Chapter 24: Brother

We were married on the dock on the second Saturday in November, at four in the afternoon, in forty degrees and bright sun.

Folding chairs ran down the lawn to the water in twelve crooked rows.

The fire department had lent them, and the whole town had brought a coat.

I stood at the back of the porch in my mother's wedding dress, with the hem pinned up two inches by my head nurse.

It was ivory satin, thirty years old and perfectly cut.

It had been in the canvas bag Bridget carried off the plane, and she had not said a word about it until Tuesday.

"I would like you to wear this," she had said, "or I'll lose my mind."

"It's cold, Mom."

"Then wear a sweater. Wear Cal's."

I wore Cal's sweater, under a white wool shawl.

Nobody on the lawn seemed to mind.

My mother came out onto the porch and took my arm.

She had on a navy dress and a corsage of something orange, and her eyes were already red.

"Ready?" she said.

"No."

"Good. Nobody is."

We went down the steps together.

The fiddler by the fence, a girl from the fourth floor with her violin case propped against a chair, started a slow waltz.

Every head on the lawn turned.

I heard a low murmur, and then, very softly, someone began to hum along.

Cal stood at the end of the dock under the string lights, in the charcoal suit.

He had his hands clasped in front of him, and he was not hiding anything.

I had never seen his face so open in front of other people.

We walked down the lawn between the rows, past the pastor's wife in a green hat and the neighbor with the fern, who was crying openly.

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