He looks at me and then at the dress and then around the room, "After the wedding we have appearances. A lot of them. Make sure you watch what you eat between now and then, I don't want you looking bloated in photographs."
"I'll be careful," I reply.
He looks at me for a moment longer and then he reaches out, takes both my hands in his and he looks at my face and he says, in a voice I have not heard from him in so long I had stopped believing it existed, "I love you."
He leans forward and he kisses my head.
And then he leaves, Gerald closing the door softly behind him. I stand in the middle of the room and I feel my heart come apart in a way that is different from all the other times it has come apart, because this time I understand exactly what it is. It is the sound of a door closing on something I have been standing outside of my entire life, permanently, with full understanding of what is on the other side and the knowledge that it was never going to open.
He said he loved me because today was important to him.
He said it because the cameras were coming and the speech was written and the story needed a loving father and he had decided to give me the line early so I would carry it correctly onto the stage.
I pick up a paper towel from the dressing table and I press it carefully to the place on my head where he kissed me to wipe it. Then I fold it and I set it down and I turn to Sofia and I say, "He ruined my makeup. Can you fix it?"
She comes forward with the brush without a word and I sit and I look at myself in the mirror while she works.
I wonder if Luca will come. Maybe he would ignore Renzo. If he didn't, that is fine. That is a sign and I will read it correctly. I will let him be and I will do this alone the way I have done most things alone, that will be alright.
I look out the window.
The garden below is full. There are white chairs filling up, cameras positioned at every angle, reporters with their phones already raised. I can see the arch with the white roses and the greenery along the chairs exactly as I had specified and I think,I did that, I planned that, and today none of it is for the reason anyone in that garden thinks it is.
"Done," Sofia says, stepping back.
I stand and I look at myself one more time. I turn to Sofia.
"Watch for my signal," I tell her quietly, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "When I give it, you come."
She nods. I pick up my bouquet. It's time.
* * *
My father's hand is under mine and his back is straight and his smile is big as the cameras are flashing from every angle. I look ahead at the arch with the white roses and I think, nearly there.
James is in his wheelchair waiting.
He has a smile that I can see the effort of it in the set of his jaw. He had learned well in the last month that he had no real choices left in this situation and he had made the calculation that survival required compliance, and so he complied. His father stands to the right of the wheelchair with his arms folded and his eyes on his son. The cameras flash.
The guests murmur.
My father delivers me to the altar with a squeeze of my hand that is m for the audience and steps back and the priest begins.
The priest turns to James.
"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
James looks at his father. His father looks back at him with eyes that do not move.
James turns to the priest and produces the smile again and says, "I do."
A cheer goes up. Cameras flash in a wave. I hear the reporters at the back of the garden calling to each other.
The priest turns to me.
"Do you take this man?—"
"I—" I begin.
