29. Erika
— ? —
Erika
Dora’s garden looks like a place from a story.
The string lights are strung through the oak tree, casting everything in a warm golden glow, white flowers cascading from every surface, roses and peonies and a delicate one I don’t know the name of that smells like honey, and the wrought-iron table has been moved aside to make room for chairs, and a simple arch stands where it used to be, draped in greenery and more flowers.
I set that table on the worst day of my life.
I stood right where the arch is now with a plate in my hands and heard my marriage end through a kitchen window, and I walked out that side gate and didn’t look back, and now there are white chairs on the grass and the gate is propped open with a stone so the caterers can get through, and it’s small and intimate and exactly what we wanted, and I stand at the kitchen window for a full minute looking at it before I can go get dressed, on the inside of the glass this time, and nobody’s saying anything I’m not supposed to hear.
I’m standing in Dora’s bedroom, looking at myself in the full-length mirror, trying to remember how to breathe.
The dress is simple, ivory silk that skims my body without clinging, a neckline that shows off my collarbones, a back cut lower than a bride is supposed to get away with, and I chose it myself, without input from anyone, because this time I wanted to look like me, not a princess or a trophy or anyone’s idea of what a bride should be.
Just me. There’s no glam team. I did my own hair at Dora’s vanity with the bobby pins she keeps in a teacup, and I did my own face, and I look like a woman who did her own face, and I don’t mind.
Dora’s bedroom hasn’t changed since I first saw it, the quilt, the photographs on the dresser, Kai at eight with no front teeth, Kai at sixteen in a suit at a graveside with her hand on his shoulder, and me and Kai on our first wedding day, which she has never taken down, not once in the last year, and I’ve thought about that more than I’ve let anyone know.
Tessa appears in the doorway, already crying.
“If you say anything about my makeup, I’ll kill you,” she warns.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.” She crosses to me and takes my hands. “You look beautiful. Really beautiful. Like yourself, but more.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s the highest compliment I know how to give.” She squeezes my fingers. “Are you ready?”
I look at myself in the mirror one more time, and the woman looking back at me is someone I barely recognize, not because she looks different but because she looks happy, uncomplicated happy, in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever been before.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m ready.”
“One thing.” Tessa doesn’t let go of my hands.
“I’ve watched that man stand in a bookstore line for three hours and outbid a movie star for the privilege of buying you lunch, and I’ve never once seen him look at his phone in the same room as you since.
I’m not telling you anything. I’m just saying I noticed. ”
“You said you weren’t going to say anything.”
“I lied. It’s a wedding.”
I walk myself down the aisle.
There’s no one to give me away, and I don’t want there to be.
My father wasn’t at the first one, and I stood in a doorway then wishing there were an arm to take, and I don’t wish that now.
I made this choice myself. I’m walking toward it with my eyes open, knowing exactly what I’m getting into, choosing it anyway, and the grass gives a little under my heels and the honey smell is everywhere and there are people in white chairs turning to look at me, and I know every one of them, and there isn’t a stranger in the garden.
Dora is in the front row, openly crying and not bothering to hide it, the art deco necklace at her throat.
Albie is beside her, uncomfortable in a suit and smiling anyway, and when I pass him he inclines his head a fraction, the way he did through a windshield at a valet stand once, and I understand that he’s telling me he approves, and that it’s the first opinion he’s ever offered me.
A handful of friends from Hart Press. Tessa at the front with my flowers, still crying.
And Kai.
He’s waiting under the arch in a dark suit, no tie, and when he sees me his face does a thing I’ve never seen it do before, crumples and lights up at the same time, joy and grief and love all tangled together, and I watch him not look away, not look down, not look anywhere but at me for the whole length of the grass, and I think, that’s it, that’s the whole vow, he could stop there.
I reach him and take his hands, and they’re shaking.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Hi yourself.” His voice cracks. “You look… I don’t have words.”
“That’s a first.”
He laughs, wet and surprised, and squeezes my fingers, and Dora says “Get on with it” from the front row, not quietly, and the officiant, who has known her thirty years, gets on with it.
The officiant speaks, but I barely hear him.
I’m too busy looking at Kai, at this man who broke my heart and put it back together, who’s standing in front of me with tears on his cheeks making no effort to hide them, and over his shoulder I can see the kitchen window, the actual window, and it’s just a window, with the afternoon light on it and Dora’s dish towel folded on the sill.
Then it’s time for vows.
