Chapter 22
On the morning of her son’s wedding, Rebecca was up at the crack of dawn, listening to the waves crash onto shore.
A storm rippled across the sky, drawing the ocean up from the depths of itself and making a mockery of Chad and Jenny’s hope for a sunny wedding.
Valerie called a little after six thirty, sorrow in her voice.
“I hope Chad and Jenny aren’t too upset.
But we have a rain plan. Everything is going to be all right. ”
Rebecca sipped her coffee and pictured her little sister, frantic and hovering over her wedding binders and searching for reasons not to give up hope. “It’s going to be a beautiful day, Valerie. We’re all together! Nothing can bring the mood down.”
There was a creak on the staircase. Valerie wanted off the phone to tend to more “wedding fires,” and, in Rebecca’s kitchen, Ben walked through, rubbing sleep from his eyes and smiling.
He kissed Rebecca, first on the lips and then on the neck, then said, “Isn’t it good luck to have rain on your wedding day? ”
“That’s what they say,” Rebecca said. “We had plenty of rain on ours, remember?”
Ben laughed, reaching for a mug. “It worked out for us.”
For a half hour, Rebecca and Ben enjoyed quiet coffee time in the sunroom. Ben knew that Rebecca needed a bit of introspection in the morning, and he busied himself with a crossword puzzle, his brow furrowed as he searched through his mind for words.
Shelby came down a little while later, followed closely by Chad, who’d slept over for much of the week, allowing Jenny alone time with her family and friends before they met one another at the end of the wedding aisle.
Chad looked sheepish and young, his hair a wild mess around his ears.
“Here he is,” Rebecca said, tapping the space on the sofa next to her.
“The groom is awake and ready for his entrance!”
“Not till after coffee,” Chad said, laughing.
Shelby hurried to fetch them both mugs, and soon the four of them were in the sunroom, watching the storm rage.
To Rebecca, Shelby looked so much healthier than she had even a week ago.
The pregnancy was filling out nicely, and she’d gained weight in her cheeks.
The biggest difference, though, was in her eyes. They spilled light with every smile.
Not long after that, Billy and Penelope got up, and chaos ensued.
Chad needed to be at the White Oak Lodge by noon to get ready for the three thirty wedding.
The guests had been asked to arrive between two thirty and three, to allow for a bit of a social hour before the wedding.
Before Chad left, Rebecca hurried to hug him, then watched as he slipped out of her grip and hurried through the rain to his car.
The next time she spent any time with him, he’d be a married man.
The idea squeezed her heart.
But there wasn’t time for nostalgia. Billy, Penelope, and Evie needed to be cleaned up and changed into their fine wedding outfits, which made them look picture-perfect and adorable.
Rebecca showered, then Shelby, and they did their hair and makeup in stages, so the kids were never without someone nearby to take care of them.
Ben, too, changed into his tux, and soon, the six of them were headed to the White Oak Lodge for pre-family wedding time.
Since the White Oak Lodge’s grand reopening in the summer of 2026, Rebecca had been at the stately hotel several times for parties.
It was often hard for her to make sense of its dramatic history.
In 1998, it burned down, scattering the Whitmores, the owner family, to the four winds.
Much like the Suttons, they’d come back together, facing old wounds and rebuilding what they’d lost. But while the Suttons had the quaint Sutton Book Club, the White Oak Lodge was exquisite and moneyed, a well-oiled machine that brought in numerous high rollers, celebrities, and wealthy individuals who wanted to spend the summer in a kind of sophisticated resort.
Once they arrived, Rebecca, Shelby, and the kids wound their way to Bethany and her children, as well as to their mother, Esme, and a few of their aunts and uncles.
It had finally stopped raining, and they sat in white chairs on the lush lawn and watched as their children played, calling out to them before they reached the yonder beach, as they didn’t want their outfits to get mussed by sand.
When it was time for the two thirty social hour to begin, Valerie gathered them all up to a gorgeous area decorated with Jenny’s favorite flowers—lilies and pink roses—where they sipped cocktails and chatted with friends and family.
Expectation bubbled until it was finally time to sit down and watch it all take place.
“We had to pivot from indoor back to outdoor,” Valerie said to Rebecca, rolling her eyes. “This business is going to give me a heart attack, I swear.”
