24. Izzy
— ? —
Izzy
My mother is crying before anything has even started.
“Mom, literally nothing has happened yet.” I crouch down next to her chair and squeeze her knee. “The officiant hasn’t even opened her book.”
“I know, I know.” She pulls a tissue from her purse with shaking hands and dabs at her eyes. “I told myself I wouldn’t do this. I promised myself I’d hold it together until at least the vows.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
“Terribly, obviously.” She waves me away with the tissue. “Go, go. I packed twelve of these and I fully intend to use every last one.”
“That’s honestly impressive planning.”
“I’m your mother, I’m always prepared.” She blows her nose. “Now stop hovering and go marry your husband. Again. Whatever this is.”
Wilson’s mother Caroline sits beside her, mascara already running in dark tracks down her cheeks, and the two of them are holding hands across the armrest, two women who bonded over a shared talent for dramatic weeping.
“Caroline, you’re supposed to be the composed one,” I say.
“I watched my son almost lose you.” She grabs my hand, her grip fierce. “I’m allowed to be emotional for this.”
“It’s beautiful, sweetheart,” my mother adds, leaning around Caroline, her own eyes suspiciously wet. “Just like the pictures from the first time, but better. Because you both know what you’re doing now.”
“You two barely knew who you were the first time,” Caroline says, dabbing at her eyes. “Children playing house. Now you’re actually building one.”
I look around at the lights, the chairs, the champagne chilling in its buckets. “Wilson doesn’t do anything small.”
“He really doesn’t.” Mom grins through her tears. “Remember when he sent you forty-seven roses for your birthday that one year? One for every day he’d known you?”
“I remember my apartment smelling like a funeral home for two weeks.”
“Romance isn’t always practical, Izzy.”
The string lights are back up, strung between the water tower and the fire escape the same way they were eight years ago, turning the Brooklyn twilight golden and impossible.
My gallery staff clusters by the drinks table, pointing at the lights I’ve described to them approximately one million times over the past year.
“So this is the famous rooftop,” Dana says when I pass her. She followed me from the Foundation to the gallery without being asked, and the clipboard came with her, tucked under her arm for once. “It’s smaller than I pictured from your stories.”
“Everything is smaller than the stories make it sound.”
“Deep.” She tilts her head. “Also, your mom is going to run out of tissues before the vows even start.”
“I’m aware. I packed backup tissues in my bra.”
“That’s disgusting and also genius.” Dana grins and waves me toward the rows of chairs. “Now go. Your husband looks like he’s about to pass out if you don’t start walking soon.”
James stands near the back with his wife Sarah and their three kids, the older two already bored and kicking rhythmically at the legs of their folding chairs while the youngest sleeps against Sarah’s shoulder, blissfully unaware of everything.
“Dad, when does the food come out?” the oldest asks in a voice that carries across the entire rooftop.
“After the ceremony, buddy.” James puts a hand on his son’s knee to stop the kicking. “Sit still.”
“But I’m hungry right now.”
“I know, buddy. We’ll sneak over to the food table later.” James drops his voice to a stage whisper. “Don’t tell your mom.”
“James. Don’t.” Sarah shoots him a look.
“What? He’s a growing boy. He’d eat the whole buffet if we let him.”
“I would,” the boy confirms proudly.
James catches my eye and mouths an apology over his son’s head, and I wave it off because honestly, the chaos is perfect.
Linda stands at the edge of the small crowd with her phone powered off, and when she sees me looking, she holds it up as proof, exhibit A.
“First time in eight years this thing has been fully off,” she says. “I feel naked without it buzzing.”
“The world will survive without you for one hour, Linda.”
“The world, probably. The Tokyo office, deeply questionable.” But she’s grinning, actually grinning, wearing an expression that has nothing professional in it whatsoever. “Now stop talking to me and go do your thing.”
There’s an empty chair in the front row on Caroline’s other side, a single white rose resting on the seat. I stop when I see it, my throat tightening.
“Wilson’s idea,” Caroline says quietly, following my gaze. “Edward was invited. But he declined.”
“Shocker. Truly.” I try to keep my voice light but it comes out bitter anyway.
“The same way he’s declined everything for eight years.” Caroline touches the rose, straightening it on the empty seat. “Your mother gave me this idea. The place setting for people who should be here but aren’t.”
“She does it for my dad every Thanksgiving.”
“I know. She told me.” Caroline’s jaw tightens. “Edward doesn’t deserve the same grace your father gets. Your father couldn’t come. Edward just won’t.”
