Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
We walk down the gang planks to Grand Cayman like royalty. The transports are three open-sided buses the color of key lime pie, and the drivers all look like they’re named Winston.
I ride in the lead bus with the bridal party, Dahlia's garment bag laid across my lap, Finn’s, and Marisol’s, my dress sticking to the backs of my knees.
Grand Cayman flashes past in swathes of color.
White houses with red roofs, tourmaline water that peeks out between buildings, and people dressed in clothes so patterned and bright, I want to dance.
The air through the bus is humid and floral.
I wish I could bottle it and take it home with me.
Dahlia sits next to me with her face turned all the way into the wind, eyes closed, veil packed safely in tissue somewhere behind us, and lets the wind toss her perfect curls. It honestly looks better that way.
The beach is a twenty-minute ride up the coast, and I hear the ceremony site before I see it. There’s a guitarist and a steel pan player warming up, the notes carrying over the grass, and then the bus swings through a gap in the sea grapes, the whole bridal party hushes at once.
Because it's perfect.
The setup crew has been out since noon, and the little crescent of beach has been turned into a church with no walls.
Eighty white folding chairs in soft rows on the sand, an aisle between them lined with hurricane lanterns.
At the waterline, there’s a bamboo arch wound with flowers and chiffon that dances in the wind, and the flowers.
Blush and cream, wound with greenery, drape over both sides of the arch and down the aisle chairs in whimsical clusters, and in the late afternoon Caribbean light, they are the exact color of the inside of a conch shell.
The sky is clear with a few white, puffy clouds, and the breeze is soft. It couldn’t be more perfect.
Dahlia steps off the bus first and is barefoot the second her sandals hit sand. Then the pre-ceremony machine takes over. There’s a tent behind the dunes for final touches. Pinning, powdering, and lipstick.
It's from the mouth of that tent, with pins in my teeth and Dahlia's train over my arm, that I see Theo standing off by the dune grass in his navy suit, running through something on a notecard with his lips moving.
My mother crosses the sand to him in her floral, and I can't hear a word, but Theo looks up.
Mom says something to him, and the card drops to his side. And then Theo hugs her.
It startles them both, and when they finally step apart, Mom pats his chest once like she's sealing an envelope, then walks away.
“Places!” Priya calls, marching around like a tiny dictator.
I don't get a good look at Finn until I’m walking down the aisle fifteen minutes later. The guitar starts. Theo’s mother goes down the aisle, then ours. Mom walks to her seat in the front row on the bride's side, her spine straight.
Then it's me. I step out from behind the sea grapes onto the aisle's white runner over raked sand and fix my eyes down the aisle.
I try to focus on the arch, on Father Aldo's kind, round face, or on the horizon behind him, but my eyes slip.
Finn is like a magnet, drawing me in, and once I arrive, everything else on this beach loses signal.
He's in a suit the color of wet sand. No tie, his white shirt open at the collar. He looks like someone paid him to stand on this beach as an extra. Just to make the photos look better. His hands are folded in front of him, but when he turns his head, they fall to his sides.
That charming smile, the one he's used on every bridesmaid thus far, doesn’t just slip. It falls. His lips part, and his chest rises once, sharp, like the wind slapped him in the face. His eyes travel down the length of my blush dress and back up to my face.
Finn Gallagher looks at me the way I’ve wanted to be looked at since I was thirteen years old. I dreamed of it. Of him glancing over the fence and doing exactly that. And then he’d obviously jump the fence, and we’d passionately make out behind the rose bushes.
I almost laugh, remembering my silly teenage fantasies. But looking at him now, it doesn’t seem silly at all.
I make it to my mark on unsteady legs and take my place at the arch on Dahlia’s side, then turn to face our friends and family. And there we are. Best man and maid of honor, opposite each other for the length of this ceremony. It’s both a gift and pure torture to have every reason to watch him.
The music lifts. Everyone stands. And Dahlia comes down the aisle on the arms of Denny and Rose.
She told me she talked to our father, but didn’t give me any details.
He’s sitting in his chair, seemingly delighted with the arrangement, and I wonder what he feels.
If he feels. If there’s some part of him that’s sorry, or if he isn’t capable of apologies.
It’s easier to accept that he isn’t capable of real, fatherly love than believing he’s simply chosen not to give it.
Dahlia’s dress is simple and soft, moving like water around her ankles. Her feet are bare, and her blond waves look perfectly wind-tossed. She’s stunning.
Somehow, she and Rose convinced Denny to buy a new suit for this. I grin, remembering how insistent he was that the suit he’d owned since the Clinton administration would do, because he hardly ever wore it.
Dahlia pauses next to Dad. He's in a blazer, an open collar, and boat shoes, tan and composed. The moment only lasts a second. He rises halfway out of his chair, catches her hand, and Dahlia whispers something before kissing him. It’s only then that I see how white his knuckles are as he grips the printed program.
Once again, my sister has shown me what healing looks like.
I don’t know if I’m there yet, but as I see Theo's throat working as he watches her approach, I wonder if our most empty parts can’t be fully stitched up by ourselves.
And not because we need someone to love our brokenness away, though that certainly couldn’t hurt.
But because it’s the act of opening our hearts to love someone else, even when they hurt us, that provides the balm.
My mom smiles up at me, and I can’t hold in my emotion. I want to love better. I want to be better to be able to love. And I’m ticked that if I ever describe this life shift, I’ll have to admit it happened at a wedding. Such a cliché.
As if reading my thoughts, Dahlia meets my eyes and laughs. I pull out my handkerchief, watching Bev pass a tissue box down her row like communion.
Denny and Rose deliver my sister to Theo, one on each side. Denny shakes Theo's hand with both of his and says something that makes Theo's chin crumple. Then it's just Dahlia and Theo in front of the arch.
