Chapter 24: The Silver Tray

We got married on Archie's seventh birthday, in the front room of Brennan Ink, on a Saturday in March.

Timothy moved the chairs against the walls and hung paper rockets from the ceiling lamp.

His wife, her temple healed to a faint pale line, filled the window with white flowers.

The sign on the door said CLOSED FOR A WEDDING AND A BIRTHDAY, in Archie's capital letters.

There were nineteen guests, and I knew all of them.

I stood at the front in a plain black suit I had bought myself, with my left sleeve rolled to the elbow.

I had told Margot I would wear the sleeve showing, and she had told me she would not have it any other way.

She came down the back stairs from the flat at noon.

She wore a short cream dress and no veil, with her hair loose.

The blue swallow showed above her ankle, because she had worn flat sandals and had not tried to hide it.

I forgot what I had planned to say.

"Dad," Archie whispered, from beside me. "You're staring."

"I know, bud."

"Timothy said you're supposed to say something."

"I'm working on it."

Archie stood very straight in a small grey suit and carried a silver tray in both hands.

It was the same tray.

Margot had bought it from the hotel manager the week after the press conference.

He had wanted a hundred and forty dollars for it, and she had paid him, and she'd said nothing to me until this morning.

On the tray sat two plain gold rings.

Archie kept his eyes on them the whole time.

Timothy performed the ceremony, because the county judge had wanted a courthouse and Margot had wanted a tattoo shop.

He had gotten a certificate from the internet and read the words off a printed card with his glasses on his nose.

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