Chapter 18: Smile

The quartet kept playing for four more bars, because nobody had told them to stop.

Then the cellist looked up, and the music wandered off.

I walked down the aisle between the white chairs with my bouquet in both hands.

Eighty heads had turned toward the west doors, where the bride was supposed to appear.

They turned back toward me one row at a time.

Lorna sat on the aisle in the fourth row, grinning with tears all over her face.

Wyatt stood at the end of the sixth row with his hands folded.

He kept his word and looked only at me.

My mother sat in the front.

Her quilt was folded on her lap, and her face was bare and waiting.

At the altar, Jared turned around.

He had been smiling at the west doors.

The smile stayed on his mouth while his eyes caught up.

"Mel," he said, in a whisper. "What are you doing? Where's the gray?"

"In a bag."

"You can't be here. Shea's coming."

"I know."

Behind me, the west doors opened.

I didn't turn around.

I heard the heels stop at the head of the aisle, and I heard a long, high breath.

Shea stood there in the size-four gown, with the veil lifted off her face.

She was looking at the back of my head.

The guests looked back and forth between us.

Somebody in the seventh row said, "Oh my God," quite loudly, and a child asked what was happening.

I reached the altar and turned to face them all.

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