Rebecca laughed and squeezed Valerie’s hand. “You’ve made everything perfect. Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Valerie said, clearly touched.
When it was time, Rebecca and Ben sat in the front row on Chad’s side, craning to watch as Jenny walked down the aisle to Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.” She looked exquisite, her dress the color of cream, which Ben and Rebecca recognized after all those weeks with those paint samples.
“White is never just white,” Ben whispered into Rebecca’s ear, and Rebecca laughed as tears spilled from her eyes and messed up her makeup.
The best part of Jenny’s ensemble was the way she looked at Chad, though. Love beamed from her face. Rebecca turned toward her daughter Lily, who sat on the other side of her with her two toddlers, and whispered, “You did this! You’re a brilliant matchmaker!”
But Lily shook her head. “I didn’t do anything. They fell in love on their own. I just put them in the same room.”
Rebecca thought Lily needed to give herself a little more credit.
Behind her, Shelby touched Rebecca’s shoulder and smiled through tears of her own. “I can’t believe I’m here,” she said. “I’m so happy.”
Beside Shelby, Billy reached for Shelby’s hand, and Shelby took it, smiling at her beloved son.
After the vows were read, and after Chad and Jenny promised to love one another forever, they kissed, and all chaos broke loose.
Suttons and Nantucketers swarmed everywhere, kissing one another on the cheek and congratulating anyone and everyone, not only for Chad and Jenny’s love but for the existence of all love everywhere.
Music rang out from speakers at all four corners of the outdoor space, but the clouds above threatened rain again.
Trying to bring organization back to the wedding day plans, Valerie called out that the post-ceremony cocktail hour would be moved to the ballroom, so Rebecca helped Lily and Shelby wrangle their children.
There, Rebecca grabbed herself a seltzer water with lime—as she wanted to stay alert all night long—and searched for her seat at Chad’s family table, where she was situated next to Ben and Shelby.
Her parents, Victor and Esme, were across from her, already settling into their seats.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Esme said. She looked thrilled. “I can’t believe the youngest of your children is married off!”
Rebecca’s gaze fluttered out to find Shelby and her three children, over with Lily, Arianne, and Natalia. The cousins got along easily from the start, and Rebecca knew they would be lifelong friends.
“Now, I suppose, we need to find someone new for Shelby,” Esme said under her breath.
“I think Shelby’s in the process of discovering who Shelby is,” Victor offered. “She doesn’t need a man, not now and not ever.”
Rebecca beamed with pride at her father. Years ago, when he’d first come to fetch her from Maine and take her back to Nantucket Island, he would have been too arrogant to understand something so primal and integral to the female experience.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Victor asked, laughing.
“It was well said, Dad,” Rebecca offered, her voice shaking. “Thank you for saying it. I love you.”
Victor raised his glass and looked her dead in the eye. “You’re a great mother, Rebecca. All your children have grown into remarkable adults. We’re proud of you.”
Esme beamed.
Later, when it was time for wedding speeches, Shelby stood and raised her glass to her little brother. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, but her voice was clear.
“As many of you know, my brother Chad, my sister Lily, and my mother all came out to Montana recently. Their goal was to help me move back to Nantucket,” Shelby began.
“At the time, I was about as lost as I’d ever been.
But there was one kernel of hope in my life, and that came in the form of a wedding invitation I received at the beginning of summer.
That invitation was from Chad and Jenny.
When I opened the letter, there beneath the mountains, I was more alone than I’d ever been.
But when I looked at Chad’s and Jenny’s smiling faces, I remembered that I’d once believed in the power of family.
I remembered that I’d once looked around a Nantucket table and seen only smiling faces, exuding love. ” Shelby closed her eyes.
“In any case, I want to wish Chad and Jenny a beautiful future together. The love you share will sustain you for years to come. We can all feel it, here in this ballroom. You are the luckiest and wealthiest people in the world, if only because you have each other.”
It was a perfect speech, Rebecca knew. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to stop crying.
As Shelby passed the microphone to the next person who wanted to speak, Rebecca stood and scooped her daughter into a hug.
Shelby shook gently before calming down.
“I just can’t believe I made it,” she muttered. “I can’t believe I’m here.”