• They were gathered at the front of the church, standing stock still, as if they were stone. There were no guests, but that was what she wanted. The minister’s voice spilled out like steaming wax, and she prepared to take her vows.
    “If there is anyone here who has a reason for these two not to be joined in marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace,” he warbled.
    There was a cough from behind them. She hardly dared look back, afraid that someone would try to separate her from her groom. She had been waiting for this for so long, for a moment that never seemed to come.
    Her dainty porcelain face turned, along with everyone else’s in the room.
    A sigh escaped her lips.
    No one there.
    An icy shiver, like an arrow, shot through the chapel. The snow was picking up speed, quickly piling up outside the ramshackle church. It had been falling in erratic spurts.
    She turned back to the minister and the groom and smiled, despite the cold. It was so hard to wait.
    “There is no one? Good, then we may…” He stuttered to a halt.
    Another cough.
    As her eyes flashed to the back again, a second chill crept in, this time not from the cold.
    Again, no one there.
    Who could have made the noise? Who would keep disturbing her wedding?
    The back door rocked open with a sudden pulse of the storm, and a flurry of snow whirled across the floor. She scooted closer to the small heater in the room as the minister’s wife went quietly to anchor the door. She was frigid in her delicate frost-colored dress.
    All she wanted to do was get married. So many of her friends had already gotten married, and here she was, still left waiting.
    But now, so close. Only a few words away.
    “Well, let’s get on with it now, shall we?” The minister’s white hair billowed in the breaths that penetrated the chapel through the many cracks in the walls.
    She nodded and looked up at her -dare she say it- husband. Not quite, but surely it would be no time now.
    “My dears, I now pronounce...” Cough. Cough.
    Cough.
    They wouldn't stop coming this time.
    Cough.
    She searched frantically for the source of the incessant coughing. Why? Why was this happening to her, when she was supposed to be getting married at last?
    The door banged open again, hitting the wall over and over.
    Snow blew relentlessly through the open portal...

    “Ellen, honey, are you okay? Are you still pouring over those trinkets? We came down here for cold medicine.”
    She coughed and sniffled as she gave the darling little snow globe a few more furious shakes. Her fiancé was right. They were getting married tomorrow, and she couldn’t let a little cough ruin her big day.