Through the Storm

When Bianca eventually married Zachary, she understood the implications of becoming a wife to a man with a pregnant ex-girlfriend. She reasoned that since Monique had gotten pregnant before she was in a relationship with Zachary, she could get past it. It wasn’t until weeks after she had accepted Zachary’s proposal that she learned of Monique’s pregnancy. Blindsided by the news, Bianca had already grown deeply in love with him. She had no idea how much pain her choice in the past would affect their marriage today.  

“You okay?” His question was laced with layers of meaning.

“I will be. You know me.” Bianca hesitantly nodded, but then smiled and squeezed his hand. 

Zachary returned her smile before their gaze on one another was broken by the coordinator’s call for the wedding party to report to the dining hall a few yards away. After years of marriage, Zachary suspected that Bianca’s preoccupation had something to do with the last call he had received from Monique yesterday.

It was a closed subject about his son, Zachary Jr., fondly called ZJ, attending the wedding since Monique argued that she had plans of her own for that weekend. She claimed that the short notice made it impossible for her to cancel their extended weekend getaway out of town without incurring cancellation fees. Although Zachary had offered to pay the fees and cover the cost for anything else she needed to get his son in town, Monique was impossible to reason with. It wasn’t until yesterday that she left a cryptic voicemail that her plans had changed and ZJ was no longer going away for the weekend. Zachary didn’t know what that meant, being that the wedding festivities had already begun.   

All through the reception, Zachary picked up on subtle hints that Bianca had heard the voicemail from Monique. He understood what a sore subject it was for his wife, especially in this season of their marriage. Bianca had always adored ZJ from the moment she laid eyes on him, but Monique had made it known that they were a package deal until his eighteenth birthday.   

Given that they had made it through the ceremony without as much as a text from Monique, Zachary was relieved that his sisters’ wedding didn’t turn into a spectacle centered around his baby-mama drama. The ceremony escaped the presence of Monique, but Zachary harbored concern that his marriage would still suffer a setback. Given how unpredictable Monique had been in the past, he didn’t know what to expect out of her now.