It was timing. The whole universe existed because of split-second timing. That’s what Melissa’s best friend, Katie, had said when Melissa told her that Charlie had proposed and she had accepted. When Melissa was in the throes of what she now realized was low-grade depression after her father’s passing, Neil suggested therapy, and then Katie followed up by researching therapists who specialized in grief counseling. That was where Melissa and Charlie met. At least the loss of a parent was expected in the natural cycle of life. Charlie had been left as a single father. But now here they were.
Melissa found Katie in a small alcove off the winery’s kitchen, leaning over a white double-tiered cake topped with a cascade of summer flowers. Squinting with the concentration of a surgeon, she used her thumb and index finger to adjust the position of one of the shimmering pearls forming a circle at the cake’s base. Melissa knew well enough to wait until the master’s work was complete before startling her. Once Katie stood erect and looked pleased with her handiwork, Melissa finally let her presence be known.
“That is the most beautiful cake I have ever seen. Too pretty to eat.”
Katie turned toward her, her face breaking out into a broad smile.
“But you, however, do look pretty enough to eat!” she declared, leaning forward to greet Melissa with a quick kiss on the cheek, holding her hands back to protect their dresses from any lingering frosting.
“I can’t believe you did all that. You promised me you’d keep it simple!”
Katie Palmer, in addition to being Melissa’s best friend, was also a talented pastry chef and owner of Katie Cakes, a small but popular bakery on the Upper East Side. When they met each other a dozen years earlier, they were both “baby ADAs”—junior assistant district attorneys in the Manhattan DA’s Office. Though Katie stayed at the office longer than Melissa did, she eventually left for a stint at a family law practice before deciding that the law might not be for her after all. After going to Paris to check a pastry-making class off her bucket list, she returned to New York determined to leave the practice of law behind and open her own bakery. Katie was initially worried that Melissa would be disappointed in her, but Melissa had assured her that she’d support Katie wherever her dreams led. Besides, she had added, “I have a feeling I’ll be benefiting from your newfound expertise more than your brilliant legal mind.” And now Katie had made her this fairy-tale wedding cake. The whole universe existed because of split-second timing, indeed.
“How’d you find me back here?” Katie asked.
“When you weren’t outside with Neil and Amanda, I had a feeling. I asked one of the staff if he’d seen a gorgeous brunette fussing over a cake nearby. According to him, you wouldn’t let anyone help you carry in the box.”
“For all I know, someone could be a huge klutz. I don’t want anyone ruining Rosie.”
“Rosie?” Melissa asked with an arched brow. She knew that Katie had a tendency to name the cakes she worked on personally.
She shrugged. “The roses in the mix of flowers on top. Not the most original name, I suppose, but it also sort of reminded me of Riley. So this is the big day: you’re going to be a ‘Sadie, Sadie, married lady’—and a mom to boot.”
Technically, Melissa was going to be a stepmother, but Riley had no other mother in her life.
“I’m just so deliriously happy, Katie. Is that cheesy?”
“Of course not,” she said, giggling as she gave her hands a quick wash in the nearby sink. “You’re supposed to be happy. Happiness is a choice, remember?”
It had been Melissa’s mantra ever since she had spotted a book with that title in the public library when she was in the eighth grade. As her friends went through teenaged angst from boys who wouldn’t be boyfriends, or being too short or tall or chubby or thin, or wondering whether they were popular enough, Melissa was the one who kept her eye on the prize. Be a loyal friend. Be a kind person. Work hard. And choose to be happy.
“I know, I know. But I’ve got to say, when Patrick called things off—” She felt a tinge of disloyalty for even mentioning her ex-fiancé’s name on her wedding day. A year and a half ago, the idea that she’d be in this beautiful place, surrounded by her family and closest friends, committing her future to a kind man who truly understood and loved her, would have been unthinkable. Because eighteen months ago, the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with had suddenly left her. “I was really thrown for a loop. I needed the whole choose-happiness thing. Fake it till you make it, you know? Because I was hurt. And mostly, I was convinced that the only way to keep from getting crushed like that again was to never let anyone else in. It’s not like I don’t have everything else in the world going for me.”
“So humble,” Katie teased.
“You know what I mean. I figured I have my work, my friends, my life.” Melissa’s career had taken off in directions she never would have dreamed of. She remembered how her friends had encouraged her to get back out there, going so far as to sign her up for the usual internet dating websites. But being single again wasn’t the thing that broke her spirit. In some ways, that horrible call from her mother felt years in the past, but part of her still couldn’t believe that her father was really gone. “But then Dad died, and I go for counseling, and there’s this caring, amazing man in the group, and the pieces just fell into place. I never thought I’d have… Charlie and Riley, and even a Rosie,” she said, gesturing toward the cake Katie had made for them. “The happiness found me.” Feeling her eyes begin to water, she waved her palms at her face. “Aagh, look what I’ve done. The one day I manage to get my makeup just right.”
“Stop it. Don’t you know that tears are contagious? We’re not going to let anything ruin your perfect day.” Katie pulled her phone from her apron pocket and snapped a few photos of her masterpiece. “Want me to tag you?”
Melissa’s first instinct was always toward privacy, but her agent had been hounding her about being more personal on her social media, and she knew that a mention of her name on Katie’s account might be a boost for her bakery, which was still struggling to find solid footing, despite Katie’s dream of growing it into a national chain. “Sure,” she said.
She watched as Katie’s thumbs flew across her screen at lightning speed. “Voilà,” she declared, holding up the photograph. Katie smiled at her screen as Rosie the cake began to rack up heart signs, but then her brow furrowed.
“What is it?”
