Chapter 32: First Light

Grace opened her eyes to observe the golden sunlight reflecting through their bedroom curtains and the faraway noise of her coffee maker gushing into life in the kitchen. For a while, she forgot what day it was……..until Max's hand found hers between the covers and informed her.

Wedding day.

"Good morning, future wife," Max whispered against her shoulder, his voice raspy from sleep but tinted with what may have been a wonder.

"Good morning, future husband." The words felt both exotic and familiar, like if she was learning a language without even realising it.

They lay there in peaceful calm, listening to the noises of their apartment complex come to life around them. 

Mrs. Chen's television news program filtered through the thin walls. The rumble of morning traffic on the road below. The usual soundtrack to an otherwise extraordinary day.

"I keep thinking I should feel different," Grace explained, tracing circles on Max's chest with her fingertip. "More nervous or excited or... something."

"And instead?"

"Instead, I feel like myself, but more so. Like everything that's been growing between us for months is finally becoming official."

Max adjusted to face her properly, his dark hair standing up at unnatural angles. "Is that good or disappointing?"

"Good. Definitely good. I was scared that we'd get caught up with wedding stress and forget why we wanted to do this in the first place.

"Which is?"

Grace considered the subject while watching dust motes dance in the morning light. "Because we chose each other." Every day, in a hundred subtle ways, we continue to choose one another. Today, we only get to say it aloud in front of witnesses."

"Very practical reasoning for someone about to make a lifelong romantic commitment."

Would you want something more dramatic? I might say you've ruined me for all other men with your encyclopedic knowledge of rare historical documentaries and ability to cook flawless

scrambled eggs.

"The scrambled eggs are pretty compelling evidence of husband material."

Grace laughed, and the sound seemed to settle something in the room……..a lightness that had been lacking after weeks of courthouse paperwork, family phone calls, and the peculiar practicalities of preparing a wedding that wasn't quite a wedding.

"Max, are you happy about today?"

"Yes. "Are you?"

"Yes. But I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"What other shoe?"

"I do not know. That's what distinguishes the other shoe. Grace sat up and pulled the sheet around herself. "It seems too easy. Too true. I keep thinking that there must be something we haven't considered or a difficulty we haven't planned for."

"Like what?"

"Like the notion that your parents will be seeing us swear to love each other forever while knowing little about me. Or that we're effectively having a family wedding for a relationship that began as a practical arrangement. Or that we are making the most important decision of our lives in a courthouse between a divorce and a traffic violation."

Max was quiet for a minute, and Grace was concerned that she had expressed thoughts he had been trying to avoid. But when he talked, his voice remained firm.

"Grace, do you remember the night you moved in here?"

"When I cried into a box of cereal and you offered me your spare bedroom without asking any questions?"

"You were terrified." Of me, of the predicament, of having to reconstruct your entire life from the beginning. But you did it nonetheless because staying where you were seemed more perilous than taking a chance on something unknown."

"Your point being?"

"My point is that we never selected each other because it was easy, traditional, or looked good on the outside. We selected each other because it felt right, even though everything else was questionable.

Grace felt something stiff in her chest start to loosen. "And today?"

"Today also feels true. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is taking place in a courthouse amid humdrum legal hearings. Maybe especially because your father will not be present and my folks are still figuring out who you are to me. 

Maybe it's because we're doing it our way rather than the way weddings are meant to go."

From the kitchen, they could hear their coffee maker complete its cycle, followed by Max's phone ringing with morning texts. The regular incursions of a day could also be spectacular.

"We should probably get up," Grace remarked, but she made no attempt to leave the comfort of their bed.

"We should." Lyla is picking up the flowers at nine, and she will want to make sure everything is in order before we leave for the courthouse."

"Are you ready for your sister to take approximately three hundred photos of us getting ready?"

"I'm ready for whatever happens today as long as it ends with us being married."

Grace went down to kiss him, a leisurely morning kiss that tasted of possibilities and felt like home. When they parted ways, she realised the anxious expectancy she'd been carrying had changed into something more stable and solid.

"Max Walker, in about four hours, you're going to be my husband."

"Grace Chen, in about four hours, you're going to be my wife."

"Think we can handle it?"

"I believe we've been handling it for months. Today we just made it official."

As they eventually got out of bed and began their daily routine…….Max cooking breakfast while Grace washed, the simple domestic choreography they'd formed without discussing it……..Grace found herself focussing on the minute aspects she wanted to recall. 

Max hummed while cooking. The unique quality of light in their kitchen around 8 a.m. The sound of their neighbours starting their own routine Tuesdays, oblivious that something significant was taking place in flat 4B.

By the time Lyla came with flowers and a portable steamer for Grace's dress, the morning had taken on a joyful tone that seemed both meaningful and unexpectedly natural. This was what

they had created together: not just romance, but cooperation. Not simply passion, but practical love that could withstand courthouse ceremonies, family issues, and the lovely monotony of choosing each other every day.

In two hours, they would stand in front of a judge, repeating commitments they had previously made. The rest…….the fear, the practicalities, the familial dynamics……..was simply context for the fundamental truth they had discovered together.

They were at home. Today, they made it official.