Mabel proud in the front pew, Pastor Timothy beaming, my mother crying before the vows even began.

Vivienne wore a simple handmade dress, and on its sleeve, sewn carefully into place, was the single preserved piece of lace from the wedding gown that had been torn and muddied in that dark forest.

“Doesn’t it bring back the worst of it?” I asked her.

She touched it gently.

“No,” she said.

“I want to carry the woman who survived that night into the rest of my life.

I want her strength to come with me.” And when I slid the ring onto her finger, my hands shaking, I said the three words I had said to her in a dim room months before, the three words that had brought her back from the dark.