Part 1

Day 1: The Wedding

On the day of his wedding, Jonathan Rupert Stanford was up before the sun. It was a murky December morning; the fog had rolled in overnight, lit from within by streetlights and headlights and brakelights, so that the world was suffused with a dim, diffuse glow. Jon thought it beautiful, and appropriate for fifteen days before Christmas.

When he arrived at the office, only Dr. Polkiss was there, strapping on latex gloves in preparation for the day's horde of dental-hygenically-challenged patients. "Hello, Jeannette. How fares your morning?"

"Just fine, Dr. Polkiss, thanks for asking," said Jon. He was the secretary-slash-receptionist for Polkiss-Leyton Dentistry. When he'd been hired, Dr. Leyton had laughed and said that a man was no match for a woman's job, and Dr. Polkiss had complained about the lack of feminine nubility behind the front desk, but no one was saying anything anymore. Jon did his job well. He had a good head for numbers and administration, a knack for smiles and easy humor, and a calm but firm patience with the trouble customers. His only concession to his lack of estrogen was Dr. Polkiss's constant suggestion that his name ought to be Jeannette. "It's a bit early, though."

"Too early for him to be impugning your masculinity," said Peggy Swinton, the head nurse, as she arrived. "Not to mention the Christmas carols. They're everywhere. I swear, I had to flip through five or six stations before I could find anything else."

"It's that most wonderful time of year," Jon said.

"It's make-fun-of-Jon time of the year too, apparently. Don't you have any dignity?"

Jon shrugged. "Not especially, no. What good is dignity?"

"None, if you're a dentist," said Dr. Leyton, coming in the doorway. "You spend your days with your hands in someone's mouth, inhaling someone's halitosis. Tell me where's the dignity in that. Hello, Homes."

"Hello, Stephanie," said Dr. Polkiss.

"What's the client list for today?" asked Dr. Leyton, who insisted that people use her first name to keep her from feeling old. She had met Dr. Polkiss at dental college, where he was one of her professors. They'd hit it off well enough to start a practice together, but they could not be any different if they'd tried. Homer Polkiss was a greying, rattish man with kids in high school. Stephanie Leyton was a blonde bombshell with what seemed like a new boyfriend every week. How they got along was a mystery to Jon, but they managed, so what business was it of his?

"The usual," said Dr. Polkiss, paging through the clipboard printout Jon had provided last night. "Greta Steinem at seven, Marian Wahlburn at 7:30... Ooh, you'll like this, Otis Ostermeyer is in today."

"Oh, Lord, not that old grouch," said Peggy Swinton. "Seems to think we dip all our instruments in salmonella before we work on him."

"How is Caitlyn, Jon," Dr. Leyton asked.

"Oh, uh," said Jon. "She's fine. I think." Caitlyn Delaney was his girlfriend. The dentists had first met her three months ago, when they'd discovered just what a state their books were in. "I'm not a certified accountant," Cait had warned them, "I just majored in it in college," but they had insisted that they had every faith in her, and then gone on to (rather quietly) pay her half again the going rate. Since then Caitlyn had been their steadfast friend—not to mention faithful customer.

"You think?" said Dr. Leyton.

"Didn't I hear something about an anniversary yesterday?" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Something didn't happen, did it?" said Dr. Leyton.

"No, no, nothing like that," said Jon, "it's just... She got in trouble. Again. And her mom wouldn't let us celebrate." A year and a half was a pretty significant milestone, too, but that hadn't stopped Mrs. Delaney from declaring a firm No to their faces.

"She's, what. Twenty-one, right?"

"Yeah," said Jon. "In—" He calculated automatically. "—thirty-five days."

"And her parents still don't let her make decisions about who she spends her time with?" said Dr. Leyton.

Three weeks ago, Jon had asked Caitlyn to marry her. She had said yes. But she didn't wear the ring around the house. That, they'd agreed, was worth her skin.

"Man," Dr. Leyton was saying. "I just don't get some parents. You guys have been together for—what did you say, eighteen months?—eighteen months, but her mother still won't..."

"You can ask her on Friday when she comes in for her check-up," said Jon. Mrs. Delaney had not approved of her daughter making friends with dentists when she heard the story. That didn't stop her from taking advantage of the discount Dr. Polkiss had offered to the Delaney family.

