Chapter 15: The Gate

I took the clipboard out of Dean's hands and read the first name on it.

It was a woman from my father's golf club.

"Be at the gate at three-thirty," I said. "Do exactly what he said."

Dean stared at me.

"Annie."

"Trust me," I said. "I'm asking you to do one thing I've decided."

I gave him back the clipboard.

At twenty to four the Arroyo Garden Club was ready for a wedding.

White chairs stood in rows across the lawn.

An arbor of white roses stood at the far end, and ninety guests in good clothes were sitting under a hot sun.

My father stood at the front in a gray suit.

He had a smile ready for me, and I walked past it.

I went to the gate, where Dean stood with his clipboard and two men in polo shirts.

I wore my blue dress.

Nate stood on my left, and Frances on my right, in her good cardigan.

A church van pulled up to the curb, and then four cars behind it.

People climbed out slowly.

There was an old man in a suit that no longer fit him.

There were two women with canes, and a man with a boy of about ten by the hand.

Eleven households came up the path toward the gate, and most of them were carrying something.

One of the polo-shirted men stepped forward.

"Names?" he said.

Dean turned the clipboard over and looked at the typed list.

He tore it in half, then in half again, and he dropped it in the planter.

"Dean," the other man said. "Mr. Wardell said."

"I know what he said."

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