Chapter Twelve

The tan pumps stared at Twyla from the floor of her closet.

The "sensible" tan pumps that weren't actually sensible, because they mangled her feet, Mary Jane straps or no.

You're going to a wedding, Twyla, they seemed to say to her. You're supposed to wear heels to a wedding. Weddings and funerals. Everyone knows this.

She closed the closet door and stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror, wearing nothing but her most comfortable pair of granny panties and her least uncomfortable brassiere. A fifty-three-year-old post-menopausal woman stared back at her in all her imperfect glory. This woman was more than a sum of her faults, wasn't she? She had the wisdom and competence that came only with age and experience. Her body—which had given birth to three children, saved lives in Tanria, and housed her soul every day of her life—was worth something, especially when she thought of how close she had come to losing it.

She turned to the side, pulled down the elastic waistband of her underpants, and tried to get a look at the multicolored bruise taking up significant real estate along her right hip and butt cheek. It was ugly, but it was also a reminder that she was alive.

And life was too short to wear shoes that wanted to kill her.

She opened the closet door, glared at the heels, and said, "You can go to Old Hell." She reached instead for a pair of flats, after which she slipped into the simple blue sheath dress that her daughter had found inadequately sexy, and put her pretty beaded cardigan over it. After dabbing on tinted moisturizer and giving her lashes a few swipes of mascara, Twyla decided that her simple style lent her an air of elegance and grace.

"You look good, Twyla," she told herself, and she actually meant it.

She was twisting her hair up with a sparkly clip when Frank gave a perfunctory knock on her front door and let himself in. "Hey, darlin', I'm here," he called.

"Almost ready." She tucked her favorite lip-colored lipstick and a roll of mints into the small satin clutch that passed as her fancy purse, then met Frank in her parlor. She pulled up short when she saw him.

"You cut your hair!"

"Good afternoon to you, too."

"Good afternoon, but oh my!"

He gazed bashfully at his freshly polished loafers and gave a self-conscious laugh as she made a show of examining his new haircut from every angle. He had grown out his hair in the aftermath of his divorce, and at the time, privately, Twyla had thought it had the whiff of midlife crisis about it. But he had kept up the length for twelve years now, so the new look was a shock to Twyla's system. He was still Frank, and yet it was as if she were seeing him for the first time.

"What made you do it?"

"Liz Brimsby stopped by yesterday all of five minutes after I got home. And I got to thinking that a lot of ladies I've dated over the years seem to like my hair more than they like me."

"So you decided to see if you could scrape off the barnacle with a haircut?"

"It worked."

"No, it didn't!"

"She stopped by a while ago with cinnamon rolls. I think she was angling for me to take her to the wedding, but she took one look at the hair, set down the cinnamon rolls, and said her goodbyes."

Twyla was outraged and oddly relieved at the same time. "Shallow! Poor Frank—it's terrible to be objectified."

"Eh, who cares what she thinks? What do you think?"

She took a long, assessing look at him with his new haircut. He wore his good suit, the one she'd helped him pick out five years ago, when they'd been invited to three different weddings in one summer and his old suit no longer fit him. At the time, she'd thought he should have paired the dark gray jacket and pants with a white or light gray shirt—and he did buy the white and light gray shirts—but he had also picked out a dress shirt in the same dark gray as the suit. Now he stood before her in all that monochromatic gray with nothing but a tie with thin pale gray stripes against a field of anthracite to add a pop of pattern to the ensemble. She smoothed his lapels (which did not need smoothing) and declared in complete honesty, "Franklin Timothy Ellis, you look good, sir."

"You have to say that because you're my best friend."

"And yet I'm correct."

"You usually are."

He offered her his arm, and together they set off for the temple on foot since it was only four blocks away and the weather was clement. Best of all, Twyla didn't have to take mincing steps, because she was wearing shoes that weren't designed to torment her.

"Aren't you going to ask me how you look?" said Frank.

"I know how I look: fifty-three and not too shabby."

"You look beautiful."