"Yeah right," said Dr. Leyton. "That lady has problems listening to people. Whenever you disagree with her, you're wrong. You can have the best arguments in the world, but she doesn't hear anything except the No."

In truth, they hadn't yet told anyone about the engagement, with two exceptions: Nathan, Cait's geographically-removed brother, and Jon's best friend Bethany, who had been instrumental in planning, staging and making sure the whole thing went off smoothly. Jon's parents, whom he lived with, knew he'd been planning it, but not that it had happened, and Caitlyn's parents were clueless.

"What she needs is to get out of that house," Dr. Leyton said.

"Yeah, no kidding," said Jon. "That's what her brother and I have been telling her for ages."

In some ways it was a whole new world, being engaged to Caitlyn Delaney. In others, nothing had changed. They had been laying plans for over a year—not only for the engagement and the wedding, but for how, exactly, to break it to Mrs. Delaney in a way that would not result in Caitlyn being locked in her room for the rest of her life. Jon judged their existing plan as having perhaps a 40% likelihood of success.

"Why doesn't she?" Dr. Leyton asked. "Jon, you're making money. You two could move in together."

Could, but, wouldn't. Caitlyn was a practicing Christian, and believed in the dicta against premarital cohabitation. Jon didn't pay it much mind; as far as he was concerned, they would be married sooner or later, and once that happened, all those not-before-marriage things would cease to be relevant. And he liked the strength of her faith. But he didn't talk much about her religious views, knowing the sort of nervous carefulness that religious people faced in this day and age. And laws of Jesus aside, it was clearly a bad idea for her to stay in that house any longer than necessary.

"We could, but, Caitlyn doesn't have the money. Her parents are paying for her education—they say it's her job. As long as she lives at home until she completes her Master's degree, they pay her room, board and tuition. Once she leaves, that's out."

"How expensive is Shellview State," Dr. Leyton asked.

"About $7500 a semester," said Dr. Polkiss, whose children were getting to be that age.

"Didn't you say she makes a lot of money playing harp?" Dr. Leyton asked. "What, like, $250 a gig? That's not bad for two hours' work."

That was the advantage of being one of the very few harpists available to this entire corner of the state. "Yeah, but, it's more like four or five hours, counting the practicing," said Jon.

"So?" said Dr. Leyton. "That's $50 an hour. Jon, you're making $18 an hour here (overtime factored in), and while you deserve every bit of it, that's damned competitive pay considering what you do."

"He's making what?" said Peggy Swinton. She turned to Dr. Polkiss. "I demand a raise."

"Sure, I'll take it out of Stephanie's salary," said Dr. Polkiss.

"$50 an hour, sure, but that's still not enough," said Jon. They'd been over this before. "Look. Let's just say, for the sake of the argument, that Cait's living expenses—food, gas, rent, everything but school—are $1,500 a month. She'd have to play six weddings a month to do that. Then school: $15,000 a year. That's, uh..."

"Sixty," said Peggy Swinton, who was good at math.

"Thanks. Sixty weddings a year, or five a month, for a grand total of eleven a month—fifty-five hours—just to break even. That's a part-time job, in addition to full-time schoolwork and her part-time job practicing harp and oboe. Where would she sleep in all this?"

"At your apartment," said Dr. Leyton. "Jon, $18 an hour is $36,000 a year—before tax, sure, but that's still a considerable sum. If you two pool your resources, I'm sure you can make things work."

And that got right around back to the original problem. "I guess."

"We've been over this," said Dr. Leyton. "Show her the numbers. She's an accountant. She'll respect numbers."

For all the interviews and careful screening he had gone through, Jon's job didn't amount to much. It was a long shift (7 to 4:30) involving a certain amount of bookkeeping, both financial and calendar, and every now and then he had to go head-to-head with insurance companies over coverage, but most of the time his job was to smile, ask the client's name, and tell them that one of the two doctors would be right with them. When nothing else was happening, which was most of the time, he was left to his own devices. He had long gotten over the incongruity of using an office computer for personal projects. Today he was tinkering with a singing arrangement of the jazz standard Take Five, for use in a small eight-person a cappella ensemble he was part of. It made a good conversation piece when clients asked after the beeps and honks coming out of the computer.

