Phần I
St. Brigid's was a white wooden chapel the size of a boathouse, standing alone on a point of land where Bohicket Creek met the marsh. Eight pews on each side. Clear glass windows instead of stained, so that during the service you looked straight out at the water and the herons and the sky.
Ellie's mother had been married there in 1992. Ellie had chosen it before she'd chosen the dress.
She was the last to arrive for the rehearsal. When she walked in at five o'clock, every head in the little chapel turned, and at the altar Julian went still in a way that made her chest hurt.
He hadn't been sure she would come.
She wasn't wearing the engagement ring. She saw him see that, too.
Father Doyle, eighty and cheerful and mostly deaf, clapped his hands. "Wonderful! The bride! Now we can begin. Where's the father of the bride?"
Tom came up the aisle from the back, enormous in a borrowed sport coat, and offered her his arm. It was trembling.
They walked down the aisle together while Dani hummed the processional and Tessa, barefoot in the front pew, filmed it on her phone with her free hand pressed over her mouth. Vivian sat very straight in the first row on the groom's side. The judge sat beside her, in seersucker, his white shoes crossed at the ankle.
Wade stood at the end of the groomsmen's line, an usher's boutonniere crooked on his lapel. He winked at her when she passed.
"And then I'll say, If anyone here knows any reason why these two should not be joined, speak now or forever hold your peace," Father Doyle beamed. "And nobody ever says anything. And then we carry on!"
There was a small, nervous ripple of laughter.
Ellie looked out through the clear glass at the water.
"We'll find out tomorrow," she said.