“So what are you doing?”
“Walking Maisie.”
“Down the aisle?”
“Yes.”
Maisie was flower girl.
She considered this the most important appointment of her life.
Margaret was invited.
Simon was not.
Elaine Bell attended too.
That decision surprised everyone except Nora.
“They both raised pieces of my life,” she said.
“They can sit in the same room for forty minutes.”
They did.
Across an aisle.
Neither spoke.
That was sufficient.
On the morning of the second wedding, Evelyn stood inside a small preparation room wearing the same gown she had never actually been married in.
She had considered buying another.
Then decided the dress had done nothing wrong.
Rachel adjusted her veil.
“You nervous?”
“Yes.”
“About James?”
“No.”
“Your mother?”
“Always.”
“Nora?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Evelyn looked toward the door.
“Last time a small child attacked me seventeen minutes before the ceremony.”
Rachel laughed.
“Fair.”
As if summoned, footsteps approached.
The door opened.
Maisie entered.
She was six now.
Her hair was neatly braided.
Her pale-green flower-girl dress reached her knees.
Both shoes were present.
Evelyn immediately checked.
Maisie noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You looked at my feet.”
“Trauma.”
Maisie did not understand.
Rachel laughed.
Behind her stood Nora.
For one second, Evelyn saw again the photograph from the first wedding.
The impossible face.
The life that had existed beside hers without her knowledge.
Now Nora smiled.
“You ready?”
Evelyn nodded.
Maisie walked toward her.
Then stopped.
Her expression suddenly became serious.
“Aunt Evie?”
“Yes?”
“Last time you wore this dress, you found me.”
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“I did.”
“So it was a good wedding.”
Nora smiled sadly.
Evelyn crouched.
“The wedding didn’t happen.”
Maisie shrugged.
“But you found me.”
Children had an irritating ability to simplify truths adults spent years complicating.
Evelyn pulled her into a hug.
“You know what?”
“What?”
“You’re right.”
Maisie smiled.
Then inspected the dress.