36. Luisa
— ? —
Luisa
The pier looked unreal, strung end to end with light.
Fairy lights wound around every post and railing, twinkling softly in the twilight. White ribbons caught the harbor breeze, fluttering like small prayers. Wildflowers from Agnes’s garden filled mason jars along the dock, their colors soft against the weathered wood.
Bellhaven had built this wedding with its own hands.
“Stop fidgeting,” my mother said, adjusting my dress for the fourth time.
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“You’re definitely fidgeting.”
She was right. I couldn’t help it. My hands kept finding reasons to move, smoothing the fabric, touching my hair, hunting for anywhere to put all this nervous energy.
“Mom.” I turned to face her. “What if this is a mistake?”
Sue Erickson’s hands stilled on my shoulders. “Is that what you think?”
“No. I think-” My throat tightened. “I think this is the best decision I’ve ever made. And that terrifies me.”
“Good things are allowed to happen to you, baby girl.” She cupped my face in her hands. “You’re allowed to be happy.”
My eyes were burning. “I don’t want to mess up my makeup.”
“Birdie put waterproof mascara on you for a reason.”
A knock at the door. My father’s voice: “Lu? They’re ready for you.”
I took one last look in the mirror. The dress was simple, cream silk, tea-length, a dress I could actually move in. My hair was pinned up loosely with small flowers tucked into the curls. The sea-glass ring was waiting at the end of a dock, in the hands of my soon-to-be-husband-again.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Let’s do this.”
***
The dock was packed.
Not with chairs, there wasn’t room, but with people.
The whole town had turned out, crowding the pier and the shoreline and the rocks that jutted into the harbor.
I could see Birdie near her catering table, dabbing at her eyes.
Gus was openly weeping into his flannel shirt.
Sheriff Pruitt stood at the entrance to the dock, directing nonexistent traffic with great importance.
And at the end of the pier, silhouetted against the sunset over the water, was Wade.
He wore a simple gray suit, no tie, his collar open. His hair was actually combed for once. His hands were clasped in front of him, and even from this distance I could see them trembling.
“Ready?” my father asked.
“I’ve been ready for twelve years.”
He offered his arm. I took it.
The crowd parted as we stepped onto the dock. Someone started playing guitar. I recognized the melody as the song that had been playing in the Nantucket bar the night we met. Of course Wade had remembered that.
We walked slowly, my father matching my pace.
“You know,” Harlan said quietly, “I told him I’d shoot him if he hurt you again.”
“Dad.”
“He said he understood. Didn’t flinch.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He’s grown into a good man, Lu.” My father’s voice was rough. “I wasn’t sure he had it in him. I’m glad to be wrong.”
We reached the end of the dock.
Wade was crying already.
“Hi,” I said softly.
“Hi.” His voice cracked. “You look-”
“Don’t. You’ll make me cry and I just got my makeup done.”
“Too late.” He reached out to wipe a tear from my cheek.
My father cleared his throat. “Wade. I’m trusting you with my daughter. Again.”
“I know, sir. Harlan.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.”
They shook hands. My father kissed my forehead, whispered “I love you, baby girl,” and stepped back to join my mother in the front row.
The officiant was Birdie, apparently she’d gotten ordained online specifically for this occasion, and she beamed at us with barely contained joy.
“Dearly beloved,” she began, “we are gathered here today to witness something I personally have been hoping for since the moment this man walked into my diner and looked at Luisa like she’d hung the moon.”
Scattered laughter from the crowd.
“These two have a history,” Birdie continued.
“They got married once before, and it didn’t work.
They spent four years apart. They came back together, slowly, carefully, the way broken bones have to heal before you can put weight on them.
And now they’re standing here, choosing each other again. That’s not a failure. That’s courage.”
Wade’s hand found mine. Squeezed.
“Wade has prepared his own vows,” Birdie said. “God help us all.”
More laughter. Wade took a breath.
“Luisa.” He pulled a folded paper from his pocket. “I wrote this down because I knew I’d forget words when I looked at you, and I was right.”
I laughed wetly.
“I’ve been keeping track,” he said, unfolding the paper.
“Of Saturdays. The ones I missed.” He looked at the page.
“The Saturday Poppy learned to ride a tricycle. The Saturday she had her first nightmare about storms and needed someone to sit with her. The Saturday you took her to the beach and built a sandcastle so tall it made the local newspaper.”
His voice wavered.
“The Saturday she said her first complete sentence. The Saturday she asked where her daddy was. The Saturday you cried in your car outside the grocery store because someone asked about your husband and you didn’t know what to say.”
