Halfway through the vows, the chapel doors banged open. Two officers moved down the aisle, radios hissing, and quietly asked the bride to step aside. My son’s grin fell away. Three weeks earlier he’d sworn he’d found “the one,” and we’d all tried to keep pace with their sprint to the altar.
In a side room the truth surfaced: the name on her license wasn’t her legal name; under the real one sat complaints and an active probe into whirlwind “engagements” that ended with vanished money and shattered trust. No cuffs clicked, but the ceremony dissolved into silence and scattered flowers. On the ride home, my son turned the ring in his palm—learning, the hardest way, that love needs time, and that doubt can be a guardian, not a curse.
