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Rosey

The mirror reveals my three younger sisters in bias-cut, peacock-green satin, sucking in their cheeks and taking selfies. It also reveals a snow-white veil draping over my bared shoulders down to perfectly manicured fingertips. I should be the one giggling with excitement, unable to sit still for anticipation.

After all, this ismywedding day.

Frank might be older, and I might not exactly love him, but I’m grateful to him, and that’salmostlove, isn’t it?

I take in a breath, the bones in my corset pressing against my rib cage.I’m so lucky, I remind myself. I’m never going to have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. I’m not going to have to tell my children not to make a sound when Mr. McAlister bangs on the door of the trailer, looking for rent. I get to live in a house with a yard and a top-loading washer. Frank says we’re traveling overseas for our honeymoon. He’s keeping the destination a secret. I’ve never even made it across the border into California. Never been on an airplane. Before Frank, I’d never been to the grocery store and not had to do mental arithmetic as I added every item to my cart to ensure I had enough money to cover the necessities. Marriage to Frank promises so much.

I. Am. So. Lucky.

Except, no matter how many times I say it to myself, how much Iwillmyself to feel it, I can’t drown out the voices screaming at me, telling me I shouldn’t be walking down the aisle in thirty minutes.

“Are you going to get pregnant right away?” Lydia asks out of nowhere. “Cement the deal?”

The room tilts a little and I close my eyes.A child?The boning in my corset is going to leave bruises. Everything’s just so tight. I can’t breathe.

My sisters are happy to accept the niceties that come with me dating the co-owner of the second-biggest car dealership in Eugene, Oregon. They know this isn’t a love match. It doesn’t occur to them that it should be. Frank’s been generous with my family. When we started dating, he obviously felt he had to seduce the entire family. He gave Kitty a job and had a chat with the sheriff when she got caught up in an argument with her boyfriend. He took all five of us out for dinner after our fifth date, and bought everyone Christmas presents three months later, after he insisted everyone spend the holiday at his house.

And when he proposed, he also announced he’d bought the trailer we’d grown up in, and gave it to me as an early wedding present—his way of making sure my family was taken care of. Frank is kind. He’s generous. I could do a lot worse.

So why aren’t I looking forward to being married to him? Having achildwith him?

My mother comes out of the bathroom. She’s wearing lipstick, which I’ve only witnessed two other times in my life. She’s wearing a long, pastel-blue dress that looks like it was meant for someone else. It’s just so formal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so unlike themselves. I look down at my gown. Maybe the congregation will feel the same way when they see me dressed up like this.

She meets my eyes in the mirror and pulls back her shoulders, like she does when someone accuses her of something. “You look beautiful, Rosey. You always do. A smile would complete the picture.” It’s an accusation in disguise:Why aren’t you excited that you’ve landed a man like Frank Goad?You’re going to have a charmed life. It’s good for your whole family.

But she doesn’t say it, because if she does, I might disagree with her. She won’t risk it. She always told me my face would be my fortune. And in her eyes, this day confirms it. I’m marrying into money.

I nod and force a half smile. “I think I just need some air.”

“Someone open a window,” she calls, but my sisters ignore her. I don’t want an open window. I want to look up at the gray Oregon sky and ask God whether I’m doing the right thing.

Before she can stop me, I gather up my skirt, toss it over my arm, and beeline toward the hotel room door. “I’ll be five minutes,” I call over my shoulder.

“Rosey Williams, come back here,” my mother calls. Her voice closes in on me, and before I can make it out the door, she grabs me. “Get back here.”

“My hair and makeup are done,” I say. “I’m ready. There’s thirty minutes before I need to be downstairs. I just want to talk to Frank about something.” It’s a lie. Frank is the last person I want to see. Despite the way he’s always trying to help me—help us—he’s not the person I’d run to in a crisis. Not that he doesn’t care about me. I think he really does. But the only person I can count on is me. I learned that lesson a long time ago.

“About what?” she hisses. “You’re going to be walking down the aisle to him soon enough.”

There’s a crash behind us and my sisters start assigning blame. In the split second my mother’s distracted, I manage to slip out the door. My heart pounds in my chest like I’ve just escaped a kidnapping. Slamming my whole palm against the elevator call button, I glance back down the corridor. No one’s chasing me. Yet.

The elevator doors spring open immediately, like they’re a getaway car idling at the curb. I expect Frank to be waiting for me in the lobby, but when the doors open, there’s an eerie quiet I wasn’t expecting.

I’m wearing a wedding dress. It’s not like I can fly under the radar, but I casually cross the lobby to the front door like I’m in sweatpants and my Oregon State t-shirt.

I just need some air. Some time to breathe. To think.

I step outside and it’s like there’s a roof on the world, it’s so completely full of low clouds.

“Okay, God,” I say out loud. “I don’t think we’ve actually had this talk. But I need to know whether you think I should be marrying a man twenty years older than me who I don’t love because he bought my mom’s trailer and kept my sister out of jail?”

I wait for a sign. A frog or two falling from the sky. A bird shitting on my dress. Anything.

God doesn’t respond.