Twyla knew that she was a reasonably decent-looking human being, but she could count on one hand the number of times anyone had referred to her as beautiful. Invisible was more accurate. And yet Frank had never blown smoke up her ass a day in their lives together, so she knew he was being not only kind but sincere, a notion that made her flush with embarrassed pleasure. "Thank you," she said.

"You don't have to thank a man for the truth. How's your back?"

"Ugly and a little tender. Nothing aspirin and some champagne toasts can't cure. I wonder if we should pull Maguire aside and fill her in on what we found?"

"I vote no. If she got my note and wants to ask questions, fine. But otherwise, I say we take the day off. I haven't had a real day off since…" He made a vague gesture, but Twyla could fill in the blank.

"How are you holding up without you-know-who?"

"It feels like I cut out a vital organ and left it in Tanria, but other than that, I'm good." Frank patted her hand in the crook of his elbow.

"Oh, Frank."

"No worries. Getting to sleep in my own bed more than makes up for it."

When they arrived at temple, Twyla was surprised to learn that the ceremony was being held at the Warden's altar. Any god, even minor ones, could witness wedding vows, but most people shied away from having their union blessed by one of the death gods. Twyla had no idea who Hart Ralston's divine parent was, but given the fact that he had managed to save them all from the undead of Tanria, it would make sense for him to be literally related to death.

That would be rough, she thought. Then again, he looked happier than she had ever seen the man as he moved through the crowd, greeting wedding guests at Mercy's side. He was certainly difficult to miss, since he stood at least a head taller than every single person present. Mercy's father, Roy Birdsall, stood by the Warden's altar, chatting with the key-keepers and offer-bearers—Alma Maguire and Duckers for Hart Ralston, and Mercy's siblings, Lilian and Zeddie, for their sister. Zeddie held a covered cake plate, while Duckers carried a rectangular bundle wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. He looked nervous, and Twyla wondered if he was anxious about the wedding or his boyfriend or both. She caught his eye and gave him an encouraging smile. He gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up in reply.

"Twyla! Frank!" Anita Banneker whisper-shouted when she saw them, and she waved them over to come sit with her and Wade. She looked lovely with her ink-black hair in a chignon and her lips painted the perfect shade of red. Anita was one of the only people Twyla knew who really could carry off red lipstick.

"You look divine. Are you getting a night out without the kids?" Twyla asked as she and Frank took the seats her daughter-in-law had saved for them.

Anita bubbled with unfettered joy. "We got a sitter."

Twyla patted her knee. "Good for you."

A low but happy buzz of murmuring voices filled the Warden's alcove, the accompaniment to one of those rare occasions in life when people gathered together in unapologetic merriment. The long marble slab that served as the Warden's altar at the front of the alcove hosted vases of flowers and so many lit candles it looked like Grandfather Bones's birthday cake. All that candlelight glinted off the mosaic behind the altar, an enormous image of the death god with two faces: one for looking inward, and one for looking outward. Now that Twyla thought on it, the Warden was the perfect choice to witness a wedding ceremony; he was, after all, the god of doorways and of new beginnings.

"If everyone could take a seat, I think we're ready to begin," announced the temple votary. Twyla was pleased to see that Votary Asebedo was running the show today. She was a retired schoolteacher, and she knew how to keep a wedding ceremony moving along at a nice clip.

Roy kissed Mercy's cheek when she arrived at the altar, and then he gave Hart Ralston a bear hug. Roy was not a small man, but the sheriff had to bend over to hug him in return.

"Good gods, he's tall," Anita marveled to Twyla out of the side of her mouth.

The wedding party took their places at the altar, with Lilian and Zeddie facing the bride and groom from Mercy's side and Maguire and Duckers facing inward from Ralston's side. Roy Birdsall stood at the center, the only parent left living, unless one counted the groom's divine parent. Hart Ralston, towering and blond and handsome in a three-piece navy suit, stood to Roy's left, while Mercy stood to his right, nervously adjusting her new chunky tortoiseshell glasses. She was a human ray of sunshine in her lemon-yellow dress, so flattering to her full figure and olive skin and brown curls. Twyla put a sentimental hand over her sentimental heart when she noticed that the groom wore a yellow pocket square and a navy-blue tie with yellow paisleys to match his bride's sunny dress. And then Twyla saw the way they looked at each other, so disgustingly and perfectly in love, and she pressed her hand even harder against her aching breastbone.