Caitlyn's Away Message was a single troubling sentence: I can't take this anymore. He'd seen her on Sunday, but they'd been tied up with music matters and hadn't had much chance to talk. After a quick lunch, he'd dropped her back at the church so she help her harp teacher, Mrs. Sellitz, play at (what else) a wedding; then had come the request for a dinner together, and the frustration and disappointment on Caitlyn's face when her mother said No. After that, they'd had about five minutes to chat over the Internet before Cait was dragged off for a "family discussion." The long and the short of it was, he didn't know how she was doing, or why she felt the way she did, or what she couldn't take anymore. And on Mondays, she wasn't back from school until 3:30 or so.

So he was surprised when his cellphone lit up just after noon, in the distinctive ring tone (Flower Duet) he had assigned for the love of his life. There were people in the waiting room, but no one begging his attention, and Drs. Polkiss and Leyton were fairly lax about things. He picked up.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Silence.

"What's up?"

"Nothing. I just... Wanted to hear your voice."

"Oh."

Silence.

"Is everything okay?"

"Umm, it's... It's mostly... "

"What did your parents say last night?"

"Oh, just... A lot of stuff that... Look, let's talk about something else, okay?"

"All right... How was the wedding yesterday?"

"It was good. I messed up on the Pachelbel, though."

"Wow, that's not good."

"Yeah."

"I mean, it's not like you haven't played it four billion times."

"You should've seen the bride's dress, though. It was so cool! It had, like, bands of lilac cloth sewn all around it, and the bride had these blue flowers... It didn't quite match the color of the sanctuary, though."

"Yeah, with all those dark reds and browns in there. Sounds like they should've done it in the chapel."

"I think they were planning to, but then they invited too many people."

"Oh."

Silence.

"Every now and then I notice that there's something on my ring finger that I'm not used to. Then I remember." He could hear the smile in her voice.

"That's what it's there for," he said. She had loved the engagement ring, a smoke-grey diamond flanked by two tiny sapphires. He was glad, because the damn thing had cost several paychecks. He also had a hunch that she would've loved it even if it was an onion ring.

"It's weird, because— Well, you know how many rings I normally wear."

Rings were the only jewelry she was permitted. To hear her mother talk of it, the Eleventh Commandment must be, Thou shalt not pierce ears. "Class ring, claddagh ring, and then the one your grandma gave you."

"Yeah. Why should one more make a difference?"

"Well, it's not just any ring."

"Yeah."

Silence.

"I don't mean to—"

"But you're at work, yeah, I know." Suddenly she sounded unhappy again.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"Baby, are you gonna be all right?"

The longest silence yet.

"... I think so. If I can just get through this day... "

"I'm rootin' for ya."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"I love you."

That surprised him: normally he said it first. "I love you too, baby."

"Bye... "

While it was good to hear her voice, ultimately it only made him more worried. She didn't sound very happy. And this was Caitlyn, who had stiff-upper-lip down to a science. If she was audibly upset...

Of course, Jon was the only person with whom she could drop the stiff-upper-lip science. Maybe it meant nothing.

Maybe.

He had met her at college, in their undergraduate programs. Neither of them had degrees in music, but both of them were around the department enough to run into each other on a regular basis. At first he hadn't given her much thought; she was the harp player, short and slender, dark hair and eyes over pale flawless skin. She was pretty, yes, but by no means a stand-out beauty, and there were other girls, other women Jon was concerned with at the time. He was a senior before they finally connected, over a shared passion for epic fantasy, but even then there wasn't really a friendship to speak of, just common interest.

Caitlyn was not a forthcoming person. She had learned the language of betrayal early—if you give people an opening, they will use it to hurt you. Eight years of home-schooling, combined with entry into college two years early, had stunted her ability to meet new people. In a college environment, she felt young, incapable, and vulnerable. So she insulated herself, becoming untouchable. Jon was one of the first friends, of any sort, she had ever had, and when life became too much of a burden to bear alone, she took a calculated risk and began to tell him about it.

It was a risk neither of them had had any cause to regret.

