Page 72 of Colt
When Colt left, he’d taken most of them back—said I could look whenever I wanted, they weren’t going anywhere. But the wedding photo, I’d asked if I could keep it. Just for a day or two.
He’d nodded once and left it on the counter.
This morning, the wedding photograph was still there where he’d left it, and I couldn’t stop looking at it.
Betty had taken the boys to a play date, and the house was quiet for once. I stood at the counter with my coffee, staring at the younger version of myself in that simple white dress. The girl in the photo looked so happy. So sure of everything.
I picked up the photograph and traced the edge with my finger.
Who were you?I thought.Who were we?
I don’t know how long I stood there, but at some point the morning light shifted, falling across the photo at a new angle.
I’m standing in a small room. Fluorescent lights overhead. Colt in front of me, holding my hands. He’s younger, softer, nervous in a way I’ve never seen him.
“I, Cliff Spencer, take you, Lilac James, to be my wife.”
His voice cracks on the word wife, and I squeeze his hands.
“To have and to hold, from this day forward. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer.”
He’s crying. I’m crying too. I can feel the tears on my cheeks.
“In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.”
He slips a ring on my finger—simple silver band, nothing fancy—and his hands are shaking so badly he almost drops it. I laugh through my tears and help him steady it.
“You may kiss the bride,” someone says, and Colt’s hands cup my face like I’m made of glass, and he kisses me so gently, so reverently, that I feel it in my soul—
The photograph slipped from my fingers.
I caught it before it hit the floor, but my hands were shaking so violently I nearly dropped it again.
That was amemory. Full and vivid and real. I remembered our wedding.
I could still feel his hands on my face. Still hear the crack in his voice when he saidwife. Still feel the overwhelming certainty that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I sank onto a kitchen chair, the photograph clutched to my chest, and sobbed.
?
I was still shaky when Colt came by that evening.
I hadn’t told him about the memory. Part of me wanted to process it alone first—to sit with the weight of it, the reality that I had loved this man deeply enough to marry him, and that some part of me still carried that love even if my conscious mind couldn’t access it.
But keeping it from him felt wrong.
By the time the boys were settled in the living room arguing over what to watch on TV, I’d made a decision. I would tell him tonight. After the boys were in bed, when we had privacy.
First, though, dishes.
Such a mundane moment—Colt washing, me drying. Betty had gone to bed early, claiming a headache, and somehow Colt and I had fallen into this domestic rhythm without either of us noticing.
“Knox wants to do another riding lesson this weekend,” Colt said, scrubbing at a pot. “But only if you’re okay with it.”
“I’m okay with it.” I reached for a plate. “They love it. I’ve never seen them so excited about anything.”
“They’re naturals.” Pride warmed his voice. “Luca especially. Kid’s got instincts I’ve seen grown men struggle to develop.”
