“I love you,” I mouth to my bride.
She grins back. “I love you, too.”
“As you can all see,” my mother continues, jolting me back to the fact that there’s a wedding going on and I might want to pay attention since it’s mine. “The reason we’re all here today is that Sarah and Ian are madly, deeply, passionately in love.”
A ripple of laughter moves through the crowd as my mom continues. “But it takes more than love to make a marriage work. It takes honor and commitment. It takes friendship and fondness. It takes respect and humor and a million other little ingredients that most people don’t think about when they enter into it with stars in their eyes and candy hearts on the brain. But some couples, if they’re very, very lucky, get time to think it all through. To really be certain this is what they want. And in the end, they reach the conclusion that life is better with the other person by their side.”
Lucky.
That’s exactly how I feel right now.
Like the luckiest bastard in the entire world.
“Ian and Sarah,” my mother continues. “The two of you have known each other for years, but you’ve known several different versions of one another. You’ve known the young, feckless, open-hearted young students. You’ve known each other as ambitious dreamers, as wary thirty-somethings, as friends, as confidants, as lovers, as companions. But today, you’ll know each other as something else.”
Husband and wife.
I mouth the words along with my mom, aware that they mean so much more to me now than they did a year ago. I owe that to the woman standing here with my ring on her finger in a pasture fringed with junipers and reindeer.
My mother takes a deep breath and continues. “Before we get to the ceremony, Sarah and Ian would like to acknowledge someone who couldn’t be here with us today. Ian’s brother, Shane—” My mom’s voice quivers here, but she holds it together. “My son, our beautiful boy, is watching us from above, and even though his heart gave out before his time, I’m positive he’d be over-the-moon excited to know Ian has found a woman worthy of his heart.” My mom clears her throat. “Ready?”
I expected this part of the ceremony to undo me, but it doesn’t. Not with Sarah’s hand in mine, giving me strength. She looks into my eyes and smiles.
You okay?
She doesn’t mouth the words, but I can hear them, and I nod as she hands her bouquet to my mom and we step to the little table that holds a blue candle. Blue, Shane’s favorite color, and my hands aren’t shaking at all as Sarah and I lift two small white candles to light it.
A year ago I couldn’t have imagined doing this, but here I am with my heart in my throat and the woman of my dreams by my side.
“Paying tribute to the past is something that matters a great deal to Ian and Sarah,” my mother continues. “Not only to their shared history with each other, but with their friends and families, and everything that’s shaped them to be the people they are today.”
I set the candle down and let my hand slide over Sarah’s back. I feel the tiny, heart-shaped patch sewn on the back of her gown, and it gives me courage. It’s a scrap of cotton, a piece from one of Shane’s old T-shirts stitched into the fabric of her dress as something blue.
God, I love this woman.
Sarah catches my eye and smiles. We join hands and walk back to where my mother waits. We’ve opted not to have attendants, though we briefly considered having our cat, Chewy, serve as ring bearer.
In the end, we decided to keep things small and manageable. All our friends and family are here—even my dad, who flew in from Italy.
Sarah’s bouquet sends a flutter of lavender into the air as she takes it back from my mom and turns to me with her hair glowing in sunlit ripples.
“Before we get to the vows,” my mother says, “Ian has something he’d like to read to Sarah.”
My bride’s eyes widen. She wasn’t expecting this, and I’m thrilled I managed to weave a tiny thread of surprise into this carefully orchestrated event. I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the tattered piece of paper. It’s creased and folded and faded with age, and I couldn’t believe when my mother found it in a stack of boxes stored in her attic.
“I thought you might like to have this now,” she told me as she pressed it into my palm after a visit to Shane’s grave. “It’s finally time.”
It is, and my hands aren’t shaking at all as I unfold the blue-lined page. “Sarah,” I begin, marveling at how little my handwriting has changed in ten years. “The semester is almost over, which means I’m running out of time to say something I’ve wanted to say since the first day we met. Since that moment last year when I walked into Econ and saw you there in your yellow sweater and I thought, ‘there’s the woman I’m going to marry.’”
Sarah gasps and draws her hands to her mouth. Her eyes are wide and glittery with emotion, and I feel my own throat tightening. I swallow and keep going, determined to power through.
“We’ve been best friends for almost two years now,” I continue, hopeful the audience is following along. That they’ve realized they’re witnessing a flashback of sorts, this note I’d planned to read to Sarah so long ago. “But you are so much more to me than a friend. You’re my study partner. My muse. My confidant. You’re the first person I want to talk to when I wake up in the morning, and the last person I want to talk to before I go to bed. You’re the one who makes me laugh hardest, and the person I know will be there for me if I ever do something unmanly like cry.”
The audience chuckles, but I keep my eyes on Sarah. Unshed tears sting the edges of my eyelids, but I’m not embarrassed. It’s the first time I’m letting her see me like this, and I wonder why the hell I was so afraid. This is the easiest thing in the world, trusting someone you love with the brittle bones of your heart.
“Sarah, I love you.” My voice cracks, and I refold the crinkled paper. I know the rest by heart. “I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone, and I want you to be mine.”
I tuck the paper back into my pocket as a tear rolls down her cheek. Swiping it away, I take her hands in mine again, and she squeezes them so hard my fingertips turn white.
