Ninety minutes later I’m still a wreck, but it isn’t my own fault.
A couple hundred guests, including some of the most celebrated athletes in the NHL, are seated in tidy rows of wooden chairs on the lawn. My older brothers have just finished seating Nana and the rest of my siblings in the front row.
In the back, under the tent, I stand with the grooms and my parents. A pair of musicians up front play the first descending chords of Pachelbel’s Canon in D on an electric cello and an electric guitar.
It’s go time. But there’s just one problem. Blake Riley—Wes’s best man—is missing.
This is both horrible and unsurprising. In between murderous thoughts, my palms sweat around the bouquet of daisies I’m clutching. If Blake actually shows up now, I’m going to hurl it at him. My mind is a continuous loop of, Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? and Why me?
Beside me, Jamie smooths down Wes’s lapels, then cups his fiancé’s chin in his hand. “You look awesome. You know that, right?”
Wes gives him a shy smile and then takes a deep breath. He looks nervous, the poor sweetie. Wes doesn’t enjoy attention unless he has a hockey stick in his hand. “I’ll be fine,” he says, his voice gravelly. “Can’t wait to be married to you.”
“Tomorrow we’ll be on our way to the beach,” Jamie whispers.
“Can’t wait for that either,” Wes agrees.
“Our baby is getting married,” my mother says with a sigh. “Does this mean we’re officially old?”
“If we are, don’t tell me,” my father grumbles.
I turn my head for the hundredth time, looking for the jerk who’s supposed to walk me down the aisle. And lo and behold, his enormous form is standing fifty yards away, talking to a middle-aged woman in a beige dress.
My blood pressure spikes. Does he not see that there are two hundred people waiting for him? I’m about to go stomping up the hill and drag him bodily down it when he finally starts moving in my direction.
Relief is like a cool breeze on my face. He puts his arm out, and the woman takes it. They make their way down to where I’m standing. When they’re only a few paces away, I open my mouth, ready to chew Blake a new one. But Wes looks over his shoulder, does an enormous double take, and then says the last thing I’d ever expect him to say.
“Mom!”
We all stare at the newcomer for a second. She and Wes have the same coloring, I suppose. Brown hair and attractive features. But where Wes is a little dangerous looking, this woman seems to have been constructed at a country club by parts procured in a fancy department store. Her dress is prim, and there is a perfect strand of pearls around her neck.
“Hello, Ryan,” she says quietly. “I hope you don’t mind that I came.” Her eyes look a little shiny as she blinks at him. “You look very dapper, dear.”
His mouth opens and then shuts again. Then it opens once more. “Where’d you leave Dad?”
She lifts her chin, and it almost looks defiant. Almost. “He’s on a golf weekend in West Palm.”
“Ah.” Wes’s face shuts down. “You didn’t tell him you came, did you?”
Slowly she shakes her head.
Wes inhales deeply. “All right. Well. This is Jamie—” He lays a hand on my brother’s arm. “And Cindy and Richard and Jess.”
“We’re so glad you made it,” my mother gushes. “Maybe we should change our processional a little bit? Would you like to walk your son down the aisle?”
Both Wesleys shake their heads at the same time. “Please carry on,” Mrs. Wesley stammers. “I’m just happy to be here.”
Wes clears his throat. “Mom, we’ll talk more later. We have to, uh, get this show on the road before Jess here bursts a vessel.”
“Let’s find you a seat, Ang,” Blake says, offering his arm.
She takes it, and they walk off slowly until Blake points at a vacant seat near the front and walks her to it.
We all stare after them.
“Wow,” Jamie whispers as she sits down.
That’s pretty much the only word on my mind, too. I’d just spent the last three months in anguish over the fact that Wes’s family wouldn’t show up for his wedding. I had my mother call the Wesley household in Boston. The calls were never returned. I wrote a personal letter, which was ignored.
And Blake Riley just waltzes up with Mrs. Wesley and plunks her into a rental chair. Unfuckingbelievable.
“All right!” Blake booms as he rejoins us. “Let’s get hitched! Give ’em the high sign, J-Babe!”
He’s right, of course. The musicians have been playing Pachelbel for longer than Pachelbel was alive. I wave to the minister, and she steps gracefully out from the sidelines to take the podium. The musicians segue smoothly into the Bach piece I chose for the processional, because my brother insisted that the wedding march is only for chicks.
Then my father puts an arm around Jamie’s shoulder. “Let’s line up, shall we?”
Jamie nods, and the two of them step out of the tent and wait for the rest of us.