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“I’m just saying.”

The music began.

I’m going to tell you what I remember, because I’ve been told memory does strange things.

I remember the barn doors opening, and the cold air rushing in, and a hundred and forty faces turning. I remember Jenny, in a dusty-blue dress, going down the aisle with her ukulele strapped to her back, because Tyler had insisted, and every face in the room going soft. I remember Sabine in the front row, in a green velvet coat, sobbing into a handkerchief and pretending it was hay fever. I remember Tamsin next to her, in a black dress, with one hand on Marcus’s arm, glaring at anyone who looked at her wet face. I remember Ozzy, who’d come in a suit two sizes too small and a bow tie, and who lifted his hand at me, and grinned.

I remember Chip, in the back, weeping quietly into a glass of milk.

And I remember my father.

He walked me down the aisle. Nobody had asked him. He’d simply appeared at the door in his gray morning coat, as the music began, and offered me his arm. I hadn’t known what to say. I took it. We walked, together, slow and stiff, past the rows of white chairs, past the snow-lit windows, past the candles, and about halfway down I felt his hand tighten on mine.

“Alexander,” he said, very softly.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“You are doing well.”

I looked at him. He was staring straight ahead, jaw locked, eyes bright. His arm was trembling under my hand.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said.

“Do not fall.”

“I won’t.”

“Your knees are weak.”

“I know. “

“Lean on me.”

I leaned.

And then the aisle ended, and my father put my hand into Maksim’s, and stepped back, and I forgot everything.

He was wearing white.

I hadn’t been prepared for that. I’d expected black, or gray, or the dark red of the Ravens. Instead he stood at the end of the aisle in a suit the color of new snow, a fine pale wool that fit his shoulders like a second skin, with a single dark garnet at his lapel. His hair was combed back. His face was very white and very still.

He was looking at me as if I’d hung the moon.

“Hi,” I said, stupidly.

“Hello.”

“You look…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t have a word.”

“Nor do I.” His voice was rough. “You are beautiful, Lex.”

“Shut up.”

“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”