Platinum lining...

"I'm going down to the lobby to check my email on the computer." Sonny dragged himself out of bed and shoved the room key into his hip pocket.

We looked at each other for a second or two, our eyes speaking for us. He was sorry, I was desperate, the two of us made quite a pair. Once his footsteps had receded down the hall, I grabbed my cell phone and thumbed through my phonebook. I found the name I was looking for immediately. I pressed the call button, my stomach aching like I'd had a bad meal. I suddenly felt too weak to sit up.

"Hullo?" a soft voice answered after the 3rd ring.

"Hi Bishop Martinez, this is M." I couldn't stop licking my lips and my hands were moving, twitching, twisting the earpiece cord. I tried to find a place to start, to describe the desperation that was rotting my belly and the anger and sadness that was weighing in my head. I finally sighed and said, my voice trembling ..close to tears, "We're in trouble."

He listened to every rushed word I said. Drank my story like a man enjoying a fine brandy. He was quiet for several seconds when I was through. Suddenly, he cleared his throat and asked a few specific questions, feeling around for his footing in the midst of all the chaos. After all he was only hired to be our officiant, not our savior. He hummed, pensively, into the mouthpiece and then told me definitively to meet him in a certain place at a certain time. I grabbed my discarded pen and scribbled faithfully onto the back of a take-out menu Sonny had been glancing through. I thanked the Bishop two times, once more before the call ended for good measure, and prayed like I hadn't prayed in years. My soul almost caved in under the weight of that prayer. God, please help us out of this one...please.

And you know what? He DID!! We met our Bishop at the building he had advised us to visit and were scalpel sharp with our punctuality. We had elbow room to compose ourselves in the lobby, we had arrived so early. Sonny looked hopeful, I prayed a little internal prayer and smiled weakly. Neither of us had slept very well: Sonny spent most of his time trudging in and out of the bathroom for glasses of water and natural releases, and I snored loud enough to rouse the entire establishment from their slumber. We both slept against the cool glass windows of our cab, simultaneously waking to glare out into the highway traffic, track our progress.

Our Bishop arrived, casual as any employee who dug out their badges and slid through the turnstyles. I shook his hand and introduced him to Sonny. They too shook hands and the Bishop urged us to follow him onto a nearby elevator. We did, and I held my breath as we climbed the floors. Sonny and I couldn't eat much that morning, we both had a cup of juice and morsel of donut. I didn't have an appetite. My stomach felt as big as a corn kernel inside me.

All I can do is marvel in wonder at all it...my heart is still ripe with such deep gratitude. It turns out Bishop Martinez knew someone in the system, who took pity on the desperate pair in his office and granted us our license. In the lobby, Sonny slipped the Manila envelope with our marriage license inside into his backpack and shook the Bishop's hand again. I smiled and shook his hand too. It had been an hour since we all arrived here and rode up together to the 6th floor. Our Bishop had performed more than just our wedding ceremony for us....he also performed a miracle.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .