Before the Wedding
I was 32 when I met Robert.
He was five years older than me, kind, thoughtful with his words, and already carrying a burden so heavy that most people would have run from it.
The man had 10 children.
Yes, 10!
His wife had sadly passed away two years earlier, and he was raising all of them alone.
The first time I saw him was in a grocery store. He was trying to steer a cart overflowing with cereal boxes while keeping an eye on several children at once. In the middle of the chaos, a toddler reached her little arms toward me.
That toddler was Sophie.
“I’m sorry,” Robert said, lifting her into his arms. “She does that with anyone who smiles at her.”
“Then I suppose I’ll keep smiling,” I said.
He laughed—a tired laugh, but a warm one—and something inside me softened before I had the sense to stop it.
At first, I thought I was only falling in love with Robert.
I was wrong.
I was falling in love with all of them.
Amanda was 15 and already seemed far older than her age. She carried herself with a maturity no teenager should have needed.
Derrick hardly spoke unless something needed fixing.
Sue talked with her hands almost as much as with her mouth.
Jacob and David, the twins, somehow managed to turn every household chore into a competition.
The quadruplets were endless bundles of energy.
And Sophie?
Sophie called me “Mama” before anyone told her she could.
Within only a few months of dating, I found myself spending more evenings at Robert’s house than anywhere else.
I helped with homework.
I stirred soup on busy weeknights.
I hunted down missing socks.
I kissed scraped knees.
I learned which child needed gentle encouragement and which one responded better to plain honesty.
Little by little, the house stopped feeling like Robert’s house.
It started feeling like home.
Six months after we began dating, Robert proposed.
There was no fancy restaurant.
No expensive ring presentation.
No dramatic speech.
Just meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and 10 children pretending not to listen from the hallway.
“Will you marry us?” he asked.
The question broke me instantly.
I said “yes” through tears, and before long, we were planning our wedding.
Not everyone shared my excitement.
My mother, Helen, certainly didn’t.
Every Sunday she found a new way to tell me I was making a mistake.
“Ten children, Margaret,” my mother said every Sunday. “You haven’t had your own life yet.”
“They are my life, Mama.”
“You’re being foolish.”
I always let her say it.
Not because I agreed.
But because I knew she simply didn’t understand.
She saw obligations.
I saw family.
Two weeks before the wedding, I stood in the bedroom trying on my dress.
Amanda carefully zipped the back while Sophie clapped her hands with delight.
The boys peeked around the doorframe and pretended to gag at the sight of me in a wedding gown.
I was happier than I could remember ever being.
I kept turning toward the mirror, imagining the day ahead.
The ceremony.
The children.
