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W ith his mother’s hand clamped to his arm for balance, Nico followed Sadie back to the master bedroom where Ginny waited for them.

Behind him, Monique was ordering chairs moved and people silenced.

Even Vince’s boys, not known to follow orders, seemed to understand instinctively that they had met their match in Ginny’s big sister.

Ah, well, Grant will smooth things over if Monique ends up ruffling egos.

He, Sadie, Ginny, and his mom had more important things to do.

Ginny’s freckles dance over cheeks rosy with happiness as Nico and his mother arrived in the room. His bride-to-be sat on the edge of the bed, her legs crossed and her raised foot bouncing with unrepressed curiosity. Nico gently sat his mother down next to her.

His fiancé leaned in toward his mother. “Do you know what my next surprise is?”

“I have no idea,” his mother said. “But that lady seems even more excited about it than you do.” She pointed at Sadie.

“I am!” Sadie said. “And the surprise is for both of you. Close your eyes tight!” Petite like Ginny, Sadie reminded Nico of a bird. He half-expected her to lift off the floor and start flitting around the room. “And, Ginny, no cheating like you did on your fourteenth birthday.”

“That sounds like a story I should hear,” Nico said.

Ginny’s eyes opened for a second and whipped toward his before closing again. “It’s not.”

“It definitely is,” Sadie said, “but later.” She put her face within inches of his mother’s. “Are your eyes good and closed too, Claire?”

“Yes,” his mother said. “And if they stay closed much longer, I’m going to fall over!”

“It won’t be long,” Sadie said. She shifted to Ginny. “And are your eyes closed good and tight?”

Ginny eyelids were closed so hard her whole upper face was crisscrossed with squint lines. “Yes, yes, yes. Now get on with it before I tell him what you did on your fourteenth birthday.”

Sadie gasped. “You wouldn’t dare, but anyway, remember how I told you I needed to bring in a gown from the car that I was going to wear to a black-tie thing tonight, and if I left it in the car, it would get wrinkled?”

“Yes.”

“I lied!” she said. Nico was pretty sure she levitated a little from joy as she said it. Reaching into the closet behind her, she pulled out a dark pink garment bag. “You can both open your eyes. Nico, come hold up the hanger while I unzip the bag.”

Nico was only too happy to oblige, because it gave him the perfect view of Ginny’s and his mother’s faces as his mother’s slinky cream wedding gown, cleaned, repaired, and pressed, came into view in all its antique glory.

Until this moment, he wasn’t certain how much Ginny had liked the boxed-up wedding dress she’d found inside the kitchen booth bench with the photo album.

But as her sweet lips dropped open and her eyes took on an enthralled green glow, he had the answer to that question.

A second pair of green eyes caught fire too. “That’s my dress!” Claire said, lifting her thin arms as if she were cresting the top of a rollercoaster.

“But how…” was all Ginny managed to say. She was still on the edge of the bed, but she’d uncrossed her legs and sat forward for a closer look at the gown.

“I remembered you’d said it was in the closet, so I searched and searched, and there it was—a little smushed, but still in the box,” Nico said.

The garment bag dropped to the floor, and Sadie brought the dress nearer to Ginny and Claire. His mother ran her fingers down the simple bodice, then gently touched the beading on the full skirt. “Celia sewed all these on herself. It took her months.”

Sadie let out a sigh fit for an actress. “I would’ve loved a dress beaded by your talented sister.”

Ginny’s voice was reverent. “I didn’t want to damage it when I found it, and I'm not much of a fashion person, so I hardly even looked at it, but it’s stunning.”

“What do you think, Mom,” Nico said. “Will if fit Ginny? Do you mind if she wears it for our wedding?”

Claire leaned away from Ginny and gave her a once-over, sizing her up. “It’s going to fit her like a glove. I’d be honored if she’d wear it. Celia would be too.” She looked up sharply at Nico and wagged a finger at him. “But you’re not allowed to see her in it till she’s walking down the aisle!”

Nico helped his mother from the bed and led her out of the room so that Sadie could help Ginny into the dress.

Instead of taking her back to the living room to check on the results of Monique’s drill sergeant skills, he led her across the hall and into the second bedroom, where he held out a folded man’s suit to her.

“I found this too, but I didn’t want to wear it today. I hope you understand.”

