15
When George woke up, it was dark. The vast wedding hall was empty except for him.
The blood on his hand had dried, and the lump on his forehead from his fall was a dull ache no one had noticed.
He pushed himself up, dizzy, and re–entered the main hall.
The roses decorating the venue were still fragrant. He knew this was nothing like the wedding he had planned. A wedding filled with roses–Anna had mentioned it more than once, but he had always dismissed it as too much trouble.
He picked a rose and held it in his palm. Now, he had to admit, the wedding Anna had wanted was breathtakingly beautiful.
He walked up to the stage, step by step, but the hall below was just a mess of post–wedding debris.
“George!”
He stared, dumbfounded, at the vision of Anna in her wedding dress, her smile as playful as ever.
She lifted the hem of her dress. “Don’t I look like the most beautiful bride in this dress?”
George’s eyes turned red. He nodded again and again.
“You’re beautiful even without it.”
He thought she had come back for him. He opened his arms to embrace her.
But his arms closed on empty air. He stared at his hands, frozen.
“Anna… Anna!”
Realizing it was a hallucination, George’s eyes finally filled with tears. He had always thought of Anna as just a business arrangem-
ent. But now that he had lost her, he realized that her shadow was everywhere in his past twenty–odd years.
“Anna, I didn’t mean to lie to you. I didn’t mean to have a child with Maya, it was an accident. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
He knelt on the floor, crying for a long time.
It wasn’t until the door opened again that he looked up, dazed.
A figure rushed in, silhouetted against the light.
“George, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. What are you doing here?”
Maya looked frantic as she checked him for injuries.
But the next second, she was thrown violently to the ground.
