Chapter 13: The Wedding Season
Spring arrived with the steady work of Claire and Luca’s wedding.
I drove to Boston twice in March and once in early April to help with the final arrangements. The tasks were practical—seating questions, a last adjustment to the flowers, the quiet coordination of relatives who needed clear directions and no drama. I performed none of them with the old anxiety of needing to be flawlessly useful. I simply did what was required and left the rest to the people whose day it actually was.
Hélène and Philippe arrived from Brussels three days before the ceremony. Their manner was polished and carefully warm. They greeted me with correct affection, inquired about my journey, and made no reference to the lake house. I matched the tone without forcing additional closeness. The boundary established in the Adirondacks had held; neither side needed to reopen it for inspection. Luca remained attentive to Claire in the small, consistent ways that mattered more than formal gestures. When his parents spoke of family tradition, he translated the parts worth keeping and quietly set aside the parts that required anyone to shrink.
May you like
On the morning of the wedding I helped Claire with the final details of her dress. She was calm in the way of someone who had already chosen her life and no longer needed to perform certainty for an audience. When she turned to me and asked whether I was ready, I told her the truth.
“I am. And so are you.”