Father Aldo spreads his hands over the whole assembly and says, “Please, sit. The ocean's agreed to keep it down.” Everyone chuckles.
The ceremony is short and also lasts a hundred years. That's the only way I can describe it. I’m lost in Father Aldo telling the story of a couple who met as barely more than toddlers on Larkspur and came back together more than twenty years later, but my focus doesn’t stay on my sister.
Finn watches me, and his gaze doesn’t drop when I notice. Our eyes stay locked through the readings, through Father Aldo's homily about houses and foundations. Every word Father Aldo says to the couple crosses the space between us like it's been misdelivered.
What you promise today you promise on your worst day, not your best.
Finn's lips twitch.
Love is not only a feeling, and it won’t survive on its own. It's a living, breathing organism that you grow, feed, and maintain.
My bouquet is trembling.
I tear my eyes away as they begin their vows. Theo goes first. His hands shake as he pulls out a notecard, but then he looks up and slips it back in his pocket.
“I had this all organized,” he says, and the guests laugh. “It was supposed to be funny. Make me look good.”
The laughs grow in size.
“But here you are.” His voice catches, and it takes him a moment to compose himself.
“You’re standing here knowing me. Fully.
All my mistakes, all my failures.” He uses his thumb and forefinger to wipe his eyes.
“You know everything about me, and you're still standing here. I can’t make a joke about that.”
Dahlia’s nose is red, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“I'm going to spend the rest of my life being the man who deserves that. I promise to be brave. To be strong. To do everything I can to provide for you and our family when we have one.” He grins, and Dahlia laugh-cries, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.
“Most importantly, I promise you the truth. Before it's polished, before it's easy, you get it first. And I promise I’ll never give up on us.” His voice cracks. “No takebacks.”
All I can hear are sniffs, and then Dahlia starts.
“Theo. When we were kids, I thought you were too serious. I made it my personal mission to annoy the hell out of you until you finally jumped off the tire swing or walked through the creek in your bare feet.”
Finn and I find our way back to each other. His eyes glisten.
“There was just something about you that got under my skin. I couldn’t figure you out, and I wanted to. Though we spent some time apart, you were always there in the back of my mind. The string I couldn’t ever let go of.”
Holy crap. It’s like Dahlia’s narrating my inner thoughts. Was this just what happened when you grew up with two cute boys on your block? You fall in love as seven-year-olds, and they are forever imprinted on your hearts? They should advertise that in the show home pamphlets.
“But that’s not why I’m standing here today. We could’ve met up those years ago and discovered that we’d become totally different people. That you were still living in one of your parent’s basement or something.”
That draws a collective chuckle.
Dahlia draws a deep breath and reaches for Theo’s hands, her handkerchief pinned between them.
“I’m here because you already are a man who deserves my love, Theo.
You make me laugh. You make me better. You keep me grounded when I want to get lost in the clouds, and I like to think you enjoy flying with me up there sometimes. ”
She sniffs and shakes her hair from her face.
“I love you, Theo, and I promise to work toward the best version of myself. To always make our home a place you want to come home to. And on your birthday, to make that peanut butter chocolate cheesecake you’re obsessed.
Except when we’re traveling, because sometimes we end up being out of town on your birthday. ”
They’re both laughing so hard, I barely decipher that last line. Finn’s grinning so wide, his dimples are caverns. And then his mouth forms a shape. A word.
My brows pinch as I try to decipher it. You?
“And everything else you said,” Dahlia finishes. “I love you. No takebacks. Ever.” She motions to Finn, shaking us out of our trance.
Father Aldo waits for Finn to produce the rings. He pulls Dahlia’s from his breast pocket and hands it to Theo, then grips his shoulder before stepping back into place.
Finn's eyes come to me one more time, and then they drop.
“By the power vested in me, and by the authority of a house rule older than any of us . . .”
Theo cups my sister's face as the sun bathes them in light.
Dahlia rises on her bare toes, and this is it.
The moment eleven months of my spreadsheets, tabs, and contingencies were always for.
My sister. Kissed, married, laughing against her husband's mouth while the people we love come to their feet roaring.
Half of me is entirely there, joy rushing through me like a current. And the other half is watching the best man six feet away. Applauding, smiling, and refusing to look at me.
The recessional is a blur of music and thrown petals, and then I’m swept into my maid of honor duties.
I'm handed the bouquet, the veil, somebody's phone, and Aunt Bev.
I'm fluffing the train for the photographer, wrangling family units into the photo order Dahlia and I planned in the airport. It’s almost an hour before I surface long enough to scan the beach for Finn.
He's not with the groomsmen, who finished their photos and have their trousers rolled, ferrying chairs. He's not at the arch or at the waterline where Theo’s dipping Dahlia in the golden surf while the photographer loses her mind. I do a casual full three-sixty, pretending to hunt for my water bottle, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“. . . should’ve gone in the car with Finn,” Marisol says behind me.
“Hm?” I turn, pretending I thought she was talking to me.
She looks over. “Oh, nothing, I was just saying we should’ve caught a ride back to the ship. You know, when the pictures were over.”
Sadie nods. “I’m sweating like a pig. I need a full shower before the reception tonight.”
I smile and say something about wanting to jump into the ocean but not wanting to wreck the dress. And then regret it because Marisol and Sadie jump into a discussion about whether we’ll ever wear the dresses again or if dry cleaning could get seawater out of the fabric.
When we load back onto the transports with the Winstons, Finn’s seat is empty. I sit with the garment bag and the leftover programs and my sister's second-best lip gloss in my lap, watching the beach disappear. Wondering what happened during Dahlia’s vows that made Finn want to vanish with it.