I held my mother’s hand as we walked to the car, knowing that things would be different now. My mother and I would have to start our own memories, maybe in a new setting. She’d go to Europe, because I’d make her, and I’d get another job, away from the mall, and start again with the fall and my junior year. My sister would be with Lewis and I would know that she was happy, there in her new apartment, without me on the other side of the wall. I’d have to let her go. And I would start my own timeline now, with the faces of my own boys marking the days and months and years.
I kept wanting to find Ashley, to tell her these things, but at the church it was crowded and crazy, with everyone running around and Ashley always behind a closed door or being whisked past in a blur of white. I stood in line with the other bridesmaids, Carol Cliffordson nowhere in sight, symmetry be damned. I held my bouquet and said I was fine, really, it was just a twenty-four-hour bug. I’d been a bridesmaid before: I knew what to do. And when the music started I stepped forward and followed the girl before me to the end of the aisle, past Casey and her parents and Lorna Queen and finally my mother and Lydia, all the while wishing I’d had time to say something to Ashley. Something about the day before, and how I was sorry. About how I would miss her and that I understood now about Sumner, and how he had brought us back together and given us something in common again. The night before, we’d been so caught up in the past that I couldn’t make myself think ahead to this day and what came next, for either of us. I’d gone to bed and listened to her in the room beside me just as I had every other night of my life, not realizing that the next morning would be too late.
The organist started “Here Comes the Bride” and we all turned to the back of the church, expectant, and there she was. My father was grinning, his arm linked with hers as they took the first step together. Everyone was oohing and aahing because she was beautiful, white and gliding and perfect, and I watched her come towards me, a small smile on her face. I saw Lewis blushing and my mother dabbing her eyes and I thought about all we’d been through, my sister and I, the fights and the good times and every day we’d had that led up to this one and suddenly I was crying. I knew my mascara was running and I was the only one up there in front so close to bawling, but still the tears came, rolling down my cheeks as she got closer and her own eyes met mine from beneath her veil. I wanted to say it all then, but before I could speak she stepped away from my father and put her arms around me, hugging me tightly, her bouquet against my neck. I smelled flowers, my mother’s garden, as I held her and knew I didn’t have to say anything. My sister was wiser than I ever gave her credit for. She held me and whispered she loved me before pulling back, wiping her own eyes.
I knew it then. For me and Ashley, there wasn’t any time left to think back to that summer and the beach and a boy who charmed us and disappointed us. There was only what stretched out ahead, years full of new summers and promise, with all the time in the world left to start again. My sister, who never understood most of the things I wanted her to, might have been able to understand what had happened to me in this summer of weddings and beginnings. And she was right. The first boy was always the hardest.