Chapter 24: I Do

"Yes," Molly said on the sidewalk, before he could say another word.

Four months later, on a Saturday in spring, Troy stood at the front of a small garden with his hands clasped in front of him.

There were forty folding chairs on the lawn.

A white arch stood over him, tied with green ivy, and the officiant was reading from a card with her reading glasses on her nose.

It was not a ballroom.

It was not two hundred people.

It was a backyard behind a gym with his name painted on the door, in a neighborhood where nobody had ever heard of the Wainrights.

He had checked the gate twice.

The junior assistant sat in the third row in a blue dress, grinning at him with her program in her lap.

She had left the company in March, and now she worked for him.

Giselle sat at the back, alone, in a plain gray coat, with a cheap paper cup.

She had come with a card and a quiet apology, and Molly had said she could stay if she kept her mouth shut.

She had kept it shut for forty minutes, which was a record.

In the second row, Celia held their daughter.

The baby wore a yellow bonnet and was trying to eat the program.

Celia caught his eye over the child's head, and nodded once, and went back to straightening the bonnet.

She did not look sad.

A car turned into the street beyond the fence.

Troy's whole body went still.

The engine idled, and a door slammed, and a man in an apron came through the gate with a tray of white flowers.

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