Parental rebellion was the foundation of their friendship. Jon recognized instantly the portrait she painted: an overcontrolling mother, a silent father who kept his own counsel, a brother who had gotten out, a sister who hadn't. Jon, like Caitlyn's brother Nathan, had managed to keep some marginal control over his life, drawing lines around the parts of himself that his parents were simply not allowed to influence. Caitlyn had not been so lucky. Things were exacerbated when Nathan left home in spectacular fashion, organizing a move to Idaho (where his girlfriend was) without parental supervision or even knowledge, and then forcing his parents to essentially disown him. He was now that wretched symbol of all that could possibly go wrong in a child, and it was Mrs. Delaney's sternest edict that Caitlyn become nothing like him. Nobody had the heart to tell her it was already too late.

They weren't sure what drove Mrs. Delaney; they had been working on a theory almost two years now. There clearly was some internal logic to her actions, but they weren't sure what it was. The first pattern was so obvious that even Dr. Leyton, a dentist by trade, had noticed it: Mrs. Delaney could not stand to be contradicted. Should anyone have an opposing opinion—about anything—they were immediately wrong, regardless of what that opinion actually was. But that didn't explain her insatiable need for control, her use of brute force, her need to be the center of everyone's life. Her philosophy seemed to be, If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer. Which was all well and good, Jon supposed, but, did she really want to use a hammer on her daughter?

All that Jon really knew was what Nathan and Dr. Leyton and Jon himself had said over and over: Caitlyn needed to get out of there. Barring that, Mrs. Delaney needed a stern talking-to. This, of course, was far easier said than done; Mrs. Delaney was perfectly capable of ignoring all the advice in the world and pursuing her own course. So Jon and Caitlyn had spent the better part of a year marshalling their forces, gathering enough people that Mrs. Delaney would have to ignore all the advice in the world. So far they had enlisted Jon's parents, Mrs. Delaney's parents, the pastor from their church, Nathan, Caitlyn's harp and oboe teachers... All people Mrs. Delaney respected, in one way or another. Even Dr. Polkiss and Dr. Leyton had volunteered to step in.

The engagement was the next step in the plan. The final step would be to announce their impending nuptials, issuing it as an ultimatum. "Your son is gone," they would say. "Now you have a choice of whether to lose or keep your daughter. If you keep trying to hammer her into the niche you think she belongs in, the way you did your son, she'll leave forever, the way your son did. If you let her go voluntarily, on the other hand, maybe she'll come back voluntarily." Then their allies would have their say, underscoring the message. With luck, they would manage to beat through the layer of stubbornness and make some sort of impact. With luck. Jon had a hunch that Mrs. Delaney didn't even realize what she was doing.

"I can't believe we're talking about this," Caitlyn had said. "It's like... We're declaring war on my mother."

In Jon's opinion, her mother had declared war on her a very long time ago. But all he said was, "It is bad. But, baby, if I had to choose between her happiness and yours, I know what I'd pick." As far as he was concerned, the only thing Caitlyn was doing was starting to defend herself.

But there was nothing he could do about that now. He was at work, and Caitlyn was at school, and he needed to concentrate on the things he could affect now—like his job.

It wasn't until 3:26 that the hammer fell, but what a hammer it was. Jon's pocket buzzed again, and he frowned at the number. It wasn't saved, along with its owner's name, into his phonebook, which meant this was someone who had no business calling him. He didn't even recognize the area code. "Hello?"

"Hey, is this Jonathan?"

"Speaking."

"This is Nathaniel Delaney? Caitlyn's brother."

"Oh!" said Jon. Nathan had graduated two years before him, and they'd been casual friends before he moved to Idaho; things had picked up again (over the Internet) once Caitlyn had come into his life. But Jon always felt a little bit self-conscious in conversing with him, whether over phone or Internet; it was hard to bond with a guy when you were dating his sister. "Hi, Nathan. What can I do for you?"

"We've got a situation. Mom saw."

"Saw what?"

"The ring."

Shit, though Jon. Shit shit shit. "And there wasn't any way for Caitlyn to squirm out of it."

"No, not with Mom breathing down her neck. She phoned me up immediately to see if I knew. Once I told her, she went off. Just raving for ages. I, I—" A sliver of a laugh. "—I put down the phone to go get a Coke. When I came back, she was still going."

