepped into the hallway.

Eric.

He stopped when he saw me.

Then he closed his eyes.

“Oh, God.”

I pointed at him.

“You too?”

Eric said nothing.

“Did you know?”

He glanced toward the groom’s suite.

“Rachel, come downstairs with me.”

“Did you know your brother was alive when you stood beside me at his funeral?”

Eric’s shoulders dropped.

“Yes.”

I stared at him.

Then I walked.

He followed me through a service hallway and into an empty conference room.

I shut the door.

“Start talking.”

Eric leaned against the table.

“The accident was real.”

“I don’t care.”

“You need to hear this.”

“Then talk.”

He rubbed both hands over his face.

The driver of the other vehicle, he explained, had died at the scene. Jason had been badly injured and taken to a hospital without identification. There had been confusion involving belongings recovered from the wreckage and information passed between agencies and family members.

For a short period, everyone genuinely believed Jason was the person who had died.

Then Jason regained consciousness.

The family learned he was alive.

I stared at Eric.

“When?”

He hesitated.

“Before the funeral.”

I pulled out a chair because my knees suddenly felt unreliable.

“How long before?”

“Four days.”

Four days.

Linda had called me the night before the funeral.

She had asked whether I wanted Jason’s college photograph displayed near the entrance.

She already knew.

“Why didn’t anybody call me?”

Eric looked toward the door.

“Jason asked us not to.”

“Why?”

Eric didn’t answer.

I leaned forward.

“Why?”

His voice dropped.

“Because he didn’t want to marry you.”

The room became very quiet.

The Woman Waiting in a Wedding Dress

I thought I had misheard him.

“What?”

Eric looked miserable.

“He’d been having doubts.”

“Doubts?”

“Rachel—”

“People with doubts cancel weddings. They don’t hold funerals.”

Eric flinched.

I stood.