“Maybe someday.”
“Maybe.” She doesn’t believe it. Neither do I. “But tonight isn’t about him. Tonight is about my son marrying a gorgeous woman who gave him a second chance he didn’t deserve.” She squeezes my hand once, hard. “Now go. Before he passes out.”
Eight years ago, this roof only got the party. We did the legal part at City Hall, where the clerk called me Isabella twice and Wilson cried so hard he could barely say his vows.
“You’re really doing this?” he’d asked me in the hallway outside the clerk’s office, his hands shaking so badly he could barely hold the ring. “You’re really marrying me? For real?”
“I’m really marrying you, Wilson. For real. Now stop crying before you set me off too.”
“I can’t help it. You’re so beautiful and I’m so nervous.”
“Well, don’t you dare cry on my dress. It’s the only one I own that isn’t covered in paint.”
“I’ll aim away from the dress. I promise.”
He had, in fact, cried on the dress a little, and through the entire ceremony, and so had I, and then eleven people followed us up here to this rooftop.
Wilson spilled champagne on my hem during his own toast because he was laughing too hard to hold the cup straight, and we danced while his phone played through its tinny little speaker.
“I don’t actually know the words to this song,” he’d admitted, swaying me in clumsy circles.
“Then make them up. Improvise.”
“That seems dishonest to the song.”
“Wilson, you just promised to love me forever in front of a clerk who couldn’t decide if I was Isabella or Isadora. I think we’re past worrying about honesty to a song.”
He’d laughed and sung completely off-key, inventing lyrics that made absolutely no sense, and I’d laughed until I couldn’t breathe and my mascara ran down my face.
Tonight, eight years to the day since City Hall, the roof finally gets the vows it deserved the first time.
I stand at the back in a dress I chose myself, wine-red silk that moves when I move and catches the light when I turn, a dress that turns me back into Isadora the painter instead of Mrs. Wilson Carter, trophy wife edition.
Sarah squeezes my arm, her dress the same wine color because she insisted on matching.
“Ready for this?” She straightens the strap on my shoulder for what might be the tenth time.
“Sarah. Touch that strap one more time and I will bite you.”
“Sorry, sorry.” She drops her hands and shakes them out like she’s trying to physically release her nervous energy. “I’m anxious. I don’t know why I’m anxious. It’s not even my wedding.”
“It’s not technically my wedding either. We’re already married. This is just a do-over. A vow renewal. A second chance at getting it right.”
“A do-over with an officiant and twenty witnesses.” Sarah fans her face with both hands. “That’s a wedding, babe. That’s fully a wedding.”
“Fine, it’s a wedding.” I take a breath. “Sarah, do you think we’re doing the right thing? Can we actually make it work this time?”
“Izzy.” She grabs both my hands. “This year almost broke you both. And you’re still here.” Her chin trembles. “Love is about choosing each other. You keep choosing him. He keeps choosing you.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, that’s not all of it.” She laughs, wiping her eyes. “But you’ll figure out the rest together.” She pushes me toward the aisle. “Now go get him.”
The music starts. No wedding march, nothing traditional at all. We asked for the song Wilson used to hum off-key in our first apartment kitchen, the one from his precious record collection that he’d play on repeat until I threatened to throw the vinyl out the window.
“What is this song even about?” I’d asked him once, years ago, standing at our tiny stove.
“No idea. I don’t know a single word.”
“You’ve played it four hundred times and you don’t know the lyrics?”
“The lyrics aren’t the point.” He’d wrapped his arms around me from behind, swaying us both. “The feeling is the point.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
I walk down the narrow aisle between the folding chairs toward the man who was right, and every step is the last stretch of a long trip home.
Wilson stands in front of the officiant with his hands clasped tightly in front of him, knuckles white from the pressure.
He catches sight of me in the wine-red dress and his mouth opens and closes without producing a single sound, and he presses his fist hard against his lips the way he always does when he’s losing the fight against tears and doesn’t want anyone to see him lose it.
I reach him and take his hands in mine. They’re trembling as badly as mine are. Maybe worse.
“Hi there.” I squeeze his fingers.
“Hi yourself.” His voice cracks right down the middle on the second word. “You look… Izzy, you look incredible in that dress.”
“You clean up okay too. For an old married guy.” I reach up and brush an invisible piece of lint off his shoulder.
“I’m not old. I’m distinguished.” He catches my hand and holds it over his heart.
“You have gray in your temples, Wilson.” I trace one finger along his hairline where the silver threads through the dark.