Chapter 23: Sang at Her Own Wedding

The farm looked like the inside of a song.

Marjorie had strung white lights down the long row of cedars and set sixty folding chairs on the lawn.

The sun was going orange behind the barn.

A pie table stood at the edge of the garden, and I counted three kinds of chess pie.

Roz, in black, with a pinned-on white carnation, stood at the front with her bass strapped on and a grin.

"You look like a million dollars," she said, when she saw me.

"Thank you."

"I said it so you'd believe it."

I walked across the grass on Boyd's arm.

He had a new western shirt, starched stiff as a flag, and he did not say a word until we were halfway down the aisle.

Then he cleared his throat.

"I never had a daughter," he said, gruffly.

"Sir."

"Boyd. I'm saying I'm proud to do this."

I held his arm a little tighter.

At the end of the aisle, under an arch Marjorie's church ladies had wound with magnolia, stood Joanna.

She was in a white suit, cut like her gray ones, with the red lipstick, and a single sprig of green in her lapel.

Her face was wet, and she wasn't hiding it.

She watched me come the whole way.

When I reached her, Boyd put my hand into hers, patted the back of it twice, and went to sit beside Marjorie.

Joanna leaned in and whispered, "You look like the first line of a song."

"You look like a woman who owns thirty-one radio stations."

"Thirty-seven," she said. "The Texas six came in this morning."

"Show-off."

The officiant was an old family friend who talked too long about the Breckinridges.

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