“You look amazing, Aunt Maureen,” Paul said.
“I keep thinking how sad it is that your mother isn’t here,” she replied. Sarah caught Paul’s look and rolled her eyes skyward.
“Well,” said Paul, “I think we’re going to have a pretty good day.”
“I know,” her mother said. “I won’t bring it up. Sarah told me not to bring it up. I just keep thinking that anything could happen to people at any time, you know? And then you never a got a chance to make up with them.”
From what Sarah understood, Delia had been banned from Paul’s life after drunkenly storming into one of Paul’s improv shows and insulting him and his girlfriend while they were on stage. It sounded like an ugly scene all around, the end of Delia’s long downhill slide into increasingly malevolent behavior.
“Thanks for coming,” Paul said cheerfully, giving her a kiss on the cheek as he released her hand, then holding the hotel door open for her.
“I don’t know if this dress is fancy enough.”
“It’s perfect,” Paul told her.
“Well, I just don’t know,” she replied as Sarah shot Paul an expressive look and then steered her mother inside. She led her mother straight to their hotel room, where Sarah quickly slipped into an elegant wine-colored jumpsuit and wine-colored flats and then slid a couple of extra camera batteries into her camera case.
“You’re not wearing a dress?”
“It’ll be inconvenient if I have to squat to take a photo.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense.” Sarah felt a wave of relief that there was something—one small thing—that her mother was okay with. “That’s nice of you to take photos.”
“I volunteered. It’ll keep me busy.”
“Well, that’s true. Do you think my birds will be okay until tomorrow?”
“Your parakeets are fine. I’m sure they’re sleeping.”
“Well, I suppose.” Maureen looked out the window anxiously. “It’s awfully windy out there, isn’t it? Do you think they can have the wedding outside if it’s like that?”
For once, her mother’s anxious observation had a basis in truth. The weather for the wedding was beautiful but gusty, and the ceremony arrangement next to the sea looked both stunningly dramatic and dangerously close to being blown away.
“Well,” Sarah said with a sigh, “the photos won’t be boring, at any rate.”
After heading outside and helping her mother find a seat among the white chairs set up on the lawn, Sarah stood to the side, the warm gusts of wind tossing lone strands of her hair into her face, her eyes meeting Ren’s across the aisle. His camera was already out and ready, and he grinned and took her picture before walking toward her. She felt angry at him again, though this time it was for no clear reason.
“So I was thinking I’ll get the bride’s entrance and exit,” he said. “You focus on Paul’s face when she comes in. I can do the ceremony and kiss, you do the processional, that way we’re not clicking like paparazzi the whole time.”
“Sounds good.”
“Is that your mother?” he asked. “She looks like you.”
“She drives me crazy.”
“They all do. It’s their job.”
Just then, one of Paul’s improv friends hopped in front of the chairs with a guitar.
“Hey, I’m Amber, I’m the live music,” she said. She started playing a stripped-down version of a Vivaldi tune on her guitar as Abby’s niece Hannah, dressed in an elaborately flowing flower girl dress, tossed rose petals that were instantly carried skyward by the wind. Abby’s sister Laura came next, walking down the grassy aisle with Paul’s friend Ian. Sarah glanced toward Laura’s boyfriend Ollie, who was watching from his seat, his face quietly awestruck. Sarah snapped a picture of him before returning her camera to Paul.
Abby came out of the hotel next, looking radiant in a flowing white dress, but immediately her long veil began to blow around her face like an attacking seagull that she had to fend off. She started laughing, and Sarah turned her camera to Paul to catch him laughing, too. As soon as Abby made it down the aisle, Abby’s sister Laura ran over to remove the aggressively swirling veil, and the sisters laughed together as it wrapped around them both. Sarah got a perfect shot of the two of them, the veil raised around them like a fingering mist, smiling at each other. The image made her emotional even as she took it; sometimes you knew when you had a perfect shot.
Then the vows began and Sarah stepped back to let Ren take over. He was subtle about it, she noticed. She only heard his camera click every twenty or thirty seconds, but at perfectly chosen moments: right when Paul and Abby exchanged rings, right when they gazed lovingly at each other, right when they kissed. His journalism training must be kicking in. He knew how to capture the key moments in a story.
As the ceremony ended, Sarah slipped to the back of the aisle to grab a few last shots of the newlyweds grinning and walking towards her. Then she hurried back to her mother’s side; her mother was talking to an elderly woman who was a former neighbor of Abby’s about the likelihood of a storm blowing in. Sarah helped both women across the grass as they walked towards the hotel.
“You know there’s another photographer,” Maureen observed as Sarah walked between them.
