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She broke down then, and my heart ached for her, because I knew, as Neil did, and as Michael did, that Emma feared they would never have the family they wanted. To anyone else, they were happy tears from an overjoyed bride, and there was no reason anyone should have thought otherwise.
Michael reached up to brush a tear from her cheek with his thumb, and the gesture was so natural and loving that my heart skipped a beat. If ever there were a truly great romance, Emma and Michael had to be it.
Instead of exchanging rings, they had chosen to light a unity candle together, to symbolize the joining of their lives into one. I’d never been to a wedding where the bride and groom lit the candle on their own, and it was a meaningful twist.
When the officiant declared, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” I looked up at Neil. A tear track gleamed on his cheek, and more glittered unshed in his eyes. There was pride there, and sorrow. Because it was final. It was as though in those words, he finally saw Emma as a grown woman who didn’t need him in the same way she had when she’d been a little girl. I thought of the pictures in our house, of Emma as a baby in her father’s arms, moments after she was born, and as a five-year-old with impossibly white blonde pigtails on the first day of school. And as I watched him watching his daughter kiss her new husband at the start of their life together, I saw him reluctantly laying those versions of Emma to rest. So, it was a touch patriarchal of him to recognize her as a grown-up only when she’d become a wife, but the twenty-five years between us was a long time, and I had to be somewhat forgiving of our views not lining exactly up.
As Emma and Michael half-ran their giddy way up the aisle to the strains of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” a rain of pale paper butterflies drifted from the ceiling.
I nudged Neil with my arm. “You okay?”
His smile was a little too quick in response to be entirely genuine. “Oh, yes. It was a lovely ceremony.”
That was the staunch Englishman side of him, one that I didn’t see very often anymore. “It’s okay to show emotion, you know,” I teased. “Your daughter just got married.”
“If I start showing emotion, it will all come flooding out and you’ll have to carry me to the reception.”
I’d assumed that during the photos, I’d be hanging out in the Roosevelt Rotunda with the other guests. I wouldn’t be needed, after all. Everyone who would be involved lingered behind the other guests, and when everyone else had gone, Emma and Michael emerged from their secret hiding room. Being waylaid by well-wishers would have eaten up precious time for photos and left reception guests waiting, she’d explained at the rehearsal, and I’d made a mental note fo
r my own wedding.
As soon as they saw Emma, Neil and Valerie rushed over to her for hugs and a chorus of parental pride. I gave them space, only approaching Emma for a hug when she noticed me. Careful not to step on her dress, I gave her a gentle squeeze, so as not to crinkle her chiffon. “You look amazing!”
“Thank you.” She smoothed her hair, cautious of the pearls, and self-consciously straightened her neckline. “That means a lot, coming from someone who knows so much about fashion.”
Awww. Emma rarely praised people, which meant that when she did, it was genuine. Also, that she was able to lower her guard around them.
“Okay, can I get the bride and her parents?” the photographer called, and the three of them moved so quickly it was comical.
Emma called, “Oh, my bouquet, Amanda, my bouquet!” to her maid of honor, as though she were a surgeon calling for a crucial instrument in a tense operation. Amanda, in the floaty white a-line shift dress uniform of the bridal attendants—the glittery Swarovski crystal and gold thread embroidered collars were to die for—scooted across the floor on the balls of her feet in her stiletto heels, like a person carrying a bomb. Both Neil and Valerie reached for the bundle of baby pink roses at the same time, and the whole thing was frantic and amusing.
I turned, shaking my head and trying to cover my giggles as I headed toward the door. Neil and Valerie were good parents, but wow, did they spoil their daughter.
“Sophie?” Emma called.
I pointed to the door. “Cocktail hour! Open bar. Munchies.”
She did a little half-frown, half-smile of confusion. “Yes, and…pictures. You can’t take off.”
Valerie’s eyebrows went up, and she forced a painful looking expression. For his part, Neil looked pleasantly stunned.
“I didn’t think… I mean…” I didn’t know what to say. She wanted me in her pictures? Her wedding pictures? Just a year ago, she’d hated me.
She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re going to marry my dad. You’re my family. Let me get this one with them, and then one with all of you.”
The photographer snapped a few shots of them, a gorgeous, happy family, and then, as Emma gestured from her elbow to speed me along, I stepped up onto the dais and stood beside Neil.
With my family.
* * * *
The dinner and dancing took place in the Hall of Ocean Life, under the museum’s iconic blue whale. Guests mingled at tables and two open bars on the upper level, and on the lower level, long dinner tables ringed a dance floor. A six-piece band, headed by a male singer with a smooth, silky voice, entertained while the elaborate vegan dinner was served.
The cake—also vegan, naturally—was a tower of white frosting and flakes of coconut decorating the layers of lime- and mango-flavored spongy deliciousness. I wondered if the bride’s family got to have more than one piece. I didn’t really think of Emma as my stepdaughter, but I was willing to pull that card if it meant I got to try both kinds of cake.
Emma and Michael danced their first dance as husband and wife to the band performing Billy Joel’s “Everybody Has a Dream.” I knew Emma had dragged Michael to dance lessons, but it seemed natural and not choreographed, and I watched them with the same rapt romantic fascination with which I’d watched Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip twirl around their Disney ballroom when I was a child.
Neil danced with Emma, as proud as any father could possibly be of his daughter, and I was struck with such a deep, sharp sadness at the realization that there would be no father-daughter dance at my wedding. It hadn’t been important to me, or even a thought, until that moment. I had to blink back a few tears.
