“My letters never described my appearance.”
“Precisely.”
A few men laughed.
Something inside Abby broke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
It simply broke.
The part of her that had spent years bending herself smaller so other people might feel comfortable.
The part that apologized when she occupied too much room at tables.
The part that laughed politely when men made jokes about her appetite.
The part that had agreed to marry a near stranger because her father repeatedly warned her that women like Abby could not afford to be selective.
She reached up.
Pulled the lace veil from her hair.
And dropped it.
It landed at her father’s boots.
Gideon finally looked up.
“Abigail—”
“No.”
One word.
Quiet.
Steady.
Abby turned toward Elias.
His amusement faded.
She took the bouquet and placed it carefully on the altar.
Then she said, “Someday you may discover that the ugliest thing in this church was never my body.”
Nobody laughed.
Abby walked down the aisle.
Her shoulders trembled.
Her throat burned.
But she did not run until the chapel doors closed behind her.
She had no horse.
Her luggage remained at the boarding house.
Her father had the money.
So Abby walked.
At first she expected someone to follow.
Nobody did.
Not her father.
Certainly not Elias.
The church disappeared behind a haze of Kansas dust while the afternoon sun climbed mercilessly overhead.
Abby kept moving.
One mile.
Then another.
Her satin shoes were designed for a chapel floor, not prairie earth. Blisters opened across both heels.
She tore a strip from her petticoat and wrapped one foot.
Then the other.
Still she walked.
The prairie seemed endless.
Golden grass.
Hard earth.
A horizon so vast it made a person’s troubles feel small.
But humiliation followed Abby farther than any shadow.
She heard Elias again.
Prize sow in lace.
She heard the laughter.
She saw her father lowering his eyes.
By late afternoon, Abby’s throat was painfully dry.
When she found a shallow creek bed shaded by cottonwoods, she climbed down hoping there might still be water beneath the stones.
There wasn’t.
Only dust.
Branches.
And heat.
Abby stumbled.
Her wedding skirt caught beneath one shoe.
She fell hard.
A broken branch ripped through the sleeve of her gown and sliced deeply into her upper arm.
She cried out.
Blood immediately soaked the white fabric.
Abby pressed her hand over the wound.
Then froze.
A sound came from beneath a nearby rock.
Dry.
Soft.
Terrible.
Rattle.
A prairie rattlesnake had lifted its head less than six feet away.
Abby stopped breathing.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then something surprising entered Abby’s mind.
Not terror.
Exhaustion.
She thought of returning home.
Of hearing whispers in town.
Of her father telling her she should be grateful Elias had considered marrying her at all.
Of watching women who had witnessed the humiliation pretend not to stare.
Maybe, she thought, she was simply tired.