Gods, she loved weddings.

Votary Asebedo invited Roy to kick things off with the ritual of the parents' keys.

Every child was given a key at birth, a reminder that they would always have a home in the House of the Unknown God in the Void Beyond the Sky. At death, Grandfather Bones would free the soul from their body. They would sail the Salt Sea to the House of the Unknown God, and the Warden would open the door to them to welcome them home. When a person died, their family placed their birth key on the family altar to remind the people who loved them most of the good life they had lived. And so this key was a symbol of the death that gave everyone life.

The votary handed Roy the ceremonial tray with three keys spread across its velvet surface: the birth keys of the bride's and groom's mothers, who had already sailed the Salt Sea, as well as Roy Birdsall's own birth key. Beside them was a small dish of salt water. He presented the tray first to Mercy, who dipped her fingers into the salt water and touched each key.

"From water we come, and from water we shall return," Roy repeated after the votary, the same words Twyla had spoken at DJ's wedding and at Wade's. "The Salt Sea reminds my child that life is precious, and my child, in turn, honors those who gave her life."

Since the groom had no parents present, Roy offered the tray to him in their stead and intoned the same words as Hart Ralston dipped his fingers into the salt water and touched the keys. He looked up when Roy called him my child, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, making Twyla's own waterworks kick into gear. She sniffed as she opened her tiny purse, only to realize with a deep sense of nose-dripping dread that she had forgotten to stuff a tissue therein.

As if by magic, a square of clean, freshly pressed linen appeared before her eyes.

Thank you, she mouthed at Frank. He winked in acknowledgment and returned his attention to the wedding.

Roy sat in the place of honor at the front of the guests, and the votary called for the offerings to the Warden. Zeddie Birdsall stepped forward first, handing Mercy the cake plate, which she set on the altar.

"What offering does the bride bring to thank the Warden for blessing this union?" asked Votary Asebedo.

Mercy lifted the dome off the cake plate to reveal the gorgeous confection beneath, iced to precise perfection with white frosting. "A coconut cake baked by my brother, Zeddie Birdsall." The answer was intended for the Warden, but she directed her words to Hart. Twyla sensed an inside joke in the form of a coconut cake, because Hart Ralston bit his cheek, trying not to laugh as Mercy returned to her place beside the votary.

Duckers, as the groom's offer-bearer, handed the brown paper parcel to his friend and breathed a sigh of relief once his main duty had been carried out successfully. Ralston set the package on the Warden's altar and unwrapped it, revealing a stack of colorful paper.

"What offering does the groom bring to thank the Warden for blessing this union?" the votary asked him.

"Every issue of the Old Gods comic series that I could get my hands on." Unlike Mercy, Hart addressed the mosaic of the Warden and his two faces that covered the wall behind the altar. He cleared his throat, a man on the verge of tears. The Hart Ralston whom Twyla had worked with for nearly seven years before he became sheriff was not a man she would have described as warm or emotional—but she had always suspected hidden depths there, and now she was seeing them.

She blew her nose as quietly as she could into Frank's handkerchief. He gave her a soft nudge, one that said, fondly, You are a sap, Twyla Banneker.

Hart returned to his place to the left of the votary. Mercy dimpled at him. She obviously knew why he was giving the Warden a stack of comic books rather than the typical offering of food.

Votary Asebedo addressed the gathering once more. "In the days before the New Gods triumphed over those who came before them, the Old Gods bought humanity's devotion with fear: fear of war, fear of grief, fear of pain, fear of loneliness. These cursed gifts are with us today. Knowing that life is difficult, those who choose to marry must understand and accept the challenges that come with sharing one's life with another. For this reason, Mercy and Hart will now make the Promises of Marriage to each other. Mercy, will you take Hart's hands in yours and repeat after me?"

