J looks around. She’s not wrong.
She goes on, “Do you think at a certain point you just stop meeting new people? So you decide to marry one of the old ones?”
When V asks a question like this, J always tries to find their own relationship within the riddle, to figure out whether there’s a right answer or not.
“We’re far from old,” J assures her.
“I know. That’s why we’re the youngest people here. But in a way, it’s nice, isn’t it? To have this many people stay by you. If I got married tomorrow, I doubt I’d have this many people show up. Not from my side. I wonder what that means.”
Before J can even begin to think of the right response here, a woman interrupts, asking if J remembers sitting next to her at wedding number two. (He does not.) V recedes, and he only gets her back when the announcement is made that the doors are now open to the room where the ceremony is taking place.
“Will you sit with me?” he asks.
“Are you in front?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, I’ll stick behind. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” J says. Because he understands not wanting to sit at the front when you barely know the couple getting married.
Still, he would feel better with her beside him.
It is only after the ceremony has started that J realizes how inappropriate most of the lyrics in his song are, if George is that ill. He tries to rewrite it in his head, but his head doesn’t work that way.
Tom walks his mother down the aisle. George stands at the front of the room, beaming even brighter.
He looks at her like it’s the first time, like it’s all brand-new.
J is sitting in the front row because they’ve asked him to sing “I’ll Be Seeing You” as part of the ceremony. It isn’t until he takes his position and faces the audience that he sees V toward the back. She smiles at him, and then he looks and sees that many other people inthe audience are smiling at him, too. To look at them, nothing is wrong. They are here to celebrate.
J starts a cappella, then fills the music in.
I’ll be seeing you
in all the old familiar places...
He looks over to Lisbet and George. George’s eyes are closed, and he is smiling as he listens. Lisbet is mouthing along the words.
Even though, technically, the two of them aren’t married yet, they are holding hands like they’ve been married a long time. When J finishes, there’s applause. This is not usually the case during a wedding. But since it’s the fourth time around, people figure, why not?
V understands what J didn’t tell her earlier. She also presumes she now understands why Lisbet and George are doing what they’re doing. They don’t want to die alone. Fair enough. V can think of far worse reasons to get married. But she’s not sure it’s a reason she ever wants to consider.
J cannot look over at Tom, who has tears in his eyes. J has never seen Tom cry, or even come close.
J has to turn away. He does not want to cry in front of all these people.
The vows are simple.
“You will be my reason,” George says to Lisbet.
“You will be my reason,” Lisbet says to George.
They use the same rings, because even when they weren’t together, they kept them.
What is my reason? V wonders. But as she and J walk into the reception, she says, “That was sweet.”
J wonders if she noticed anything wrong, anything off. She has no frame of reference—this is her first time seeing George.
