Till Death Do Us Part: Three of Us
Description
Grace believes she's found happiness with her fiance, Adam - a successful lawyer who offers her security and a perfect future. Their world shatters when she's diagnosed with an aggressive, terminal illness. But as Adam clings to impossible hope, researching cures and treatments, Grace begins to accept her mortality and a different path. In the hospital, she finds an unexpected connection with Lionel, another terminal patient. They're common in their dark humor, he sees her for who she is, and offers her a different kind of love-one based not on a false promise of forever but on unconditional, present-tense support. Their bond is challenging everything she thought she knew about love, family, and what it means to truly live while dying. Grace must choose between the man who promises to save her and the one who promises to honor her choices, even if those choices lead to a beautiful, and devastating, end.
Chapter 1
Aug 29, 2025
POV Grace
Standing on the pedestal in Bella's Bridal, I could almost see all the versions of myself.
The seven-year-old foster kid who'd worn the same dress to three different placement meetings. The teenager who'd learned to stop hoping for permanence.
And now this woman in white who somehow convinced Adam Webb to love her.
"Hold still, sweetheart, just adjusting the cathedral length," Patricia said. "We want everything perfect for the photos. The Webb family wedding album goes back four generations, and you're going to be the most beautiful bride in it."
"Mother, stop fussing. Grace could wear a paper bag and still outshine every bride in that album.”
Adam caught my eye in the mirror and grinned, that boyish expression that transformed his usually serious attorney face.
“Besides, I should have been the one handling the vendor negotiations. Do you know what the florist tried to charge us for peonies? Highway robbery. I could've cross-examined them down to half price."
"You did cross-examine them, remember? We're lucky she didn't ban us from her shop entirely. You treated her like a hostile witness," I laughed, watching him pretend to look offended.
"I prefer 'thorough questioning.' It's what makes me good at my job."
Adam moved closer to run his fingers along the beaded bodice.
"Speaking of thorough, we still haven't decided on the honeymoon. I've been researching—Tokyo has that incredible fish market you wanted to see, but Iceland has the northern lights."
"Why choose? Let's do two of them," I said, leaning back against Adam despite Patricia's gentle protest about wrinkling the dress. "We'll figure it out together. We have our whole lives to explore the world, right?"
Patricia's hand found my shoulder, warm and maternal in a way that still caught me off guard. "Six weeks until you're officially our daughter."
The word 'daughter' lodged in my throat like a pearl, precious and overwhelming. My eyes burned with sudden tears that I blamed on the bright boutique lights.
"You're going to make me ruin my makeup," I managed, dabbing carefully at my eyes while Patricia squeezed my shoulder.
"Waterproof everything on the big day," she said firmly. "Happy tears are still tears."
I bent down to continue embroidering our wedding date into the dress hemю June 15th in delicate silver thread, a secret message between the fabric and my skin.
The needle required focus, each stitch a small meditation on permanence.
This dress, this date, this family—all of it real and mine and lasting.
"You know, Adam used to say he'd never get married," Patricia continued, adjusting the train behind me. "All through law school, he insisted he was married to his career. Then he met you, and suddenly he's planning honeymoons and asking me about my wedding china patterns."
The needle slipped slightly, pricking my finger. A tiny bead of blood welled up, and I quickly moved my hand away from the white silk.
The room tilted gently, like being on a boat in calm water.
I blinked hard, refocusing on the embroidery.
"Grace? You okay?" Adam's reflection shifted in the mirror, concern replacing humor.
"Just dizzy for a second. I probably should have eaten more than coffee and half a croissant today."
The words felt thick in my mouth, like speaking through cotton.
"You've been working too hard on everything," Adam said. "We should have hired a full wedding planner, not just a day-of coordinator. You don't have to do everything yourself, Grace. That's what family is for, to help carry the load."
Family.
The word echoed strangely in my skull as I stood up from my embroidery and suddenly my knees weren't knees anymore but hinges made of water, buckling and failing.
The pain arrived like a verdict—crushing, final, undeniable. It started in my spine and radiated outward, electric wires of agony that made my hands claw at air.
I tried to say Adam's name, but my tongue had become a foreign object in my mouth, thick and uncooperative.
The carefully controlled world of the bridal boutique shattered into chaos.
"Grace! Oh my God, Grace!" Adam's arms caught me as I fell, the dress pooling around us. His face swam above me, features blurring and sharpening in waves. "Call 911! Someone call 911 now!"
Patricia's voice cut through the fog: "She's having a seizure! Turn her on her side!"
The seamstress appeared with fabric scissors, her hands steady as she began cutting through the expensive silk.
"We need to get this off her, she can't breathe properly in the corset."
The sound of tearing fabric mixed with Adam's desperate voice saying my name over and over, a prayer and a plea and a promise all at once.
Time became elastic. The boutique ceiling was white.
Then there were red lights. Movement. The ambulance ceiling was white too, but differently white—clinical, cold.
Adam's hand crushed mine, his knuckles bone-white with pressure.
"Stay with me, Grace. I'm right here. We're almost at the hospital," he kept saying, his free hand smoothing my hair back from my forehead. "You have to stay with me."
Patricia's voice drifted from the front seat, mixing with the EMT's radio chatter: "Please, God, watch over our Grace. Keep her safe. She's meant to be our daughter, part of our family. Please."
The siren wailed above us, and I wanted to tell them both that I was trying.
That I could hear them, that six weeks wasn't enough time to learn how to be a daughter, a wife, a person who belonged.
But my body had become a stranger's territory, and all I could do was hold onto Adam's voice like a lifeline.
Till Death Do Us Part: Three of Us
30 Chapters
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