The sky was cloudless and blue and most people believed that the Owens sisters ensured it would be so. Rain on a wedding day is said to be good luck, but it’s also quite messy when the festivities are to be held outside; no one wanted that gorgeous Tipsy Cake to dissolve into a pool of melting chocolate. Blue ribbons were laced through the tablecloths, and everyone in the wedding party had their jacket or dress hemmed with blue thread. The Owens family from Maine was there, told in no uncertain terms to keep family secrets to themselves, and the New York Owenses were all staying at the Black Rabbit Inn, while the members of the Dias-Owens contingent from California had arrived, speaking Portuguese among one another, all of them dark and good-looking.
The weeklong celebration began with a pre-wedding lunch in a nearby field, where the bride and groom-to-be were toasted. Long wooden tables were propped up in the grass. Ice-cold beer and rosé wine were served at lunch, along with oysters that out-of-towners wolfed down, and then, for anyone who still had room, rich slices of Honesty Cake, which made for several interesting speeches in which declarations of love and buried desires were blurted out and later retracted. An older gentleman had arrived from France, very elegant, wearing a black linen suit, and speaking French whenever he wanted to avoid a question. It was said he was Franny and Jet’s baby brother, Vincent, beloved and missed for many years. He liked to walk through town at night and the neighborhood dogs took to following him on his route. Everyone in town fell in love with him and people came outside to wave when he passed by. After the first two days of his visit, they all knew his name, and many local people decided to sign up for the conversational French course at the library on Monday evenings.
On the third day of his visit, Vincent was no longer alone. An English gentleman had joined him, arriving in time for the weekend, and he and Vincent were soon ensconced in the bridal suite at the Black Rabbit Inn. A year earlier, before leaving England for Franny’s funeral, Vincent had phoned David Ward, asking him if they might meet on his way to the airport. Vincent remembered what William had told him on the last day of his life. Be in love. It won’t take anything away from us. And it hadn’t. Vincent and David now lived together in the village of La Flotte, and had brought Dodger with them to run along the beach and take up space in their bed. It had all happened because Vincent had known it was what William would have wanted for him.
When he’d gone to meet David in London, Vincent had waited on the bench in Hyde Park, surprised by how nervous he was.
“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” David told him when he arrived.
Vincent laughed. “I think you knew.”
“Hoping isn’t knowing.”
“Isn’t it?” Vincent had said.
* * *
There was a great deal of excitement now that Sally Owens had arrived back home after a year away, bringing an Englishman of her own with her. Ian Wright was carefully observed by one and all, and had been asked several times if he had known any of the Beatles. Indeed, he had not, he was sorry to say, which was a disappointment. People exchanged glances when they noticed he was covered with tattoos; they had assumed so much ink meant he had ties to the music business, but obviously that was a wrong guess. Several of the Maine cousins began to wonder if perhaps this fellow of Sally’s was a criminal, but it was soon discovered that he was a professor and a writer, which would explain why he sat at home at his desk all day and had never met any of the Beatles. But Sally would be returning to England after the wedding, and you never knew who she might meet.
It was a surprise that Sally had left town, but it was impossible to know where fate would lead you, and it seemed she had made the best of it. The fiancé she’d brought home was exceptionally friendly, chatting with everyone, even the cousins from Maine; he could hold his drink extremely well and he seemed bemused by the family. Maybe this was why Sally seemed changed, and many people vowed that her silver-gray eyes had turned a pale blue. She had always been so reserved, ice-cold some might say, but now that she’d returned after a year away she actually remembered local people’s names, something that had never occurred when she’d worked at the library. Back then she would stare at you, point a finger at the middle of your chest, and announce the last book you’d withdrawn. You were forever known to her as Fahrenheit 451 or Olive Kittredge or Beloved.