Chapter 24: The Vows in the Rain

It rained on Saturday.

Rafe had said it might, and he had been smiling about it all week.

The bus stop on the old campus had a new roof now, and a new bench.

Delphine and Winnie had strung white lights along the shelter.

Delphine's husband stood on a stepladder to hang the last of them.

"Is that safe?" Winnie called up.

"It's a stepladder."

"I said is it safe."

"Winnie," Delphine said. "It's fine. We checked it twice."

Rafe walked the whole length of the shelter anyway.

He looked at every strand of lights, and then he looked at me and shook his head at himself.

I laughed.

There were ten people at our second wedding.

Lorna sat on the bench in a gray coat, with her cane across her knees and a silver umbrella over her head.

The retired surgeon stood beside her.

The woman who had worn my face stood at the back in a borrowed dress, with her sister's arm around her shoulders.

A judge Lorna had known for fifty years held a small book under his own umbrella.

I came across the wet pavement in a plain ivory dress I had chosen myself.

My hair was down and my shoes were already ruined.

I carried a black umbrella with a bent rib.

"That's mine," Rafe said when I reached him.

"You gave it to me when I was nineteen."

"You kept it."

"I kept it in the hall closet for fifteen years. Winnie thought I was insane."

"I did," Winnie said from the bench. "I still do."

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