The Life I Chose novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Life I Chose
I read the other thirty-nine letters out loud in bed that spring, while he hid his face in the pillow.
The worst one rhymed "Margo" with "embargo."
He said that one didn't count because he'd been in the Suez Canal.
On Friday, October ninth, at a quarter to four, I stood on the Cliff Walk in a plain white silk dress and my mother's pearl earrings, with the wind trying to take my hair down.
Ruthie had pinned it four times.
"Stop touching it," she said.
"It's moving."
"It's an aggressive wind. Leave it."
She was in green velvet again.
She'd kept the dress this time.
There were thirty-one people on the path at the wide spot by the stone wall, and a lot of very confused tourists.
My mother, in a new blue coat she'd let me buy her.
The owner from Federal Hill, in his tie, with his wife.
The line cooks, the hostess, the dishwasher, who had brought a cooler.
Daniel's mother, in the front, holding a pack of tissues and a framed photo of his father in his orange oilskins, so he could see.
The commodore, with his white eyebrows.
The woman from the cake stand.
The three men from the orange pilot boat, in sport coats that didn't fit.
The cook from Blackstone Boulevard and the driver, side by side, the driver holding his hat in both hands.
And at the back, by the hedge, in his old cardigan, Holt's father.
I'd sent him an invitation.
He'd written back by hand.
"I would be honored. I'll sit at the back."
There were no chairs.
He stood at the back.
The minister from my rehearsal stood at the stone wall with the ocean behind him and his little book in his hand.
I'd called him in April.
He'd said yes before I finished the sentence.
"I'll come," he'd said, "on one condition. Nobody doubles over."
Daniel was beside him in a navy suit with a real tie, not a clip-on.
He looked at me coming down the path and forgot to breathe.
I watched him forget.
My mother took my arm.
The tourists got out of the way.
We walked the last thirty feet together, my mother and me, on the same path where I'd once shaken a sunburned sailor's hand and said I'd be married by thirty.
The minister smiled at us.
"Who brings this woman to be married?" he said.
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