We wrote them separately. That was the rule.
No reading each other’s, no editing, no rehearsing them on each other in the kitchen the way we rehearse everything else now, and I’ve had mine folded in my bra all afternoon because the dress has no pockets, and Kai has his in his jacket, and I can see the shape of the paper through the fabric over his heart, right where the tattoo is, and I don’t think he planned that.
Kai goes first. He doesn’t take the paper out.
“Four years ago,” he says, “I stood in front of you and made promises I didn’t know how to keep. You know which ones. I’m not going to say them again in front of your agent.”
A laugh goes through the chairs, wet, and Tessa says “Thank you” out loud, and his hands tighten on mine.
“I can’t undo what I did. I wish I could go back and shake some sense into the man I used to be, but I can’t.
All I can do is promise to be different, and then be different, and let you watch.
So here’s what I promise now. I promise to see you, every day, even when it’s hard.
I promise to show up. I promise to choose you, over and over, for the rest of my life.
And I promise that my legacy isn’t a company or a name or anything that can be counted.
My legacy is you. It’s us. It’s whatever we build together. ”
Tears are streaming down my face. I don’t bother wiping them away.
My turn.
“I used to think love meant sacrifice,” I say. “I thought that’s what marriage required.”
Kai’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look away.
“You taught me I was wrong. Not the way you intended, but you taught me. Love shouldn’t shrink you. It should make you bigger, and braver, and more yourself than you’ve ever been.”
I squeeze his hands.
“So here’s my promise. I will never shrink for you again, and you will never ask me to. We’ll be partners, real partners, or we’ll be nothing. And whatever we build, we’ll build it because it’s ours, and because we chose it, and because we chose each other.”
I take a breath.
“I choose you, Kai. Again. Properly. For real this time.”
I never took my paper out either. I don’t know when I stopped needing it. Somewhere around bigger and braver, I think, when his face did the thing.
The officiant says a few words about rings, and we exchange them, simple gold bands that match the ones we wore before, and these feel different, heavier, more real, and when Kai slides mine on he holds my hand a second longer than the ceremony needs and turns it so the light catches, like he’s checking it’s really there.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Again.”
The guests laugh, and Kai pulls me into a kiss that lasts longer than it probably should, and when we finally break apart everyone is crying, even Albie.
The reception is small, champagne and cake in Dora’s garden, dancing under the string lights while someone plays music from a speaker, and Tessa catches the bouquet without even trying, it just lands in her arms while she’s reaching for a canape, and she looks at it like it’s a summons and pretends to be annoyed for the rest of the night.
Dora pulls me aside by the roses and holds my face in her two hands the way she does and says, “You did this yourself. Both of you. I only slapped him,” and I cry again, because apparently that’s all I do today.
Someone hands me a glass of champagne and I hold it, and I dance with Albie, who is a surprisingly good dancer and apologizes for it, and who says, halfway through, “I never said, Mrs. Channing. That night. I should have driven to get him whether you told me to or not,” and I say, “No, Albie. You did exactly right,” and he nods once and doesn’t say anything else, and it’s the longest conversation we’ve ever had, and I dance with a young author from the press who tells me she wrote her whole first draft in the reading nook, and I hold the glass through all of it and set it down and pick it up and set it down.
Later, when the guests have gone and the caterers are cleaning up, Kai and I slow-dance alone under the oak tree.
“Happy?” he asks.
“Terrified,” I admit. “But yes. Happy.”
“I’m going to make you so glad you gave me another chance.”
“You already have.” I put my head on his shoulder. “You know what I keep thinking about? Not the vows. Not the flowers. You didn’t look at your watch. Not once, the whole day. I kept waiting for it.”
“I’m not wearing one.”
“I know. That’s what I keep thinking about.”
He spins me gently, and the lights blur around us, and I think about all the ways this could have gone differently, all the moments where I could have walked away for good, where he could have given up, where we could have missed this entirely, and we didn’t. We’re here. We made it.
The song ends and he goes to find Dora, and I stand under the oak tree in the quiet, and I reach for my champagne on the wrought-iron table where somebody set it, and it’s full.
It’s been full all night. I’ve been holding it and carrying it and setting it down for four hours and I haven’t wanted it once, and I stand there with the glass in my hand and think about that, and about the two mornings this week I couldn’t face coffee, and about the way I fell asleep on the couch at nine on Tuesday, and I do the math on my calendar, backward, and then forward, and then backward again to be sure.
And I go very still.