Oliver grinned and reached up to alert Freddy, tugging at his sleeve with so much force that even from across the room, Claire could see the cufflink pop off. She didn’t hear the rip, but she knew there had been one from the way everyone froze, including her baby.
He immediately started to turn red, his little body twisting with his hands coming up to push into his mouth. He projected the panic the way only a child can, like a buzzing aura of explosive grief and emotion.
Claire moved immediately, stepping toward them with alarm.
Freddy had only seen the sweetness of Oliver, had only enjoyed him at his most charming. This could rupture everything, and Oliver would feel it. He would know it was because he had made a mistake.
Freddy himself, as though he was anticipating her rescue, looked across the room at her for a single, lightning-fast moment, and shook his head. He shook his head! As though to stop her. And despite every bone in her body screaming at her to go save her child, she did stop.
She waited.
She watched.
Freddy knelt, holding the boy’s hands, and said something to him as the tears started to pour down Oliver’s bright red face, asthe motions of panic moved his feet to stomp and his breathing to hiccup.
They looked around on the floor together for the cufflink, which had bounced away into the ether at the gesture. Oliver tried to tug himself away, tried to collapse onto the floor to crawl around for it, still gasping for air, still crying and sniffling and making a grand mess of himself.
Freddy let him look, creeping forward on his own knees to peer around, but it was already so dark. It was already so dark, and the candlelight in the aisle was casting too many shadows for the search to be anything at all but hopeless.
Freddy took out his own handkerchief to dab at Oliver’s face, to wipe his messy nose, even! Claire balked at that. She balked that Freddy would do something that would repulse most other men.
And then Freddy took off his other cufflink and grinned at his son. He threw it like he was rolling his dice, into the dark shadows under the pews, and held his hands up as though his suit was much improved now, without the links.
Oliver stared. He looked just as baffled as Claire felt, but the staring had stilled him. It had stopped the onslaught of a panicked tantrum. His face was still red and tear-streaked, but the sequence had been interrupted.
He looked around on the ground as though the cufflinks might roll back out and attack him. He couldn’t quite believe what had just occurred.
And around them, people were still filing in, still filling the church as though nothing at all extraordinary was happening at their feet.
When Freddy stood back up, he left his handkerchief in Oliver’s little hand and offered his own for the other to hold. He walked down the candlelit aisle and looked directly at Claire, like he was the bride and she the groom, waiting to receive a lifetime of love.
She wanted to move, to dive into a pew, to avoid this perverse reversal, but she couldn’t. She didn’t remember bringing a hand up to cover her mouth, but as soon as she realized she had, she dropped it. She walked backward because she could not turn, and when they reached her, she could not look away from him. She couldn’t tear herself from his eyes.
“He is all right,” Freddy assured her softly. “He’s a good boy.”
She looked down at his hands, at his loose cuffs dangling over his knuckles like a frilly night rail, and she had to swallow down her own hiccup, her own cache of tears. She looked back at Freddy with something that tied confusion to gratitude, and said, “He is. He is a very good boy.”
They sat together on that pew. The powerless pew she had looked at before. Oliver sat between them, clutching the handkerchief like it was a life raft, deep at sea. His breath continued to stutter, but he did not dissolve into tears again. He did not seem to worry at all. He looked at his own feet and he held the cloth token and he eventually steadied himself, much like Claire herself did when she felt overwhelmed.
She wondered, touching his head, if he told himself to breathe. If he counted the seconds. If he asked his heart to slow. She wondered if she was enough a part of this little miracle of a child that he did those things, just like she did.
She looked up at Freddy one more time, just as the wedding march began to play, and mouthed to him, “thank you.”
He shook his head, giving her that little half-smile again, the one that was real, and then he stood and turned to await the reveal of his mother, the bride, at the doors.
She glowed, Claire realized. The night sky behind her with the lights of the carriage in the distance, combined with the candlelit aisle, created the most incredible visual effect. Her gown, a rich sea green with delicate blue beads, glimmered as she walked, changing like a mirage with each new source of light, each new glow of a candle’s embrace.
She was just as enraptured as everyone else. She could not look away.
Patricia’s hair shone like thread of gold, her skin gleamed like ivory, and her smile broke a thousand hearts.
And when she reached her husband at the end of her journey, when the toes of her slippers met the line of the altar, they all suddenly remembered to breathe again. They all slowly fell back into their seats, dazed at what they had just witnessed.
Even through the vows, through the mixing of English and Portuguese, through the expressions of love and devotion, Claire remained stunned. She remained rapt.
And when she cheered at the end, when they sealed their bond with a kiss, when she applauded and cried out in favor of the promise of true love, she meant it.
She really, truly meant it.