Unlike the dress, she made no move to touch it. “It wouldn’t fit you, and I wouldn’t want you to wear it if it did.”

“Do you still miss him?”

Her eyes blinked wide as her head bobbled backward on her thin neck. “I never missed that man.” She slapped the air with her hand. “He’d been making me miserable for years, and then I found your Christmas note.”

The brightly colored pencils and sewing supplies in Ginny’s craft studio swam in Nico’s vision. “You found my note to Santa?”

She nodded. “That’s when I realized how much damage he was doing to you boys, too.” She squeezed his arm. “I told him to leave that very night and never come back.”

Nico felt the guilt he’d carried since childhood like a yoke around his neck begin to crumble and fall away. “But…but you still wear your wedding ring!”

She used her thumb to wobble the plain gold band around her ring finger.

“I kept it on to keep other men away. I had you boys and Celia. I didn’t need anybody else.

Eventually, my knuckles got too big. Now, I can’t take the darned thing off!

” She lifted the suit out of Nico’s still outstretched hands and threw it roughly into the trash can beside Ginny’s desk before giving him a stern look. “But I hope you brought a proper suit!”

Ten minutes later, and wearing a charcoal suit, cream shirt, and periwinkle satin tie, Nico stood beside his brother before the plate glass window that faced the sea.

Holding the event at the outside ledge would have been more scenic, but they couldn’t be sure his mother’s memory would withstand leaving the house, so there they were, putting more love into its walls.

On each side of a short “aisle” created by the placement of the orange wingback chairs, his mother and Sarah sat grinning at him.

To the right of Sarah’s chair, Grant held the leashes of Jack, Mick, and Annie.

Either the dogs understood the import of the moment, or Monique had promised them extra-large slices of wedding cake to behave, because they gazed expectantly up at Nico, tails wagging politely and not a drop of drool on their lips.

To the left of the chairs, Monique held tightly (hopefully not too tightly) to the hands of Nico’s nephews.

Nico was certain she’d promised them extra big slices of wedding cake if they behaved, because he’d overheard her bribe as he and his mother had returned to the living room and taken their places.

From the hallway, Sadie’s lovely soprano voice began to sing, “ Here comes the bride …”

“Not that embarrassing dirge,” he heard Ginny, just out of eyesight, exclaim. “Sing something fun.”

There was a pause, and then Sadie started over again, this time singing with the jaunty rhythm of “ Everybody loves my baby… ”

Nico’s mother tapped her toes and waggled her shoulders to the song as Grant joined Sadie in perfect harmony. “ But my baby don’t want nobody but me, that’s plain to see!”

Ginny and Sadie rounded the corner, giving Nico his first look at Ginny in his mother’s wedding gown.

He swallowed hard as he blinked moist eyes.

As his mother had known, Celia might as well have sewn the dress for Ginny.

The bodice cupped her petite torso like hands pressed in prayer.

The weight of the beaded skirt seemed the only thing keeping Ginny from lifting off and taking her place in the heavens.

But, of course, it was her eyes that captivated him most – captured him completely—as they had since the day that misplaced plastic chair had toppled backwards and he’d found himself face-to-face with her otherworldly beauty. Thank goodness for mole infestations.

After giving each of them the kind of stare that could get a rabid monkey to stand still for hours, Monique let go of his nephews’ hands, then stepped back and took Ginny’s arm.

Sadie walked around the small gathering and took her place before the window as their officiant.

She and Grant hummed a few more bars of their song as Monique walked Nico’s glowing bride the half dozen steps it took to deliver Ginny to the front of the “church.”

Well, his tiny living room certainly felt as sacred as a church now to Nico, and he knew it always would.

Sadie cleared her throat. “Shall we begin?” She slipped effortlessly into the slow, solemn rhythm of a wedding officiant. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here?—”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Sheesh, do we have to be so formal? I can’t wait another minute to be married to this guy.”

Sadie let out the sort of disappointed little sigh Nico expected she’d given Ginny on many, many occasions. “Don’t you want to hear Nico’s vows?”

Monique glanced up at him warily. “You have prepared some vows, right?”

Nico smiled. “Of course.” He looked at Ginny. “Do you want to hear them, or should we just kiss and be done?”

She jutted her tongue out at him but smiled back. “I want to hear them.”