I’m not entirely sure what Franklin’s Chinese parents think of their son marrying a tall white woman, but I’m pretty sure what they don’t think the occasion needs is two six-foot-plus homosexuals. Still, they nod and smile and do their best to make polite conversation, and the judge who officiates turns out to be Chinese and that seems to go a long way toward making the whole thing more palatable.
San Francisco City Hall is a stunning feat of marble, ambition, and architectural chutzpah; a Beaux-Arts monument to government as beautiful as any cathedral. After Meredith and Franklin get their marriage license, we wait in the cavernous entryway at the base of the grand staircase for their turn to get hitched. The floor’s marble inlay consists of circles and squares and I trace them awkwardly with my foot. Meredith looks stunning in a simple cream-colored backless wedding dress from J. Crew. It’s perfect for both her body and her temperament. My sister is not someone whose wedding I ever imagined. She’s not the kind of girl who grew up daydreaming of one, or playing bride in any fashion. But now that I see her looking radiant in this backless cream number against the ornate-but-not-ostentatious backdrop of city hall, I can’t imagine it any other way.
When it’s their turn, we climb the grand marble staircase, Meredith and Franklin first, Jeffrey and me and Franklin’s parents silently behind them. I look up at the dome. It’s supposedly the fifth largest in the world and it’s a marvel to behold. At the top of the stairs we stand in a rotunda in front of two double doors. Behind them are the mayor’s offices, where San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and supervisor and gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk were assassinated by a former colleague in 1978. I shudder when I remember this. The location seems solemn, but important.
The ceremony is simple, Meredith and Franklin holding hands in front of the judge, exchanging rings and vows. I try to manage being a combination of witness, photographer, family of the bride, and maid of honor. I take out my digital camera and snap as many pictures as I can without feeling disruptive, knowing the rest of my family will want to see them. I do everything I can to be present, even if my mind is 381 miles away.
To focus, I think of how dogs are witnesses. How they are present for our most private moments, how they are there when we think of ourselves as alone. They witness our quarrels, our tears, our struggles, our fears, and all of our secret behaviors that we have to hide from our fellow humans. They witness without judgment. There was a book once about a man who tried to teach his dog to speak a human language, to help him solve his wife’s murder. It said that if dogs could tell us all they have seen, it would magically stitch together all the gaps in our lives. I try to witness this moment how a dog would witness it. To take it all in. For the rest of my family, this wedding will be a gap in their lives, and I need to do my best to fill it.
The ceremony is perfect for my sister and her new husband—all business, no flourish. Nothing about the bride as property. No one to give her away, no mention of them being man and wife, no mention of a Christian god that none of us really believe in. They are both attorneys. The law is their church. When the judge unites them he says, “By the power vested in me by the State of California, I recognize you as married.” And just like that, as quickly as it began, the ceremony is over.
I wander to the third floor, with its peripheral balconies, to take some photographs from above. Really, I need a moment to breathe. I want to call the animal hospital, but I don’t. They won’t do what I want them to do, which is to put Lily on the phone. In her drugged-out state, on sedatives and painkillers, she won’t talk much to me anyway. Below, Meredith and Franklin descend the central staircase and I capture a lovely shot of them holding hands. I snap another of Jeffrey leaning on a marble pillar looking relaxed and handsome.
After the wedding, we head back to the Fairmont Hotel and I excuse myself to the lobby bar. The same asshole is there, playing the same piano. I purchase a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the bartender and get him to give me six glasses. We pop the champagne back in Meredith and Franklin’s room and I toast the newlyweds and Meredith makes a round of phone calls to break the news to my family. They go down like this: everyone is shocked, everyone offers heartfelt congratulations, and after each call she hands the phone to me. And then I get the brunt of it.
“Did you know about this?”
“How long did you know?”
“Did you put her up to this?”
“You didn’t tell me?”
“Why were you invited?”
“Is she pregnant?”
In everyone’s shock, they forget to ask about Lily. I just sip my champagne and roll with it as best I can. But inside I’m wondering why on the day of my sister’s union more people aren’t thinking about me.