Jonah whispers, “I saw her inside. She looks really pretty, Uncle Slade.”
“Was she…” Nervous? Scared? Happy? I settle on, “Was she smiling?”
He grins up at me, missing three teeth and a pink sunburn starting to peel across his nose, but looking wise beyond his eight years all the same. “Oh yeah,” he says. “Big time.”
The doors of Rosemont open.
My dad steps out first. Dark suit, cowboy hat, boots worn smooth at the heel from thirty years of ranch work. The little leather-bound book of vows in his hand. He’s doing double duty today, walking her in and marrying us. I’m grateful to him for it, but I can’t help but think Lila’s father should have been the one to walk her down the aisle. Her family ought to be here to watch their daughter get married.
And my own mom should be here too. Deep inside me there’s a sudden burst of longing, brief and fierce as a comet across a dark sky.
I let myself feel it for exactly one second. Mom would have loved being part of this wedding. Would have loved my bride.
Then the doors open wider and I let it go.
Lila steps out.
She’s wearing a soft, flowy white dress that makes her look like a Greek goddess. White cowboy boots beneath the hem. Her rose-gold curls tumble down her back, and she has flowers in her hair, pinned in a crown of braids. Lucky ambles alongsideher with a little flower corsage attached to her prosthetic leg.
Lila’s eyes find mine.
I stop breathing for a second.
She’s walking toward me across my family land, glowing in the blush-colored autumn light, easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and my heart actually hurts.
Tanner says something. I don’t even hear it.
I can’t take my eyes off Lila as she comes up the aisle until she’s standing beside me. Close enough that I can smell her delicious sweet perfume and see the tiny pearl pins holding the braids in her hair. Her lips curve into a smile, one that seems nervous, and I realize she was just as scared as I was standing up here waiting.
I take her hand without thinking. She looks down at it, my rough scarred hand around her small manicured one, and when her gaze meets mine again she doesn’t look so nervous anymore. She looks… happy.
Lucky sits on both our feet.
My dad clears his throat and opens his little leather book to start officiating.
The words are traditional, the same words people have been saying to each other for centuries. I’ve heard them at other people’s weddings and let them wash over me without making impact.
It’s different this time, because I’m the one repeating them. And so is my bride.
“To have and to hold from this day forward,” my father says.
The sky behind the mountains has deepened from gold to rose to a soft purple, the kind of color Lila would surely have a name for. Amethyst, maybe. Something rare and shimmering and beautiful, like her.
“For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health.”
She squeezes my hand once. I squeeze back. The first stars wink out between the pastel clouds, sparkling above snow-dusted mountain peaks.
“To love and to cherish.”
As we speak our vows, I realize I didn’t account for this when we made this deal. That actually going through with a wedding, it would feel like the real thing.
“Until death do you part.”
Her eyes come to mine in shared acknowledgment—because there it is. The one line neither of us can fully claim.
But I don’t look away. Neither does she.
“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” my father asks me.
