Chapter 22: The Wedding Cake

Cass sat on the edge of the hotel bed in her bathrobe with her knees pulled up.

And Lark handed her a glass of water without being asked.

It was six in the morning, and the harbor outside the window was pink.

"I'm fine," Cass said. "I just have a thing in my chest."

"That's normal," I said.

"Is it? I've been awake since four. I keep thinking, what if I forgot something? What if there's a rule I broke and nobody told me?"

"There's no rule."

"There's always a rule."

"There's one rule, and you made it up on a chair," Lark said.

Cass stared at her.

Then she cracked, and the three of us sat on the bed laughing helplessly at six in the morning, in robes and a bedsheet.

"Okay," Cass said, wiping her eyes. "Okay. I'm better."

"You're getting married."

"I'm getting married. You're my maid of honor." She took my hand. "Say something nice, so I can cry in my makeup chair."

"You were the first person who ever asked me to sit with you at lunch."

"I was fourteen. I had no friends."

"You had me."

"I know." She squeezed. "I'm so glad it's you."

The wedding began at four on the lawn of the boathouse, under the tent where I had set out forty desserts six weeks before.

The harbor behind it was a flat blue sheet, and the maples around the hall had gone red and gold.

I walked ahead of Cass in the sage green dress, with Lark a few steps behind me in the same color.

When I reached the front, I looked back.

Cass stood in the doorway in her wedding gown with her father's arm in hers.

And Gordon, in a stiff gray suit, was crying openly into his beard.

The fiance at the altar was wiping his face with the back of his wrist.

Pru sat in the front row, in pearls, with her chin up.

The vows were short.

Everybody cried, including the officiant.

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