Chapter 24: Paid by M.

By Saturday the dock had been scrubbed, the cabin porch had been propped up with two new posts, and thirty folding chairs stood on the grass in rows.

Shane's old crew had come at dawn.

Six big men in work boots hung paper lanterns from the trees and called each other names I won't repeat.

"You're the first bride who ever fed us," one of them told me, holding a bacon sandwich in both hands.

"We'd have built the whole dock for free," another said. "Don't tell Shane."

I stood on the cabin porch in a plain ivory dress that Annette had hemmed on her kitchen table.

It had short sleeves and no train.

I had no veil.

Annette held one anyway, folded in tissue.

"I'm not telling you to wear it," she said. "I'm telling you it exists."

"It exists," I said. "I'm leaving it in the box."

"Good girl."

She tucked it away and fixed a pin in my hair.

"Your father would have liked him," she said. "He'd have asked about his truck."

"It's a good truck."

"It's a terrible truck."

Dalton's mother knocked on the doorframe.

She wore a green wool dress and carried something thin, wrapped in brown paper.

"I wanted you to have this today," she said. "Before the rest."

I unwrapped it.

It was a check register, the free kind, with a brand-new green cover and not one line written in it.

"I thought you might want a clean book," she said. "For a household you balance yourself."

I couldn't speak for a moment.

I held it against my chest.

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