Nobody seemed willing to look long enough to find my heart. They only saw damaged goods.
But Callahan was different. Even without sight, he saw me.
On our first date, I looked down at the diner table and quietly said, “I should tell you something, Callie. I don’t look like other women.”
He smiled and reached across the booth for my hand. “Good. I’ve never been interested in ordinary things.”
I laughed so hard I nearly cried. Maybe that should have warned me.
By the time Lorie placed my hand into his at the altar, all those tender memories already had tears in my eyes.
Callahan stood there with Buddy beside him wearing a black bow tie one of his students had insisted on choosing. Those same students were supposed to perform a love song while I walked down the aisle. What they actually produced was a brave, uneven version of one, overflowing with missed notes and determined effort. It was terrible in the sweetest possible way.
When the pastor asked whether I took Callahan as my husband, I answered yes before he even finished speaking.
Afterward there were hugs, inexpensive cake, paper cups of punch, children running beneath folding tables, and Lorie pretending not to wipe her eyes every time she looked at me.
For once, I was not the scarred woman everyone politely tried not to notice. I was the bride.
Lorie drove us back to Callahan’s apartment after sunset. Buddy padded inside first, exhausted from too much attention, and collapsed near the bedroom doorway with the heavy sigh of a dog who had completed every duty expected of him.
My sister hugged me tightly at the door. “You deserve this, Merry,” she whispered. “I’m so happy for you, love.”
Then she left, and suddenly it was only my husband and me, with the first quiet moments of marriage settling around us.
I guided Callahan toward the bedroom by the hand. When we reached the edge of the bed, he turned toward me, and I felt more nervous than I had walking down the aisle.