Mercy reached out her hands across the votary, and Hart placed his long hands in hers.

"Hart," she repeated, her voice firm and steady, "I promise to walk this life beside you. I will shoulder your burdens. I will consider your hopes and dreams and needs in all my decisions. I will show you acts of kindness, large and small. I will hold you in the dark of night. And I will find joy in this world with you at my side."

"Hart, will you take Mercy's hands in yours and repeat after me?" asked the votary. The couple changed the positions of their hands so that Hart's were beneath Mercy's.

"Mercy," he repeated after the votary, his voice quiet, as if no one else were in the alcove but the woman standing across from him. "I promise to walk this life beside you. I will shoulder your burdens. I will consider your hopes and dreams and needs in all my decisions. I will show you acts of kindness, large and small. I will hold you in the dark of night. And I will find joy in this world with you at my side."

This was one of Twyla's favorite parts of a wedding, when the vows were complete and that wonderful frisson of relief and happiness passed between two people pledging their lives to each other. She could see Mercy's fingers curl over Hart's hands and the way he squeezed her hands in return, the acknowledgment that together they were doing something bigger than themselves.

"We will now have the exchange of the birth keys," declared Votary Asebedo.

Mercy's sister, Lilian, handed her the key on a silver chain. Mercy clutched the chain with both hands over her heart, looking her groom in the eye as she repeated after the votary.

"I, Mercy Elizabeth Birdsall, entrust you, Hartley James Ralston, with my life and all that I have made of it. I give you my happiness and my sorrow, my fortunes and my failures, my wisdom and my foolishness. Do you accept me as I am?"

"I cherish all that you are, now and always," Hart Ralston answered without needing to be prompted, his voice soft and gruff.

He leaned down so that Mercy could put her key around his neck. Fortunately, she was tall herself, and she was wearing the cutest pair of yellow-and-white spectator pumps Twyla had ever seen outside of a fashion magazine. When Hart stood straight, Mercy's birth key hung over his heart. A watery laugh escaped Mercy's lips as she gave it a happy tap with her fingertips, which made her groom crack a rare smile.

"Repeat after me," Votary Asebedo instructed Hart after Alma Maguire handed him his own birth key on a chain.

"I, Hartley James Ralston, entrust you, Mercy Elizabeth Birdsall, with my life," the groom began dutifully, fighting tears with the same ferocity he'd once used to take out the undead.

It was at this dramatic moment that Mercy's toddler niece escaped from her father in the front row, sprinted to the groom like a runaway equimaris, and wrapped herself around Hart Ralston's left leg.

"Danny!" Lilian hissed at her husband, a ginger-haired man who turned beet red.

"Sorry!" he whispered, hustling to retrieve the errant baby, who squawked in protest as Danny tried to pull her off the groom's leg.

"Emma Jane," Lilian sighed in maternal exhaustion as she joined the fray.

"Up!" cried the toddler, a single sharp syllable that echoed off the domed roof of the temple and the skylight that represented the Unknown God at its center. "Up! Up!"

"Come here, Emma Jane Little Bottom," said Hart Ralston as he caved to the child's demands and lifted her into his arms. She patted him on the cheeks and grinned in triumph, and given the way he grinned back at her, Twyla got the distinct sense that he didn't mind in the slightest. She would never in a million years have pegged him as the sort of person who liked children, but here he was, full of surprises on his wedding day.

He looked at Mercy and shrugged. She laughed and shrugged in return, and the ceremony continued, with the groom holding a young child as he repeated after the votary and held his birth key out of the toddler's reach.

"I, Hartley James Ralston, entrust you, Mercy Elizabeth Birdsall, with my life and all that I have made of it."

He smiled as he spoke the words, and Twyla thought it was sweeter this way, rather than him bawling all over the altar. She, on the other hand, was bawling all over Frank's hankie.

