Everyone in Millbrook was invited to the wedding. James spoke to the Millbrook Independent, the town’s online newspaper, saying, “Come to our wedding if you can hear the bells—or think you can.”
Now, from upstairs in the rectory, I could hear organ music filling the stairwell. Soon I would be walking toward the altar and my new husband. I was humbled, excited, and scared half to death. I was having physical manifestations of all of that—sweating and light-headedness—and then I was falling.
When I opened my eyes, Dr. Foster was peering down at me, and James was peering over Doc’s shoulder, looking more frightened than when he’d been on trial.
“What happened?” I asked.
Katherine Ross, my bridesmaid-in-chief, said, “You were buttoning your shoes…”
Dr. Foster had a stethoscope at my chest. He asked, “Have you eaten today?”
“Bread. Jam. Coffee.”
“Have you ever had heart problems?”
“No, Joel, I haven’t.”
“How about panic attacks? Ever had one of those?”
“No.”
“In that case, you just had your first.”
Doc Foster and James had each taken one of my hands and had helped me into a chair when Louise Lindenmeyr, my dear friend from Prism, burst in with a bouquet she’d brought from Boston.
“Brigid. Are you ready? Hey. What’s going on?”
“I fainted.”
Louise said with total medical confidence, “James, she’s okay. You get out of here, why don’t you? Brigid? Ready or not, it’s showtime.”
Chapter 91
JAMES AND several men from our congregation were straightening up the church after our standing-room-only wedding, and I was doing the same for our living quarters inside the rectory. As I picked up and put things away, hung up my wedding dress and boxed my shoes, I tried to remember everything that had happened today. I wanted to make sure to commit it to memory.
The first thing I remembered was that when my bridesmaids and I crossed the yard from the rectory to the church, it began to snow. In September. A new weather record.
Snowflakes swirled around the steeple and the metal folding chairs on the deck, and the decision was made for us. Instead of having the outdoor wedding we had planned, we moved into the church. As Bishop Reedy said before the Mass, “I don’t think this church has been this full since Lincoln was inaugurated.”
The bishop was a wiry seventy-five-year-old with great strength and flyaway eyebrows and a very loud laugh. He had retired with the archbishop’s permission and was now a full-time farrier, living above his feed store, Reedy’s Feed and Seed.
Bishop Reedy had always been a bit of a renegade, but for now, at least, he was in good standing.
The processional to the altar was both hilarious and joyous. All the five-year-olds in town had been asked to be flower kids. They had picked roadside flowers—asters, goldenrods, and daisies—and they’d flung handfuls of them onto the wide board floors. Everyone laughed.
James looked staggeringly handsome as he waited for me at the front of the church.
Bishop Reedy beamed.
He led us through the customary vows: “To have and to hold…until death do us part.”
Honestly, that one gave me pause. I’d been through the death of a beloved husband before, and, while it was absolutely true that we would die, I didn’t want to think about that today.
James and I exchanged our own vows after that, each saying, “I promise to love you, to listen to you deeply, to support your passions, to stand with you even when there is chaos around us, to be a safe place for you, forever.”
After we had pledged our eternal love, Bishop Reedy blessed our rings and said, “You two are married now. James, you may kiss your wonderful bride. Brigid, you may kiss him back.”
Bishop Reedy had hitched a team of dappled gray draft horses to a farm wagon, and James, Bishop Reedy, and I led the snow-flecked wedding procession to the Candy Factory, a confectionery inside a huge barn on Route 283.
The snow was like icing on the cake.
My memory of the receiving line under the hayloft was something of a blur. I know I shook hands with and kissed the cheeks of several hundred well-wishers who showered James and me with blessings.
James also hugged and kissed me a lot, and we were grinning into each other’s faces when I heard my name. I looked up to see a very tall, dark-haired man coming toward me.
It was Zach Graham, aka Yank, and I hadn’t seen him since our scooter rides in Rome. I had spoken with him when he called after Karl and Tre died, and since then, we’d texted back and forth during baseball season.
But I never expected to see him at my wedding. And, frankly, I wasn’t sure he should be here.
He took my hand in both of his and said, “Sorry for crashing, Brigid, but I could hear the bells in New York. At least, I thought I could. Actually, I read the invite online.”
“You’re too funny, Zach.”
“I’ve very happy for you,” he said. “James looks to be a very good man. And I gather you’re kicking the Church in the butt.”
“So they say. I’m glad you came, Zach.”