Most of the wedding guests had gone home. The caterer had broken down the buffet. The band had packed up an hour ago. The string lights were still on in the trees, the small warm yellow that made everything look better than it had any business looking, and the chairs in the grass were half-empty, folded ones leaning against the backs of the ones still standing.
Audrey was at the table by the rose bed.
I was at the same table.
We'd been at the same table for forty minutes, and neither of us had moved.
I didn't know how we'd gotten here. The last hour of the reception had been the drift of people toward their cars, the slow collapse of a good night into its last few minutes, and at some point, the table had emptied around us, and neither of us had stood up. My jacket was over the back of the chair. My sleeves were rolled. She'd kicked her heels off under the table twenty minutes ago and pulled one knee up to her chest in a way that was definitely going to wrinkle the sage dress, and that she clearly didn't care about.
We were both a little drunk. Not sloppy. Just past the line where careful starts to feel like too much effort.
"The officiant," she said.
"Pastor Holm."
"He kept doing the thing with his hands."
"The thing where he folds them and then unfolds them and then folds them again."
"Like he's praying but can't commit to it."
I laughed. She laughed. It was the same laugh, the same read of the same moment—an observation nobody else in the yard had made, because nobody else in the yard had been watching the officiant's hands during the vows.
"I thought it was just me," I said.
"It wasn't just you."
"Three months of fighting with you about everything, and it turns out we're the only two people here who noticed the pastor's commitment issues."
"We're not fighting right now."
I looked at her for a moment.
"No. We're not."
The string lights hummed above us. A breeze came off the river and moved through the roses on the arch.
"The buttercream," I said.
She looked at me.
"You were right about the buttercream. The cake was better with buttercream."
"I know I was right."
"I'm telling you I know you were right."
"You fought me on it for two weeks."
"I fought you on everything for three months. I'm telling you the buttercream was the right call." I leaned back in the chair. "You were right. I should’ve let it go."
She looked at me for a beat longer than the sentence required. She had the look of a woman hearing a concession she hadn't expected, deciding what to do with it.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome."
The concession sat between us. It was a small thing. It was also the first time in three months I'd told her she was right about anything without a fight attached to it.