"I give you my happiness and my sorrow, my fortunes and my failures, my wisdom and my foolishness. Do you accept me as I am?"

"I cherish all that you are, now and always," answered Mercy, beaming beatifically up at him as he placed his birth key around her neck with one hand.

The votary spoke again. "You have offered gifts to the Warden in thanks for his blessing. You have made the Promises of Marriage to each other. You have each offered the other your life, and you have each accepted the life of the other in return through the Exchange of Keys. Before the Warden and all the witnesses assembled here today to celebrate your union, I pronounce you married in the eyes of gods and law. You may now seal your union with a kiss."

Hart leaned down to give Mercy a gentle kiss on the lips, careful not to tip the baby over in the process.

"No. Nope. Let's try that again." Mercy snatched Emma Jane from Hart's arms and dumped the toddler on her sister. She grabbed the groom by the lapels and brought his mouth down to hers in a much more impressive kiss to seal the deal, to the approving applause and catcalls of the wedding guests. When the kiss ended, Hart was as pink as Mary Georgina and clearly thrilled, while Mercy laughed in giddy joy.

The votary brought their hands together and had them face the wedding guests. "I present to you the newlyweds!"

"The Bride of Fortune favor you!" cheered the crowd.

"Fucking beautiful," sobbed a deep voice behind Twyla. She turned in her seat to see Tanria's former nimkilim, a crass rabbit named Bassareus, sobbing into a red handkerchief. "Isn't it fucking beautiful?" he asked Horatio, the nattily dressed owl who used to deliver Eternity's mail before the two nimkilim went to work for Mercy's Undertakings. They now delivered dead bodies all over the Federated Islands of Cadmus.

"Do get ahold of yourself, Bassie," said Horatio. "I had this waistcoat made especially for the occasion, and here you are, leaking all over it."

"Fuck you," wailed the rabbit.

The owl patted his shoulder consolingly. "There, there, you mawkish lummox."

Like every other couple married in the town of Eternity, Bushong, Hart Ralston and Mercy Birdsall held their reception in the city hall community room. Unlike every other wedding reception held in the community room of Eternity's city hall, this one was catered by Proserpina's, featuring the most elegant buffet Twyla had ever seen as well as a three-tier chocolate wedding cake (baked by Zeddie Birdsall) and three blueberry pies (also baked by Zeddie Birdsall) artistically arranged on small risers of different heights.

"I have walked this earth for over half a century without ever stepping foot inside the swankiest restaurant on the island, and now I've managed to stuff my face full of Proserpina's twice in one month. How is this my life?" Twyla commented to her daughter-in-law as the band was setting up. They were the only two left at the round table with its yellow tablecloth. Everyone else who had been sitting with them was milling about the room or getting more dessert.

"When do I get to meet this new boyfriend of yours? I'm surprised you didn't bring him to the wedding."

Twyla tried to imagine Quill sitting on a metal folding chair in the city hall community room, wearing tweed and sipping brandy. She was glad that she wasn't having to fret about whether or not he would be having a good time at this gathering. She hoped he'd received their note via Hermia; she didn't want him worrying about the fact that she and Frank hadn't returned to camp yesterday. "Quill and I have only gone on one real date. He definitely hasn't qualified for bring-to-a-wedding status."

"You came with Frank, so has he reached bring-to-a-wedding status? Or did he bring you?" Anita sipped her wine, her eyes twinkling with a combination of mischievousness and tipsiness.

"Pfft. You know it's not like that."

"Haven't you ever been the teeniest, tiniest bit curious?"

"About dating Frank? No." Her answer was the same knee-jerk response she'd given dozens of times over the years, but then she remembered his face in the mineshaft when he thought she was hurt or worse. She thought of his hands stroking her bare skin in the infirmary.

Stop that! she scolded herself.

"Not even when he wears that suit?" pressed Anita.

"Nope."

"He looks good in that suit."

"All men look good in suits."

Twyla scanned the room and found Frank chatting with Duckers and Zeddie by the double doors, which had been thrown open to let in the cool evening air.

He looked good in that suit.

