In Medias Res by Yolanda Wallace

him on the spot instead. “Take care of her even when she says she doesn’t need you to. Listen to her even when what she’s saying is unspoken. Love her no matter what. Do these three things and we won’t have a problem, will we, Doctor?”
    “No, ma’am,” he obediently replied.
    “Uh-oh, Jack,” a heckler called out. “Looks like you’ve got two wives instead of one.”
    “Better than three,” Jack shot back.
    His sarcastic comeback ingratiated him with the men but alienated him from the women, including the members of his fan club—the half-dozen nurses from the hospital who occupied a table near the dais. They pelted Jack with the souvenir miniature silver wedding bells that had been handed out to each guest.
    “Looks like someone won’t be getting any tonight,” Jennifer joked. “I guess my job here’s done.”
    I stopped the tape. I had seen enough to make me remember the rest. Jack and I had visited each table to thank our guests for coming, then we had paused to cut the four-tier Italian cream wedding cake. Accompanied by much wolf whistling, Jack had slid the blue garter off my leg. Jimmy had out leaped the other single men to claim the prize. The scrum for my wedding bouquet had threatened to turn into an all-out brawl. A few hours before, my bachelorette party had nearly degenerated into chaos as well.
    The night before the wedding, Jennifer and Natalie had taken me to T’s, one of their favorite lesbian hangouts. To prevent me from having a final fling or hoping that I would have one, neither would say. Whatever their reasons, the surroundings had put a whole new spin on the party games, let me tell you. Especially when the object of one of the games was for me to collect as many kisses from perfect strangers as I could.
    At the party, I’d downed several shots of tequila on a half-empty stomach, but I’d managed to remain upright. Even when Natalie had done her best to floor me. She’d been cool to me all night. When I’d asked her why, she’d steered me to a quiet corner and lit into me.
    “I’m going to tell you what your best friend won’t,” she’d said. (I hate when people begin sentences that way.) “Jen’s leaving and it’s all your fault.”
    “Leaving?” I hadn’t known if she’d meant Jennifer was leaving town or leaving her. Jennifer hadn’t mentioned either scenario to me. “What do you mean she’s leaving?”
    “She wants to get as far away from you as possible. Not that I blame her.”
    “Where’s she going?”
    “Darfur.”
    A knot had immediately formed in the pit of my stomach. Jennifer couldn’t have picked a worse place if she had tried. Darfur was a simmering cauldron of violence that could boil over at any time.
    “If something happens to her,” Natalie had said, “I’ll never forgive you.”
    “If something happened to her, I’d never forgive myself, but I don’t think her decision has anything to do with me. She’s always running off to one natural disaster or another. Even though this one is man-made, the concept remains the same.”
    “Open your eyes, Syd,” Natalie had snapped. “Darfur’s an excuse, not a destination. She’s leaving because she’s in love with you. She always has been. Why do you think she’s leaving next week? Because she’d rather live in hell than watch you with Jack. I don’t know what she sees in you. Whenever I look at you, all I can do is ask myself how such an intelligent woman can make such foolish choices. This isn’t the fifties. You don’t have to hide behind a man. With a law degree in your pocket, you could easily support yourself if you wanted to. Jennifer would throw me over for you in a heartbeat if she thought you could ever come to terms with who you are, but you’re too much of a closet case to ever let that happen.”
    “Whoa, hold on. First of all, I’m not a closet case. Second, there are three women Jen’s always said she would never fall for: a straight woman, a married woman,