The groom stared at the woman in white.<\/p>\n
The music had stopped. No one moved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did she say?\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n
The bride shook her head quickly. \u201cThey\u2019re children. They\u2019re confused. Someone must have brought them here to ruin us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The older girl screamed through her tears, \u201cYou told us Daddy didn\u2019t want us anymore!\u201d<\/p>\n
The groom\u2019s face broke.<\/p>\n
He ran down the aisle.<\/p>\n
Both girls rushed into his arms, muddying his tuxedo as they clung to him like they had been holding their breath for days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here,\u201d he cried. \u201cI\u2019m here. I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The younger girl buried her face against his chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said if we came to the wedding, you would send us away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The groom kissed their dirty hair, shaking with rage and grief.<\/p>\n
Then he opened the wet envelope.<\/p>\n
Inside was a letter from his late wife.<\/p>\n
His hands trembled as he read it.<\/p>\n
If I am gone, protect our daughters from Elise. She has been threatening me for months. She wants my place, my house, and my children erased.<\/strong><\/p>\n The bride backed away.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d she whispered. \u201cThat\u2019s not real.\u201d<\/p>\n The groom lifted his tear-filled eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wife wrote this before the accident.\u201d<\/p>\n A guest in the front row suddenly stood.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw the girls behind the east wing,\u201d she said, crying. \u201cI thought they were flower girls playing in the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n The bride looked around, trapped by every stare in the room.<\/p>\n \u201cI did it for us,\u201d she said, her voice cracking. \u201cYou were never going to move on while they were there.\u201d<\/p>\n The groom stood slowly, holding one daughter in each arm.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are not something I move on from,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are my children.\u201d<\/p>\n The bride\u2019s bouquet slipped from her hands.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease. I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n He looked at the mud on his daughters\u2019 faces.<\/p>\n At their shaking hands.<\/p>\n At the fear in their eyes.<\/p>\n Then he removed his wedding ring and let it fall onto the aisle.<\/p>\n \u201cThe wedding is over.\u201d<\/p>\n The younger girl touched his cheek with muddy fingers.<\/p>\n \u201cDaddy, are we going home?\u201d<\/p>\n He pulled both girls tighter against him, tears running down his face.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d he whispered. \u201cAnd no one will ever lock you away from me again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The groom stared at the woman in white. The music had stopped. No one moved. \u201cWhat did she say?\u201d he whispered. The bride shook her head quickly. \u201cThey\u2019re children. They\u2019re … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":508,"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystories24h.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}