"He looks really good in that suit," said Anita.

Wade came to sit beside his wife with his third slice of chocolate cake. "Who, me?"

"Yes, you." Anita leaned over to kiss his cheek, leaving red lipstick on his skin, and it made Twyla's heart swell to see them in love and happy. She often worried that Wade was too oblivious to the needs of others to be a good husband to his wife, but maybe she wasn't giving him enough credit. Something about this small window into his married life made her think he and Anita would be fine. And it probably helped that her second child did, in fact, look handsome in his suit this evening.

"All right, all right!" shouted the bandleader over the din. A few of the wedding guests clinked their silverware against their wineglasses to help him get the room's attention. "It's time for the newlyweds to have their first married dance together. Let's have some applause for Hart and Mercy!"

The whooping and clapping were thunderous as Mercy and Hart took to the dance floor. Mercy had exchanged her gorgeous spectators for a pair of red canvas high-tops, while Hart had taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, although he still wore his waistcoat and tie.

"Speaking of men looking good in suits," Twyla commented to Anita.

"Mom!" Wade chastised her.

Anita patted his hand. "Honey, your mother has eyes in her head and a pulse."

The band kicked off an unusually up-tempo song for the first dance, but when Hart Ralston led his bride into a perfect pair of turns and a shoulder slide, Twyla understood the choice of music. Most couples opted for the safe Sway in a Circle, and here were the town undertaker and all six feet, nine inches of her demigod husband showing the town of Eternity how it was done.

"Look at those moves!" Anita whooped.

"You want moves? I'll show you moves," said Wade, offering her his hand once the first dance was finished. She took it eagerly, and they joined the other couples on the dance floor.

Twyla glanced toward the doors, but no one was standing there now. She spotted Duckers and Zeddie dancing together beside Alma Maguire and her wife, Diane, but she didn't see Frank anywhere.

She made a circuit of the room, stopping to catch up with friends and neighbors, and she danced one song with Wade, but after a half hour had passed with no sign of Frank, she stepped outside in search of him, carrying with her two bottles of beer from the bar. She found him gazing up at the stars in the park behind city hall. He had his jacket off and carried it over his shoulder by two hooked fingers. Twyla came up quietly beside him and offered him one of the beers. He took the proffered drink and clinked his bottleneck to hers.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked him.

"Getting some air."

"Are you doing okay?"

"Yep."

Twyla sensed she'd bumped up against the Cora-shaped door in Frank's internal house that he wasn't eager to open up to anyone, not even to her. She had decided not to jiggle the proverbial doorknob when Frank surprised her by admitting, "Nah, that's a lie. I'm not okay. I'm out here thinking about lots of not-okay stuff."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that I fucked up my marriage, and to this day, I'm not sure how."

With those words, Frank had flung open a door, and Twyla hovered silently on the threshold, waiting to see if he would invite her in.

He did.

"The only things I knew when I tied the knot were that I loved Cora and I wasn't going to be to her what my daddy was to my mama. That man was useless. Worse than useless. He didn't provide for his family a day in his life, not one copper and not a single ounce of love. Didn't seem to think it was his responsibility to take care of anyone but himself. Everything fell to Mama, and even then that asshole drank away the money she didn't manage to hide from him. I thought, if that's what marriage is, I don't want it. But then I met Cora and changed my mind real quick. We were happy in those days, I swear we were, even if her family never thought I was good enough for her."

"They were wrong if that's what they thought."

"I was a stable hand at her daddy's ranch. I was definitely not good enough for her. Seemed like getting away from both of our families would do us good. I thought it was—good, I mean. I thought we had a good life. The money I was making as a marshal was more than enough to provide for our family. But Cora seemed less and less satisfied as time went on, and I couldn't understand it. I was doing everything I could to make it all work. I know I was gone a lot on the job, but when I was home, I spent time with the kids every second I got, and I was careful to clean up after myself and do the things around the house that needed doing. I tried to make her life easier, but it never seemed to be what she wanted."

"I imagine what she wanted was you."

