CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

On the Wednesday after Labor Day, the Snowden Family Clambake was closed for the day. The sign at the ticket booth said, "private event."

Fifteen of us gathered for a much different sort of wedding. Jacqueline Snowden married Captain George McQuaig on the great lawn of Windsholme. Livvie and I stood up for Mom, Sonny and Gus for the captain.

George was resplendent in full captain's regalia, including a double-breasted navy jacket, white pants, and a hat with gold braid on the brim. He had trimmed his long white hair and beard for the occasion, though not by much.

Mom was radiant in a dress she had purchased from Stowaway Resortwear, a shop that sold smart clothing to tourists and wealthy summer people. "They had the dress in black. It fit me like a glove and made me feel wonderful. But I couldn't do it. Your father will be enough of a presence on the wedding day without me there in widow's weeds. I was ready to give up when the owner said, ‘You have to have that dress.' She went to the brand's website, where she orders clothes for the shop, and there it was in pale green! I can say with certainty I'm the only person in Busman's Harbor who owns this dress."

Mom wasn't wrong that my father would be with us on the wedding day. He was everywhere at the simple ceremony and the luncheon afterward. Not only had he been my mother's husband for thirty-five years, father to Livvie and me, and Captain George's best friend, he had built, rebuilt, or renewed almost everything around us. Not Windsholme, which had burned and been rescued after he died, but everything else on the island. He was with me all day. I didn't wish him away. He had never wanted anything except happiness for my mother.

Mom and George had asked Quentin Tupper to perform the ceremony. He was a friend and the silent partner in the Snowden Family Clambake who had rescued Morrow Island and kept it from leaving our family not once, but twice. Quentin, dressed as always in khaki shorts, nonetheless imbued the ceremony with an appropriate solemnity. The vows were so short even Jack didn't have time to squirm.

"Is it over already?" Mrs. Gus asked, loud enough for everyone in the tiny group to hear.

Vee and Fee shushed her, equally loudly.

To cover up, those of us in the wedding party, almost equal in number to the other guests, burst into applause. Soon everyone was clapping, and we headed to the dining pavilion for a potluck lunch.

I strolled along with Zoey. She was beautiful as always and fully pregnant, like she'd hidden a beach ball under her colorful summer dress. It had turned out she and Amelia weren't sisters. Amelia's father, a forger, had also shared a cell with Kenneth Clark. In typical Zoey fashion, she decided to ignore this inconvenient fact. Who cared, she asked, about differences in a few chromosomes? She talked Amelia into moving to Maine to learn how to make pottery. Amelia turned out to be both talented and driven, which I appreciated. We would need all hands on deck to cover Zoey's maternity leave.

"I haven't had a chance to show you the proofs from the wedding photographer yet." As she walked, Zoey pulled out her phone and scrolled through the photos. That brought Jamie jogging over to us, just in case. I could tell by his look he would have preferred, given her altered center of gravity, for Zoey to pay attention and keep her eyes ahead. He hovered at her elbow, wise enough not to say anything.

"Here." She handed the phone to me, smiling. "Scroll through to the right."

I looked at the screen, hazy in the sun's glare. I expected a perfect image of a smiling bride and groom, or maybe pictures of Zoey, Livvie, and me, laughing as we dressed for the ceremony. Instead, in a series of images shot frame by frame, I watched the beautiful, five-tiered wedding cake shimmy, wobble, and go over. Bill Lascelle and Derek Quinn were captured underneath, looking up in open-mouthed shock as the bottom layers covered them.

I laughed, scrolled back through the photos, and laughed some more. Zoey joined in. The laughter brought Tom over. There was no professional photographer today. Mom had asked him to do the honors with his phone. He'd hung back to get a few more shots of the bride and groom. "What's so funny?"

I handed him the phone, and he squinted at the pictures.

"Funny for you, maybe. You weren't in that pile. What do you think, Jamie?"

Jamie was already smiling, and then he burst into laughter. Tom did too, and then we all did.

"I told you we'd laugh about it someday," Zoey said to me.

"You told me it would be a wedding no one would ever forget. I think you achieved it."

We'd held twelve more weddings at Windsholme, filling every weekend of our short Maine summer. I had seen ugly bridesmaids' dresses, grouchy mothers-in-law-to-be, and inebriated best men slurring through speeches, and had heard some seriously poor music choices. But there had never been a murder, or a melee, or a cake falling in a perfect arc.

But most of all, I had seen love. Love of one partner for another. Love of parents for their children and grandchildren. Love of families. Love of friends. We had worked hard and learned so much. We were already fully booked for next summer, and I couldn't wait.

Today's wedding meal was spread out across two picnic tables. There was lobster salad made from lobsters cooked and cleaned by Sonny and Page, potato salad made by me, and tomato salad made by Livvie with tomatoes fresh from her summer garden. Captain George had baked bread. Fee and Mrs. Gus had each contributed a pie—one blueberry, the other peach. "We'll skip the cake," Mom had said.

Lunch was wonderful, the pies delicious, the last taste of summer. My mother rose and raised her glass. "I never thought I would do this again, but I have been persuaded. If I have learned anything in the past few years, it is this. Grab life. Grab love. Whenever you can."

Was it my imagination, or was she looking straight at Tom when she said it?

Mom and George were leaving on a trip to Montreal and Quebec. When they got back, they'd be living in Mom's house.

The Clambake was winding down for the season. We'd be open for a few more weeks, but only on weekends and only for lunch. Livvie and her family had already moved back to town. Jack was starting second grade, and Page was going to be a senior. The years had flown. Livvie was back at Lupine Design, and by the next week I would be, too.

I was the last one living on Morrow Island, alone except for the cat, Le Roi, who'd stayed to keep me company. I loved the solitude, even the dark, dark nights. Windsholme creaked and groaned as the new parts settled in with the old. I was already sleeping under blankets on the cool evenings. Enough was enough. It was time to go home.

I was as excited to get back to Lupine this fall as I had been to open the Clambake in the spring. The business was solid and expanding. Zoey had an idea of taking advantage of Amelia's and Livvie's skills by developing new lines of painted pottery. She'd had me run the numbers with a profit share for each of them included.

The plan was for me to live in Zoey's apartment over Lupine. It would be a work-live situation. I'd already moved my desk up from my tiny office downstairs. I'd been calculating for months the revenue we'd have to make for me to hire an assistant, and we were on the cusp. Once he or she got there, the apartment would be more office than home. I wasn't worried. I didn't think I'd be living there for long.

Before the guests left, Tom put his phone on a tripod and set the timer, and we all gathered for the official wedding portrait.

I love the photograph. Mom and George, Fee and Vee, Gus and Mrs. Gus, Jamie and Zoey, Livvie, Sonny, Jack, with Le Roi at his feet, Page, Quentin, Tom and me—all sporting goofy grins, linking arms, loving each other.