Chapter 23: The Rooftop

Willa's POV

I got married the second time on the roof of the restaurant on the river, a week before my due date.

Margaret had grown a hundred white roses for it and sworn at every one.

Biscuit the beagle wore a bow tie and carried two rings on a cushion tied to his collar.

He sat down halfway up the aisle and refused to go on.

"He's overwhelmed," Margaret said, and picked him up.

I stood in the corridor outside the rooftop doors in a cream dress that Jodie had let out twice.

My belly arrived in every room a full second before the rest of me.

"You look incredible," Jodie said. "Very large and incredible. I'm going to cry on you."

"Please don't. You'll set me off."

"I'm going to cry on you anyway, I've already ruined my face."

She had. She was radiant and blotchy.

I laughed, and the baby kicked so hard that we both looked down.

"That was a foot," Jodie said.

"That was a very rude foot."

The doors at the end of the corridor opened.

It was the same corridor.

The carpet was the same, and the elevator at the far end had the same brass doors.

I had run down it in a green dress with a hundred strangers watching.

Now the elevator pinged, and somebody stepped out of it.

Preston stood on the carpet in a suit that no longer fit.

He had lost weight, and his eyes had gone dull.

He carried a gift bag with tissue paper sticking out of the top.

"Willa," he said.

Jodie took one step toward him.

I put a hand on her arm.

"It's all right," I said. "Go and stand with Margaret."

"I will not."

"Jodie."

She went, walking backward, with her phone out.

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