He huffed a bitter laugh. "Imagine that."

"It wasn't your fault, or Cora's. Sometimes these things don't work out."

"I know, and I don't blame Cora. But gods, I've missed my kids. Twelve years, and it's the same fucking hole in my heart that it's always been."

Frank had let Twyla into his most private room, and all the sorrow and regret she found there was putting a hole in her own heart.

"Look at me, because I need you to understand this." She waited until his eyes met hers, the whites reflecting the dim light of the distant gas lamps along Main Street. "You are a great dad. Even when you had to be far away, you've always been there for Lu and Annie in the ways that mattered most, and they know that. That's why they come every summer, even now that they're grown. They love you as much as you love them."

A wet trickle gleamed on his cheek. This was the second time Twyla had seen him cry in as many days. Everything was coming in pairs lately: dinners and dates and weddings and a good friend's tears.

He dabbed at his eye with his shirtsleeve. "Sorry. Weddings dredge up this crap for me."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I don't know what I'd do without you. I really don't." He spoke the words so softly, it was almost as if they were only half-said.

"The feeling's mutual." She wiped a tear away for him with her fingertips. "I'd offer you your own handkerchief, but I've snotted all over it."

That earned her a wet laugh.

"I'll wash it and get it back to you," she promised him.

He pulled her into a side hug. "Yes, I know. I'm familiar with this routine by now."

"I have a hankie routine?"

"You always cry at weddings—always—and you never remember to bring a tissue, you slob." He jostled her teasingly before letting her go.

"I don't know why weddings turn me into a sentimental sap. I think it's all that promise for the future. A new beginning. The hopefulness of it all."

As she stargazed beside her friend, she was glad to be looking at the sky and not at Frank—Frank, who could read her like a book—because they were bumping up against one of her own closed doors now.

"I'm going to have to bring a bedsheet instead of a handkerchief when Hope gets married."

"I don't know if I should laugh or cry about that comment."

"It's messing with you, isn't it? This business with Hope?"

And now he was knocking on that closed door. "Yes, it is."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly."

"Fair enough."

Twyla's gratitude for the friend who knew when to let something drop nearly overwhelmed her in her emotional postwedding state.

"Can I ask you something?" he said, speaking to the stars above.

"Sure."

"Why Vanderlinden?"

She didn't know what question she'd been expecting, but that wasn't it. The air seemed to thin. Every breath, every rustle of clothing, the tracing of Frank's finger along the sweating glass of his beer bottle roared between them. It was a simple question, but Twyla sensed that her answer carried weight, and it irritated her that something so small should matter to Frank. Because it shouldn't matter to him, the way his own parade of girlfriends in the wake of his divorce had never mattered to her. Why did it bother him so much that she was finally moving on with her love life when he'd done nothing but move on since the day Cora left him?

"Why not Vanderlinden?" she said. "He's fun. I'm having fun. Don't I deserve that?"

"Of course you do, but that's not what I'm asking." Frank deliberated his next words carefully. "I know you never got over losing Doug. You two had something special, and when he died, I thought—I assumed—there'd never be anyone else for you."

How could Frank, who knew her so well, also know her so little? He was banging up against her most guarded locked door, and he had no clue what was on the other side.

"You think I've spent the past thirteen years pining for Doug?"

"Haven't you?"

She'd already had two glasses of champagne, but she was going to need to be more buzzed to have this conversation, so she gulped down half her bottle of beer. "What if the answer to that question is no? What would you think of me?"

"Nothing could change my opinion of you," said the man who had just informed her that she and Doug had had something special.

"Ha!" Twyla barked, and she chugged the rest of her beer.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked her cautiously.

"Am I mad at you?" She contemplated the question. "I don't know. And I don't know why I'm so crabby either. I love weddings. Why do I love weddings?" She flung the question at the Old Gods and the even older gods that had come and gone before them, and the gods who had blinked out of time and memory before that, all of them cold and silent on the altar of the sky.

"I always assumed it was because you loved being married."

