Chapter 24: Every Card

We got married on the twenty-sixth of February, a year to the day, at Gwen's parents' dining table.

It was the same table where I had once sat with a plate of Thanksgiving pie while a man shouted on the porch.

Gwen's mother had pushed it against the wall and covered it with a white cloth.

There were thirty-eight guests and one long bench for the family.

My mother had flown in from Tulsa the night before and cried in the kitchen over the rolls.

"You picked a nurse," she said, and wiped her eyes on a dish towel. "A real one. With a truck."

"I picked Kirk."

"I like him. He doesn't talk too much."

"He talks exactly enough."

Mrs. Koehler sat in the best armchair in the living room with a blanket on her knees.

She was eighty-two, and she had refused a wheelchair in a speech that Kirk called the best of her career.

She crooked a finger at me when I came by.

"Sit down for this one," she said. "Standing up was last year."

"Yes, ma'am."

"The Foundation put the lake house up for sale on Tuesday. The money builds a children's therapy wing."

I stopped.

"Mrs. Koehler."

"Don't thank me. It's an investment." She patted my hand. "And it has your name on the first grant."

Kirk came to find me in the hall in his one good suit.

He had cut himself shaving, a small nick under the jaw, and I thought I would cry about it.

"It's time," he said.

"Is it?"

"Gwen's holding her aunt in the kitchen with a tray of mini quiches."

"Her aunt is marrying us?"

"She got ordained online. She's very nervous."

The aunt read the vows from a printed sheet with her glasses halfway down her nose.

We stood in front of the table with our backs to the window, and the whole room leaned in.