“Marry me. Okay?”
Breath still didn’t come easy then and for a moment I didn’t care if it ever did again. Nothing in that moment mattered but her expression, or rather, the lack of one. She knew what I had said and disappointment leached into my mind, telling me that I had probably spooked her, like the time before. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe she needed more time.
Maybes can run around in your mind so long, with such frequency that they become easier to take. They set you up for the inevitable and so, when she didn’t answer right away, it was those maybes that distracted me, right until I noticed how Aly tilted her head, how she reached for me, drawing a small circle under my bottom lip with her finger. Right until I finally moved my gaze to her face, to that slowly breaking bright, wide, dazzling smile.
A thousands lives haunt this place.
Music,
Love,
Death,
Sorrow,
Breeds of memory uncontained.
The thread woven
Mangled
Mended
Cloak the chill of night.
A thousand and one
Me and you.
Strengthen that tapestry.
Cover ourselves from the numbness.
Six Months Later
The French Quarter, New Orleans, on a Sunday afternoon
.
We looked like New Orleans—an amalgam of so many cultures, each peeking in through what we wore, how we wore it and the party that followed behind us. Ransom’s umbrella was black, but Keira and Mack had hot glued white ginger lei leaves around the brim to match the lei that he wore during the ceremony. The priest had looked a little skeptical at the leis and the kahu, holy man, chanting me toward the alter Kona insisted be there to add a little Hawaiian flavor to the ceremony. But I was New Orleans to the core, Tremé born and bred. It was the one good thing my Papa had bequeathed me—a rich cultural history and a place I could belong to. I was also Creole, and the French side in me wanted a priest. I’d have a Second Line and the whole day would mark who we were, all of us.
So, yes. We were New Orleans on a Sunday afternoon when spring had brought life to the city. The scent of gardenias and magnolias lined around the Quarter and the crepe myrtles had begun to bloom, showering the streets and sidewalks with small pink and white blossoms. Those small pedals brushed under my skirts as I danced next to my husband, my own white umbrella spilling champagne glitter and plumes from the white boa that surrounded the brim as I moved it up and down, laughing as Ransom tried to keep rhythm with me.
We’d hired Rebirth, a brass band with ties deeper than mine to the city, who played “Do Whacha Wanna” like nobody’s business, dressed for the Second Line and our wedding in fine, black suits and sharp, white hats with a knife edge brim. We followed that band, my husband and I, leading our family and friends behind us to wave white handkerchiefs in the air as we made a small parade from St. Louis Cathedral, all through the Quarter. We went the long way, for affect Rebirth’s lead trumpet play suggested, taking Pere Antoine Ally to Chartres, down St. Louis until we finished at Latrobe’s on Royal Street.
In New Orleans, we Second Line to open businesses, for christenings, weddings and to usher our dead to their eternal rest. It was quintessential New Orleanian to want the fanfare—that loud, sweet music wafting over the streets, the constant dance of family, friends and folks you do not know joining in as the bride and groom form the main line with the band, celebrating the life they begin that day. It was an honor to be on that main line. It was an honor to be a Riley-Hale and that’s what I wanted for the day; dancing with my husband, with our friends and family following behind and to be his. Always.
Kona had flown most of his family in from Hawaii. Leann and her husband, of course, had made the trip from Florida, my staff from the studio had attended, Lettie and a few of the other tenants around the complex where I lived came as well, most of Ransom’s old CPU buddies and a number of Dolphins teammates, and Tristian even managed his groomsman duties and still paid attention to the cute redhead he’d somehow sweet talked into being his date. Wonders never cease.