Elin Hilderbrand - Beautiful Day

Ellie was still in her bathing suit. Doug, who made a point never to interfere with his kids’ parenting, had said to Margot, “Really? You brought her to church in a bathing suit?”

Margot had instantly gotten her hackles up, as Doug expected.

“I’m doing the best I can, Dad,” she said. “She refused to change. I think it’s a reaction to the D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

Really? Doug thought. Margot and Drum Sr. had been divorced for nearly two years. That sounded suspiciously like an excuse.

Roger, the wedding planner, was the director of this particular pomp and circumstance, despite the presence of the pastor of St. Paul’s and their pastor from home, Reverend Marlowe, who were co-officiating. Roger had his clipboard and a number two pencil behind his ear; he was wearing a pair of khaki shorts, Tevas, and a T-shirt from Santos Rubbish Removal. Doug had an affinity for this fellow Roger that bordered on the fraternal. He appreciated that sense and order and logic were prevailing in the planning of this nuptial fete. Whatever Doug was paying the guy, it wasn’t enough.

Roger had an old-fashioned tape recorder that was playing Pachelbel’s Canon; tomorrow there would be two violinists and a cellist. Pachelbel’s Canon was a piece of music Beth had loved even more than Eric Clapton or Traffic. She had loved it so much that she had asked Doug to play it over and over again in the days before she died. It would ease her passage, she said. Naturally, it was also the piece she had suggested for the processional, not realizing that as Doug stood, linked arm in arm with his youngest child, he would be suffused with the memory of sitting at Beth’s bedside, helplessly watching her die.

Tears stung Doug’s eyes, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a few deep breaths. Next to him, looking as soft and lovely as a rose petal, Jenna said, “Oh, Daddy,” and from some unseen place, she pulled a pressed white handkerchief.

That did it: Doug started to cry. It was all too much-giving his baby girl away, the confusion about Pauline, and his longing for Beth. She should be here. She should be here, goddamn it! In the seven years since her death, he had missed her desperately, but never as much as he did right this instant. Her absence physically pained him. He realized then that he had forgotten to read the last page of the Notebook, although he had decided, while overlooking the eleventh green at Sankaty, that today would be the day to do so. Now he was glad he hadn’t read it. He couldn’t handle it.

Doug blotted his face with the handkerchief, mopping up the tears that were now flowing freely. He caught Roger looking at him with concern. Doug didn’t have an issue with grown men crying; he saw it week in and week out at his office-a college president had cried, an orthopedic surgeon had cried, a famous TV chef had cried. The loss of love could undo anyone.

And so, when the music switched to Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary and he and Jenna took their first matched steps down the aisle, everyone who rose saw him weeping.

He didn’t try to stop himself. Beth, he thought. Beth, look at our baby.

Because it was the rehearsal, the only people in attendance were the wedding party and, seated in the front pew, Pauline, and Stuart’s parents, Ann and Jim Graham. Doug figured he might as well get all the tender thoughts out of the way now; that way tomorrow he might have half a chance of remaining composed.

He allowed himself to remember the first moment that Jenna was placed in his arms. She had been the smallest of the four children at birth-a mere six pounds, twelve ounces-and she fit comfortably in both his upturned palms. He remembered her eyes, round and blue, and her head covered with baby chick fuzz.

“She’s a little darling,” Beth had said. “A precious sweetheart. She is our dessert.”

Jenna had been exactly that. The other three kids had been born in such rapid succession-Margot first, Kevin eleven months later, Nick fourteen months after that-that they had all blended together. Then seven years passed, and both Beth and Doug had assumed they were done having children. The older three were too much to handle most of the time. Margot was bossy, Kevin scrappy, Nick messy. Beth had relaxed on her birth control; some nights she was simply too tired to put in her diaphragm, and most times their lovemaking was too urgent, squeezed into rare moments of privacy, for Doug to remember to pull out. They had gotten pregnant again, and they surprised themselves by feeling happy about it. They had Jenna, a baby girl they could relax and enjoy; she was the one they could spoil. And Jenna had given back every bit of their love. She had been a snuggler and a kisser, and in many ways a uniting force among the children. In seventh grade, Doug remembered, she had been learning calligraphy, and she had made a sign that said: Only family matters. Beth had insisted that Doug take the sign to work and display it in his office. He had hung it on the wall behind his desk. And then, when Beth died, he had brought the sign home and put it on Beth’s nightstand.

Tears, tears. Doug couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes-not Pauline’s, not Kevin’s, not Margot’s. He gazed straight ahead at the altar and the magnificent east and west Tiffany windows. He could remember the weight of Jenna in his hands the first time he held her, and now here she was firmly gripping his arm as though she were walking him down the aisle and not the other way around. This was going to be the next-to-last time he held on to her. Right now, she was still his.

Reverend Marlowe was standing before them; they had come to the end of their journey.

Doug didn’t want to let her go.

Your father will be a cause for concern.

He kissed Jenna and gave Stuart a look.

You’re a lucky bastard, he thought.

Take care of her, he thought. She is so precious to us.

And then he stepped aside.

Reverend Marlowe raised his hands and, in his melodious voice, said, “Dearly beloved.”

