…you. With your name spelled correctly.”
I stared at her. “Correctly?”
The clerk showed me both documents. On the first license, from our wedding day thirty-six years ago, my name was misspelled: “Marget” instead of “Margaret.” The county had rejected it. Six days later, my husband, Frank, had quietly filed a new license with the correct spelling. We’d been legally married all along. I’d just never known about the mix-up.
I drove home completely confused. Then I watched the video again, and this time I paid attention to the two women standing outside the restaurant. One was holding a folder that said “Lakeside Vow Renewals.”
When I showed Frank the video, he groaned and put his head in his hands. “My brother is an idiot,” he said.
Frank was planning to surprise me with a vow renewal for our thirty-seventh anniversary next month, at the lake where we’d honeymooned. The two women were the event planners. “Don’t let her find the original marriage certificate” meant the misspelled one. Frank had it framed as part of the surprise. He thought it would make me laugh.
“It’s the only mistake I’ve ever been glad I made,” he said. “It meant I got to marry you twice.”
The vow renewal happened in June. Frank’s brother gave a toast and apologized publicly for “nearly ruining the best surprise of my brother’s life.” The framed license hangs in our hallway now. Every time a guest notices the misspelling, Frank tells the story. He’s told it about two hundred times.