"There's that word again. Lots of assuming tonight." She went to take another drink before she realized the bottle was empty. It was dark, but she could see well enough to know that Frank was making a baffled face at her.

"What's that look about?"

"I feel like I'm seeing a part of you for the first time tonight."

"The part that isn't the dedicated wife and mother you thought she was?"

He floundered like a fish flopping around in a boat.

"You want the truth, Frank? The godsawful, ugly truth about me? I don't miss Doug. And do you want to know why I don't miss him?"

"I want to know anything you're willing to tell me," he answered delicately.

The anger she rarely acknowledged simmered in her guts. She didn't want that rage anymore—she was so tired of that rage—but as she spoke her truth to Frank, it got hotter, bubbling under her skin, and now it came frothing out of her mouth like a pot boiling over.

"You heard those wedding vows today. You've spoken those vows, and so have I, and we both meant them when we stood at the altar of our gods. ‘I cherish all that you are, now and always.' That's what we said. And that's what Doug said to me. But a few years into our marriage, I looked around and I realized that I was his cook, his maid, his children's nanny, his secretary, his whore. My whole life was in service to that man and to our family. I cherished everyone, but who cherished me? I wasn't a cherished wife. I wasn't his equal. I was invisible to him, that's what! I was no different from a… a… a chair. I was useful. I was there when he needed me or wanted me and insignificant when he didn't. There was never a question that I wouldn't be ever present, never an understanding of how hard his life would be if, one day, his chair simply wasn't there, and he no longer had anywhere to sit. I was a chair, Frank. For twenty-one years. So when Doug up and died on me, I got my life back, and gods help me, I have been so much happier on my own."

She had never said this to anyone, had never so much as hinted at it, and as she stood there shaking before Frank—the person whose opinion mattered most to her—she felt hollow. It was as if the words and all the heartbreak and loneliness and anger that came with them had left nothing behind when they emptied out of her.

Frank stood motionless at her side. "I had no idea. Why'd you stay with him?"

"I almost left. Once. I had it all planned out. I was going to swallow my pride and go home to Medora and let my mom tell me ‘I told you so.' The boys were both in school by then, so I wouldn't have to worry as much about childcare. I'd set aside enough money from the pittance I made at Wilner's to put down a deposit on an apartment. And then I realized I was pregnant again. There was no way I could work and be the kind of parent the boys needed while taking care of a baby, not unless I stayed. So I stayed. Besides, I vowed to take Doug as he was, and in the end, that's exactly what I did."

There. It was done. All the ugliness inside her was laid bare for Frank Ellis. She waited for him to say something as a cold pit of dread opened up inside her.

"Aw, darlin', come here." He pulled her into one of his perfect Frank hugs, and Twyla lost it. She sobbed against the shoulder of his dress shirt.

"I loved him. I did, I swear. And he loved me, in his way. He wasn't a bad man. He didn't hurt me. He didn't cheat on me. He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't deserve to have a wife who almost walked out on him."

Frank said nothing, only stroked her gently on the back.

"Do you think I'm a terrible person now?"

"How could I ever think that?"

"That wasn't an unequivocal no."

"It is an unequivocal no. You're a gem, and no one can convince me otherwise. Not even you."

Twyla did not want to tear herself away from his arms and his warmth and the comforting hum of his voice in his chest, but she was getting mascara all over his shirt, so she extricated herself. "Sorry. I turned a conversation about you into a conversation about me."

"Nah, we had a conversation about both of us. Thirteen years is too long for either of us to hold on to this stuff. It's good we got it all out in the open. You don't judge me, do you? You're not saying to yourself, Cora had it right. Frank was a shit husband."

"Of course not."

"Exactly."

Now it was his turn to wipe tears from her face.

"I left your hankie in my crappy tiny purse," she told him apologetically.

"Which is where?"

"In the community room."

"I'll remember to bring two to the next wedding."

"Thank you, Frankie. For everything."

His poor shirt was done for, so she hugged him again, pressing her face against the comforting rumble of his voice as he said, "That's what friends are for."