"That's funny," said Jon, not laughing.

"Yeah, " said Nathan, not laughing either.

"So... I guess we're screwed, then."

"No, man, that's why I called. You need to go, right now."

"Go where? Why?"

"You need to get Caity out of there, Jon."

Jon said nothing.

"Think about it. This is the perfect opportunity. Mom's off-kilter, she doesn't know what to think or react or anything. I mean, yeah, she's pissed off, she doesn't think her baby girl should be dating anyone, much less you, much less engaged to anyone, much less engaged to you. But you know women: talk about love and they get stars in their eyes. There's a part of her that's really pleased. She's trying to ignore it, but I bet she can't. And what's she gonna do to Caity once she makes up her mind? Do you wanna leave your fiancée to experience that?"

Of course Jon didn't. He said nothing.

"She's in disarray. You'll never have a better chance. Go, now, while you still have time."

Jon crossed a hand over his face. "This is gonna be ugly."

"Yeah, I know. You've got my number, call me if you need help. Like, if you need to sneak in or something."

For a moment Jon imagined himself all in black, sliding in through back doors. It really is a war, isn't it. "All right."

"And I'm gonna call Dad, see what I can do from that angle. He might be able to hold Mom back a bit... Or maybe he'll just bend over the way he always does. But it's worth a try."

"All right."

"Good luck, man."

I'm gonna need it.

He went down the hall in a daze, trying to find Dr. Polkiss. He took a wrong turn and ended up in the bathroom. Jeez, I haven't done that since my second day here. What's wrong with me? Besides my fiancée being in the belly of the beast, that is.

"Dr. Polkiss, I may need to request the rest of the day off."

Dr. Polkiss, whose hands were halfway into Glenda Dickson's mouth, said, "Why, what's happened?"

"Uh. Something's come up with Caitlyn, sir."

"With Caitlyn?" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Caitlyn?" said Dr. Leyton from the next room over. Like Dr. Polkiss, she was clad in surgical scrubs and had a cloth mask across his mouth, which muffled her words. "What about Caitlyn?"

"Well, umm." Jon scrubbed through his hair with a hand. "Her mother found something out about us."

Dr. Leyton stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her. "What, is she pregnant?"

Jon blinked. "She's not pregnant."

"Well, she might be, if you're having sex."

"We're not having sex," Jon protested.

"You aren't?"

"No. Who told you that?"

"Well, no one, I just, I just assumed that, since you've been going for a year and a half—"

"Stephanie, what you do with your boyfriends isn't necessarily what Caitlyn does with hers," said Dr. Polkiss calmly. "What did Linda Delaney find out, Jon?"

Jon reddened. "That, um. That we're engaged."

Dr. Polkiss looked at him. Dr. Leyton stared at him.

"And you didn't tell us!" she burst out.

"We haven't told anybody," Jon protested. "We were trying to control how the information got out. Instead of Mrs. Delaney finding out and blowing her stack."

"And what did Linda do," asked Dr. Polkiss.

"Blew her stack," said Jon.

"And you need to go over there for a little damage control," said Dr. Polkiss.

Either that, or create an insuperable rift between mother and daughter, Jon thought. "Basically, yes."

"Clock out," said Dr. Leyton immediately. "No, don't clock out, it takes too much time. We'll handle it for you. Peggy can cover the receptionist spot. We're only open for an hour anyway."

"It sounds like your fiancée needs you more than we do," said Dr. Polkiss.

Jon nodded and began to run.

"Oh, and, Jon?" Dr. Polkiss called.

"Hum?"

Dr. Polkiss grinned. "Congratulations."

He felt blood pounding in his ears as he drove, as fast as he dared considering the speed limit. It was war, really. Mrs. Delaney had proved that time and again. Whenever Caitlyn offered anything that could be construed as an infraction, her mother would respond with crushing force. The best example Jon could think of was when Caitlyn was grounded for putting the bathroom counter into some semblance of order. In the aftermath, Mrs. Delaney had been unable to find something she needed, and then there was miscommunication as to the coordinates of drawers and their contents. Caitlyn was promptly busted for not only cleaning up the counter and thus confounding her mother's ability to locate needed cosmetics, but for not rushing down to help once the item was missed.

