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Aurora locked eyes with Barbie, terrified at the ease with which Barbie said that— as though it was something that was bound to happen.But then again, why couldn’t it? Why wouldn’t she become something?If she fought through her mental illness, if she kept going, there were endless possibilities for love and light.
Finally, Aurora forced her eyes to the mirror on the other side of the room to take herself in. The person she saw in the mirror was certainly different than the one she’d seen last week. She wore no makeup, and her hair was wild from the ferry. But there was a clarity in her eyes, a certainty she didn’t remember seeing previously. She was at the very beginning of her health journey— and something told her she had the strength to make it stick.
And then, her eyes turned toward the bed, where her guitar case sat, waiting for her. Her heart thudding, she walked forward to unlatch it and sweep her fingers over the strings to play a whisper of a chord.
“Do you know what you’re going to sing today?” Barbie asked quietly.
“I do. I just hope I don’t completely mess up, like last week.”
Barbie touched Aurora’s shoulder. “You won’t. We’re all here, and we’re all pulling for you. You’re going to be great.”
ChapterTwenty-Two
At four in the afternoon, thirty minutes before the wedding was set to begin on the immaculate grounds of the White Elephant Hotel, Ella, her bridesmaids, her mother, and her father were stationed inside the hotel, watching as wedding guests milled about the lush grass, took photographs in front of the ocean or the hotel, and clinked their pre-wedding cocktails together. Already, Aurora performed on the other end of two-hundred white-painted chairs, near where Ella and Will would meet to say their vows, and her voice soared through the air, her eyes closed as she strummed the guitar. According to Barbie, Aurora had spent three hours practicing before Brooks picked her up— and she’d mastered the song she’d only managed to write in her head so far. It was incredible.
Ella’s eyes filled with tears as she listened, leaning out the window of the hotel to drink the music in. Off to the side of the chairs, Will stood with Danny, both in tuxedos, watching Aurora play. Oh, Ella could hardly stand how handsome they both were— her two favorite men in the world. When Will glanced in her direction, as though he’d sensed her gaze, Ella jumped back, laughing to herself about her own silly suspicions. She and Will had already been through thick and thin. He could certainly see her in her wedding dress before the ceremony. But just in case, she stayed inside.
When Ella turned around, Alana shrieked, purely for the excitement of it all, and said, “I can’t believe I get to be in my sister’s wedding!”
Julia’s eyes glinted with tears. “Don’t do this. I don’t want to ruin my makeup.”
Ella pressed her hand over her heart, enraptured with this view of her sisters so many years after they’d pledged never to see one another again. They’d missed so many years.
“Maybe a part of me couldn’t marry Will until I had my family with me,” Ella suggested. “I needed the support of all of you to make this step.”
Greta and Bernard took one another’s hands as Laura hurried forward to hug her mother. Outside, Aurora had switched songs, strumming easily into a love tune everyone knew.
“Listen to that voice,” Alana breathed, shaking her head.
“She looks better,” Greta said. “She was quiet on the car ride here, but she had her wits about her, too. The doctor said she’s making good progress. That maybe they caught it in time, before things really got serious, the way they did with her mother.”
Ella nodded, adjusting her bouquet of lilies, her heart in her throat. She hoped and prayed this was true.
As Aurora finished her set, the rest of the guests ambled to the white chairs, craning their necks to peer back toward the double-wide doors through which Ella would walk arm-in-arm with both her mother and her father. She couldn’t have imagined it any other way.
During the walk down the aisle, Ella had asked her bandmates, Audrey, Henry, and Nate, to perform. The song they’d chosen was one that Ella and Will had written when they were in their early twenties – a time of wild intensity, of Ella’s pregnancy, and when they hadn’t been sure if the band would go on. The song told a story of two lost souls who’d discovered one another in the messy portion of their lives— and had decided to cling onto one another, no matter what happened, no matter what tests were thrown at them.
As Audrey began to sing, the lyrics nearly shattered Ella’s heart, as they took her immediately back to that small dingy apartment she’d shared with Will back then. There, they’d fought, danced, made love, slept, and played music, then gotten back up to do it all over again. So much had happened since then. Yet here they still were, committing to one another. It was incredible.
Alana went down the aisle first, which was something she was clearly pleased with. She smiled her model smile and paced down at the perfect tempo, her hair flowing gently in the ocean breeze. After that was Julia, who stumbled slightly in the middle of the aisle, then winced with embarrassment. Ella’s heart went out to her. She hoped she knew how much she loved her.
Afterward, Laura took the aisle. As she walked down, smiling, her shoulders aglow beneath the July sunlight, Ella blinked back images of the very first day of Laura’s life, when Will had held her and said, “Have you ever seen anyone more perfect?”
It was finally time for Bernard and Greta to walk Ella down the aisle. As they assembled at the end of the aisle, Bernard grabbed his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the tears from his eyes.
“I’ll try to keep it together, Ella,” he said. “Forgive this emotional old man.”
Ella squeezed his arm. “I love you, Dad. And you, Mom.”
When it was time, Bernard, Greta, and Ella stepped out, and all two hundred of Ella’s guests stood, blinking back tears and oohing and awwing over Ella’s dress. On the right-hand side, Ella made momentary eye contact with Aurora, who held hands with Brook, smiling serenely. Just as her mother had said, Aurora’s eyes were different— as though she’d returned to planet Earth from whatever hell she’d been in. Ella nodded to her and mouthed, “Thank you.”
When Ella reached Will, she turned back to hug and kiss both of her parents, then reached forward to take Will’s hand. As his fingers laced through hers, her heart thudded in her ears. It felt as though she rose up from the grass to the clouds above.
The pastor who’d agreed to do their service was a long-time friend of Greta and Bernard’s— most notably, someone who hadn’t been around when Bernard had been on trial. When he’d returned from his missionary work, he’d been shocked and appalled that nobody had stood up for Bernard. Apparently, he’d never believed the allegations, despite the fact that Bernard had been found guilty, and he’d written Bernard several times during his imprisonment, mostly with Bible verses that urged him to keep going, thinking, and reading.
“We are gathered here today to join in holy matrimony, Will and Ella,” he began as Ella and Will locked eyes, and Will’s lips twisted into a smile, as though he was trying to suppress laughter. There was a surreal quality to the moment, as though, at any moment, they were apt to wake up from the dream and be taken back in time twenty years earlier.
And later, when the pastor pronounced them husband and wife and called for them to kiss, Will wrapped his arms around her, tugged her into him, and took her on a journey of the senses as the crowd before them leaped to their feet and cried out in joy.