I was crying openly now. So was most of the crowd.
“Two hundred and eight Saturdays,” Wade continued. “I missed two hundred and eight Saturdays of our daughter’s life. Of your life. And I can’t get them back.”
He folded the paper. Put it away. Looked directly at me.
“But I can promise you every Saturday from now on. I can promise you Sunday through Friday too. I can promise you every morning when you wake up with bedhead and no coffee. Every evening when Poppy won’t go to sleep. Every moment, good and bad and everything in between.”
He took both my hands.
“I, Wade Buckley, take you, Luisa Erickson, to be my wife. Again, and forever. Not because I deserve you, but because I will spend every day earning you. I will show up. I will stay. I will be the man you needed me to be four years ago, the man I finally learned how to become.”
He was shaking.
“I love you. I have always loved you. I will love you until there’s no breath left in my body and probably after that too. Thank you for giving me another chance.”
Birdie was crying. She tried to speak, had to clear her throat three times.
“Luisa? Your vows?”
I hadn’t written anything down. I’d tried, but every time I put pen to paper, the words felt wrong. Too small. Not enough.
But standing here, looking at Wade’s tear-streaked face, I knew exactly what to say.
“I spent four years teaching people to break holds,” I said. “How to escape. How to get free. How to walk away from anyone who tried to trap them.”
Wade’s hands tightened on mine.
“You’re the one I’m choosing not to break,” I said. “Not because I can’t. Because I don’t want to. Because being held by you isn’t a trap. It’s home.”
I stepped closer to him.
“I, Luisa Erickson, take you, Wade Buckley, to be my husband. Again, and forever. I choose you today, and I will choose you tomorrow, and I will keep choosing you every single day until we’re old and gray and arguing about whose turn it is to make coffee.”
He laughed through his tears.
“I love you,” I said. “I trust you. I believe in who you’ve become. And I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life watching you continue to grow.”
Birdie wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. “The rings?”
Movement at the edge of the dock. Poppy stepped forward, wearing a tiny white dress with a tulle skirt that she’d insisted on, her face painted with butterflies (she’d demanded wedding-appropriate face paint). She was carrying a small pillow with two rings tied to it.
Or rather, she was supposed to be carrying a small pillow with two rings tied to it.
She was carrying an empty pillow.
The crowd went silent.
“Poppy,” I said carefully, “where are the rings?”
“They’re safe.”
“Where are they safe?”
“In a SECURE LOCATION.”
Wade knelt down to her level. “Sweetheart, can you tell us where the secure location is?”
“A true security professional never reveals her methods.”
My heart was hammering. Behind me, I heard Agnes whisper, “Oh dear Lord.”
“Poppy.” I kept my voice calm. “We need the rings to finish the wedding.”
“But what if the SEAGULLS got them?”
“Did seagulls get them?”
“No.” She paused. “Maybe.”
“Poppy-”
“FINE.” She sat down on the dock and started pulling off her shoe. “I put them in here for SAFEKEEPING because Grandma Doris said the tide might wash them away but I KNEW that was silly because they were TIED DOWN but I wanted to be EXTRA SAFE.”
She upended her tiny Mary Jane.
Both rings tumbled out onto the dock.
The entire town exhaled.
Gus’s sob was audible from the shore.
Wade picked up the rings with hands that were barely steady. “Thank you for keeping them safe, sweetheart.”
“You’re welcome.” Poppy stood up, smoothed her dress, and resumed her position with great dignity. “You may proceed.”
Birdie was laughing so hard she could barely speak. “With - with the power vested in me by the internet and the state of Maine-”
Wade reached up and lifted the thin gold chain from around his neck. He worked the clasp with unsteady fingers and slid my old wedding ring free, the one I’d thrown at his chest four years ago, the one he’d worn against his heart every day since.
“This one’s been waiting to come home,” he said, and slid it back onto my finger where it belonged.
Then he opened his other hand. The sea-glass ring caught the last of the light.
“And this one’s new. Because we’re not the same people who wore that first ring. We’re better. I wanted you to have both, the promise we made then, and the one we’re making now.”
He slid the sea-glass ring on above the gold band.
“-I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
I slid a simple silver band onto his.
“Again,” Birdie finished. “Kiss her already.”
He did.
The crowd erupted, cheering, clapping, the air horns making a reappearance. I felt Wade’s arms wrap around me, felt his smile against my mouth, felt twelve years of history and heartbreak and healing culminate in this single perfect moment.
“Mrs. Buckley,” he murmured.
“Took you long enough.”
***