Dr. Polkiss's only comment had been, "If my kids cleaned up the bathroom, I'd pay them."

The Delaney house was quiet in the chill December afternoon, belying the raging conflict that must be going on inside. Or maybe this was merely the calm before the storm. Jon's breath frosted on the thin air.

He hadn't been sure how he was going to approach, but the front door opened before he was even halfway up the drive. "Well," said Mrs. Delaney. "The man of the hour."

"Why, thank you," said Jon, "I didn't know you liked me so well."

"I suppose you expect to be congratulated," said Mrs. Delaney. Her hair had gone white long before he had met her, but she was still young and vigorous, and from teaching second-graders could shout anybody down. "Well, I can tell you right now, young man, I will not stand by and let anyone harm my daughter."

"Good, then we're on the same side," said Jon. "I want what's best for Caitlyn, ma'am, same as you."

"What kind words," said Mrs. Delaney with withering sarcasm. "But your actions give them the lie. How did you convince her?"

"How did I convince what, ma'am?"

"To accept."

"Ummm... I asked her," said Jon.

"Mr. Stanford, we are not having this conversation if you will not be truthful to me. We have physical evidence that you have blackmailed her into accepting your proposal of marriage. It's right there on her finger. So, tell me the truth or I will call the police and have you brought up on charges. What did you threaten her with? What have you forced her to do?"

"What has who forced me to do," came Caitlyn's voice from behind her.

Mrs. Delaney turned. "You are supposed to be in your room."

"Clearly, I'm not," said Caitlyn. "So, what's this thing he supposedly got me to do?"

"Agree to marry him," said Mrs. Delaney in thunderous tones.

Caitlyn shrugged. "He asked me. And I said yes."

"You know what happens when you lie to me, young lady."

"I do it all the time, to shut you up." She took two long steps and was out the door, joining Jon on the front porch. His hand sought hers almost by instinct.

"Caitlyn Claire Delaney, you get back inside this instant!" said Mrs. Delaney.

"No," said Caitlyn. Her face was haggard, but evidently weariness was giving her strength, because she was saying things she had never dared say before. "I like it out here. Jon's out here."

"You are in such trouble, young lady," said Mrs. Delaney. "Wait until your father comes home."

"No," said Caitlyn, "I don't think I will." She turned to him. "Jon, can we leave?"

Flustered, Jon said, "Uhh— If my lady so desires."

"She does."

Linda Delaney's face was thunderous. "If you leave this house, young lady, don't ever expect to get back in."

Jon was thinking about Nathan's offer to help them sneak in, and how ineffective that statement might be as a threat. But Caitlyn turned back with real venom in her voice and said, "What makes you think I'd ever want to come back, Mother?"

Mrs. Delaney went very white.

"Do you remember when you asked me about my last argument with Jon, and I wouldn't answer you? Well, it was three weeks ago, when he was helping me get books at the library for my research paper. He refused to let me carry any, because he's a man. I refused to let him carry any, because it's my research project. So the librarian told us to shut up and each take half. That was our last argument. She also told us that if that was the worst thing we could think of to argue about, we would probably have many happy years together.

"So, we're going to go now, to have many happy years together. Good-bye."

They got in the car in silence, with Mrs. Delaney standing in the doorway seemingly stuck between a glower and a shocked stare. Halfway through, though, her face abruptly firmed and she slammed the door. Jon didn't know if she actually intended to follow through on her police threat, so he hightailed it out of there as fast as he deemed safe. The last thing they needed was the police chasing his license plate numbers.

They made good time towards the freeway, but when Caitlyn said, "Jon," he turned at the choking sound of her voice and saw the tears on her face. Then it was a gas station and flaring neon lights, and the roar of cars and gas fumes combined with coalescent breath, and he held her and stroked her hair as she cried on his shoulder.

She had always been just short enough for her head to fit under his chin. Her fine dark hair tickled his skin. Her body was light in his arms, so soft, almost insubstantial, so fragile—but reassuringly solid, and always warm, even in the coldest weather. Caitlyn. His woman. His to protect.