My Cousins

You will need to invite all the Bailey cousins and their children. I’m sorry! But you know how tightly knit the Baileys are and how they will feel slighted if you don’t invite each and every one of them. As you may or may not remember, Beanie’s mother, Pat, only allotted Daddy and me forty invites, and so only five Bailey cousins made the cut and there was hell to pay. My cousin Linda STILL holds a grudge. And then NO ONE was invited to Margot’s wedding in Antigua. So, you see, these invitations to your wedding are non-negotiable. I’m sorry, sweetie.

The full list follows below.

The sight of Doug Carmichael openly weeping as he walked Jenna down the aisle was the only thing all day that had managed to get Ann out of her own head. Ann thought, The poor man, he lost his wife; now he is giving away his daughter, whom he clearly adores. A man was different with daughters than with sons. Ann wondered for a second how Jim would have fared with a daughter. Ann hoped he would have been just like Doug Carmichael. Of course, they would never know.

The rehearsal was unremarkable except for that show of emotion. Ann’s part was small and completed early-she would be walked in after the other guests were seated, escorted by Ryan.

Fine.

“Dearly beloved,” followed by the readings. Jenna’s brother Kevin read the lyrics to “Here, There and Everywhere,” by the Beatles. And Jenna’s sister-in-law, Beanie, read the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem “Love Is Not All”:

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

Ann closed her eyes. Jenna and Stuart said their vows, then Jenna’s childhood minister would give a short homily, although tonight, thankfully, they were spared. He was Episcopalian. It would have been nice if Jenna had been Catholic, but Ann couldn’t complain. Episcopalians were close, and most of the girls whom Stuart had dated before had been Southern Baptists, including She Who Shall Not Be Named. Then there was a moment of silence to remember Jenna’s mother, Beth Carmichael, during which Ann bowed her head and reminded herself to be grateful that she was whole, present, and healthy to see her son get married. Then the kiss. Then “I now pronounce you man and wife.” Then the wedding planner hit the button on his funny old tape recorder, the strains of Mendelssohn played, and everyone filed out of the church in the reverse order, only this time Ann was escorted out by Jim.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

At the bar at the yacht club, Ann ordered a double vodka martini.

Jim looked at her sideways. “You?” he said. “Vodka?”

“Let me know the second you see her,” Ann said. “And please, don’t leave my side.”

Jim cupped Ann’s face with his big, strong hands and kissed her on the lips, a real kiss, the kind of kiss that, all these years later, could still make her weak with desire, especially since he tasted like his first sip of bourbon. During the four years of their separation and divorce, Ann had dated seven men and slept with two, but none of those men had made her dizzy with lust the way Jim did. Even now, in public, under such stressful circumstances, she felt a hot pulse. It wasn’t fair.

“Nice party,” Jim said.

Ann could do nothing but agree. The Nantucket Yacht Club was the kind of place that thrived on understatement and quiet privilege. The sloops on buoys, the grass tennis courts, the spectacular location on the harbor, the shabby genteel furnishings, the trophy cases displaying the same dozen Mayflower names.

Cocktails were being served on the patio. The college-age servers (all attending colleges like Mount Holyoke and Williams, all with names like Lindsley and Talbot) passed trays of bacon-wrapped scallops and phyllo filled with melted Brie and apricot preserves. They had ripped the recipes for this occasion right out of the official WASP cookbook.

It was exactly as Ann had imagined it.

In the ballroom, round tables were set with navy and white linens and napkins folded to look like sailing ships. Dinner was to be a traditional clambake-lobsters and potatoes and corn-served buffet style. Guests could sit wherever they pleased. Ann would have preferred assigned seating, with Helen Oppenheimer placed on the opposite side of the ballroom, preferably in the corridor outside the ladies’ room. As it was, Ann had made her first priority-after acquiring her vodka martini and downing three healthy sips-rounding up Olivia and her husband Robert and the Cohens and the Shelbys and making sure that they were all planning to sit at the table with Ann and Jim.

“Absolutely,” Olivia said. “I would never abandon you. Is the bitch here yet?”

“Not that I can see,” Ann said. Olivia was the only person who knew about Helen; the Cohens and Shelbys had become close friends of Ann and Jim’s the second time around. Jim’s sister Maisy was here with her husband, Sam. Ann and Maisy had never hit it off-quite frankly, Ann couldn’t stand the woman. She lived in Boone, North Carolina, and wore prairie dresses and had homeschooled her five children. When Jim left to move in with Helen, Maisy had condoned it. She and Helen became friends. Maisy had helped Helen with Chance when he was a baby. Ann pointedly did not ask Maisy and Sam to sit at her and Jim’s table. Maisy could sit with Helen in social Siberia.

Ann finished her cocktail and got herself another. A young man named Ford who attended Colgate (it said so right on his name tag; it must have been yacht club tradition to let people know how well educated the staff was) offered Ann a deviled egg, but Ann declined. She couldn’t possibly eat anything.

She wanted to find Jim and walk down the docks and admire the sailboats, but Jim was off mingling somewhere; he had not heeded her plea to stay within arm’s reach. Ann knew she should introduce herself to some of the other guests instead of spending the whole evening within the cozy ring of her Durham friends. As it was, those six were circled together, talking and laughing, having a fine time. They felt no compunction to meet Jenna’s mother’s cousins or Stuart’s boss, here with his wife and new baby.

But Ann was a politician, and it was in her nature to connect with as many new people as humanly possible. She was good at introducing herself; she should just do it. Helen would get there when she got there; Ann couldn’t fritter the whole evening away worrying about when.