I Married the Man I Grew Up with at the Orphanage – the Morning After Our Wedding, a Stranger Knocked and Turned Our Lives Upside Down

“Oh, good,” he said. “Thought that was just me.”

That was the whole big moment.

We started saying boyfriend and girlfriend, but everything that mattered between us had already been there for years.

“Two orphans with paperwork.”

We finished our degrees one brutal semester at a time.

When the diplomas finally came in the mail, we propped them on the kitchen counter and stared like they might disappear.

“Look at us,” Noah said. “Two orphans with paperwork.”

A year later, he proposed.

Not at a restaurant, not in front of a crowd.

I laughed, then cried, then said yes before he could take it back.

He rolled into the kitchen while I was making pasta, set a tiny ring box next to the sauce, and said, “So, do you want to keep doing this with me? Legally, I mean.”

I laughed, then cried, then said yes before he could take it back.

Our wedding was small and cheap and perfect.

Friends from college, two staff members from the home who actually cared, fold-out chairs, a Bluetooth speaker, too many cupcakes.

The knock came late the next morning.