Four hours later, we park the car at Stop & Shop.
“Remember the ice cream incident?” Lily says to me as we cross the street to the bar.
“I think you mean the detergent scandal?” I joke.
“What on earth are the two of you talking about?” asks Tommy. He wraps his hand around mine and smiles, and I think: Yes, this is it. This is how it should feel.
“Don’t worry about it,” says Lily.
Inside, a band has just taken the stage and a sparse crowd dances, strobe lights reflecting onto the wooden beams.
Lily says something in the ear of one of the bouncers. I watch their exchange as the bouncer’s face moves from scowl to laughter in a matter of seconds. Only Lily has the power to talk her way into something like this. She comes over and grabs my hand.
“It’s now or never. They said we could go up for one song.”
“Are we really doing this?”
“We have to,” says Lily. “For Lottie.”
She takes my hand and drags me up to the stage. The lead singer mumbles into the microphone: “Apparently, we have some special guests joining for this next song.”
Looking out at the dense crowd, my stomach turns. But then, I spot Elizabeth, and our dad next to her, looking totally out of place. Across from my dad, smiling, is Tommy. He shoots me a thumbs-up, the music starts to play, and Lily takes me by the arm. Soon enough, I forget about the crowd entirely, and we dance together like we didthe first night of the summer: free, unencumbered. We dance for Lottie.
On the last verse, I look at my daughter, who is smiling and spinning. I have to yell to be heard over the music. “You know my speech that was interrupted at the gala?”
“Of course,” Lily says, guilt deepening her voice. “How could I forget?”
“The speech I was giving was about you, Lily-pad. I was saying that my greatest honor is being your mom, watching you grow into yourself. You are my greatest joy.”
I grab her hand and hold it for a moment, squeezing tight. Lily looks like she’s about to cry, but instead she just smiles. For a moment, staring out at the crowd with the dark lights and moving bodies, it looks like the rhythm of the ocean. My heart is calm. It is all still water.
Chapter Thirty-SevenLily
August 5, 2023 One Year Later
The wedding is, predictably, filled with flowers.
Flowers cover the aisle, the garden of the church, the hair of the bride, and the laps of the guests. There is little decoration beyond flowers. It is simple, elegant, understated: exactly like the bride herself.
I walk down the aisle, the edge of my long dress dragging into the petals on the ground. In my hand is a bouquet hand-picked from Lottie’s garden. It’s almost like she’s here with us.
We are at the Siasconset Union Chapel church. Built in 1883, the exterior looks like something out of a storybook, with its long, stained-glass windows, peaked roof, white barn doors, and rows of hydrangea bushes. Inside, it is light and airy. The pews are white wood with colorful, embroidered prayer cushions. It is the very same church Lottie was married in almost fifty years ago.
Guests smile as I walk past, but I keep my eyes trained on the altar in front.
Much has changed in the last year or so.
Rose has opened up her own private practice and called it “Growing Season.” Tommy etched the name into the quarterboard. It hangs above her office downtown.
I helped develop the logo and branding. The office is in the upstairs space above a gallery downtown. It already has a months-long waiting list. My mom, so eager to help everyone, is debating whether to take on new clinicians to help with the load. I’ve also started seeing a new therapist of my own in New York to help with the panic attacks. I moved back a few months ago.
There’s a term in art calledunderpainting, which refers to the first base layer of paint you apply to the canvas. You can use it to play with dimensionality. I’ve started to think of my life like an underpainting: one layer built atop another, a work in progress.
A month ago, I hosted my first art gallery. I took Theo’s advice, stopped waiting for some external approval or permission to start. I created social media profiles of my work and sold a few prints directly to the small audience I garnered. Slowly, it gained traction. I went around New York City and posted flyers of my favorite pieces with a QR code attached that linked to my website. I put clickbait taglines on them like “Scan to find out who Banksy really is” or “Help me make my rent.”
In the meantime, I’ve worked two part-time jobs, like Theo had before: bartending and teaching painting lessons at a community center in Brooklyn. The gallery was my first real show and I held it downtown on the island, directly below Rose’s office. The paintings were all of Lottie, Rose, Jade, even one of Elizabeth, and other women in my life, some strangers: large, elaborate oil paintings celebrating them doing simple activities.
I sold every painting, except one I kept for myself, the image of Lottie bending in the garden. I donated the proceeds to the fundraiser we ruined, supporting mental health initiatives on the island.
