Chapter 24: Wherever You Want

Callie's POV

The clerk at the probate court wore a lanyard, and she typed our names into her computer twice.

"I've got both of you," she said, and slid the license across the counter.

"You're sure it's real?" I asked.

"Ma'am, it has a stamp."

Ward took the paper and held it up to the light.

"It's real," he said. "I checked the number."

That was five weeks before the wedding, and I carried that license in my purse until the morning of the porch.

Dot had decided on the porch, and nobody had argued.

She strung white lights through the live oak and borrowed forty folding chairs from her church.

She also set a bucket by the steps with the garden hose coiled in it.

When I asked why, she said, "Tradition."

I stood in the yellow-door bedroom in Dot's altered dress and looked at myself in the mirror.

It was ivory, plain and soft, with sleeves.

My hair was down.

My hands were steady, and that surprised me more than anything.

The door opened without a knock.

My mother stood there in a lilac suit, leaning on a cane, with the small black pump bag hanging from her shoulder.

Her color was good, and her eyes were wet.

"Don't you dare cry," she said. "I did my own mascara."

"Mom, you should be sitting down."

"I walked across the porch yesterday, and I'm walking all the way down the steps today. Take my arm."

I took it.

It was thin and warm.

Under the cloth I could feel the steady hum of the machine that was keeping her here.

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