Katie shook her head. “It can wait. We’ve got a wedding to get to.”
“Will you stop? I want to know. You’re clearly upset.”
Katie extended her phone toward Melissa. “It’s that account you told me about last week.”
Rosie the cake had garnered 52 likes already and a short list of comments primarily filled with heart, cake, and fork emojis until Melissa’s eyes stopped on the last post:
Pretty cake, but give it to someone who actually deserves it. Melissa Eldredge is a phony and a fraud. I know the truth. Is that a wedding cake? May God have mercy on whatever idiot she duped into marrying her.
The user’s name, ironically, was TruthTeller. Melissa recognized TruthTeller’s profile picture from the first nasty post that had appeared on her page. It was a Chinese symbol that she had since learned meant “truth.” TruthTeller’s page had no posts, and, as far as Melissa could tell, the account existed for no reason other than to troll one specific user—Melissa.
“She seems nice, right?” Melissa asked dryly. He? She? More than one person? Thanks to the anonymity of the internet, she had no way to know, but she had her suspicions. After all, she only had one former client who had ever spoken to her that way before.
“The so-called TruthTeller just earned an instant block from me,” Katie said, tapping her phone with a satisfied smirk. “Sorry you can’t do the same.”
She shrugged. Melissa’s agent insisted that blocking online trolls only served to attract more of them. “You can’t let them know they got under your skin.”
Katie shook her head and tucked her phone away again. “You’ve got a lot thicker skin than I do. I’d be running to the courthouse for a restraining order.”
“Against an anonymous internet account? The account won’t even get suspended unless they’re actually threatening me or posting my address or something.”
Katie feigned a shudder. “Just the idea of it gives me the willies.”
“That’s why it’s best not to read the comments.”
“To quote a wise woman, happiness is a choice, right?” Katie held out an arm, and Melissa quickly linked hers to Katie’s.
“Exactly.”
As they made their way through the tasting room toward the front lawn, Katie asked quietly, “Not to raise another touchy subject, but has your brother been on good behavior?” Melissa had mentioned that Mike left the distinct impression that he did not approve of this marriage—or anything else about her life, for that matter.
“He made some ridiculous comment earlier that Neil’s responsible for my happy day because he was the one who… well, you know the whole story,” she said, waving a hand. “If anything, you deserve the credit, you accidental matchmaker—not that group therapy is the most romantic meet-cute in the world, but you were the one who suggested that particular counselor.”
As they stepped into the bright light of the sun gleaming over the bay, Melissa heard her mother call out from the lawn, “There you are! Riley’s so excited, she’s jumping out of her sandals.”
Melissa paid little heed to the traditional wedding rituals, but her mother had told Riley so many stories about how weddings worked that somehow Riley’s young mind had clung to the idea that everything would be ruined if the groom saw the bride before the march down the aisle. Even though their proverbial aisle was a makeshift lane of grass marked with tea candles outside of a winery, they were playing by this one traditional rule.
Riley came bounding toward her, nearly tripping in her excitement. “I want Daddy to come out. It’s wedding time. Uncle Mike’s here.”
Her brother, in one of the two suits she had no idea he owned, was making his way toward her. Despite her frustrations with him, he was here, while Charlie’s sister was not. He had even offered to walk her down the aisle in their father’s absence. He bent down toward Riley, pressing his palms against his thighs, and eagerly leaned his face toward hers. “Is it go time?”
She flashed a giant grin, bobbing her head up and down with an enthusiastic nod. “I’m going to have a second mommy!”
Melissa felt her eyes begin to well up again as they turned toward the patio where they would wait until Charlie was in place. She was surprised when her brother gently took her hand in his. They walked and waited in silence.
A spark of energy shot from her fingertips to her heart as she and Charlie joined hands. This was it.
An added perk of moving their wedding plans here from the courthouse in Manhattan was having one of her closest friends preside over the ceremony. Neil had gotten a license to officiate at the wedding of one of his brothers on the Cape three years earlier.
“Charlie and Melissa will now declare their consent to be married by stating their own vows.”
Melissa did everything in her power to freeze time for the next few minutes. She wanted to remember these words, this moment, this feeling forever. She and Charlie had met when they were both suffering through extraordinary pain, and somehow they had worked through it, individually but also together. They had known each other less than a year, and yet she could not imagine a life without him.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” She immediately heard the sound of a cork popping. Their small group of family and friends began to cheer, and a wave of applause rippled across the winery lawn as strangers joined in the celebration.
Melissa was halfway through a flute of champagne when her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulder and said she had news to share. “This is such a special day.”
She didn’t need to explain further. When her mother suggested scheduling the wedding on this one-year anniversary of their family’s greatest loss, she had said, “We’ll pack away our sorrow in the morning and have a brand-new reason to celebrate this date.”
“I hope it hasn’t been too rough for you,” Melissa said. She had to assume that her mother would be remembering her own wedding day with bittersweetness. And she had wondered whether wedding ceremonies might also remind her mother of the first wedding, when she had married… Melissa forced the thought from her mind, as she always did when that man’s existence crept into her consciousness. Not today, not today.
Her mother, however, appeared untroubled. “No, this was just what we all needed—a focus on the future. That’s what your daddy would have wanted. So, on that note, I have something to tell you that I truly hope you’ll welcome as good news. I’m putting the house on the market. The broker should have the listing online now, in fact, with a sign out front and all.”
“Mom, are you sure? I know we talked about it, but today of all days—don’t make any rash decisions.”
She gave a head shake that was Nancy Eldredge’s way of saying there was no room for discussion. “I think of it as bookends. I came to the Cape to have a shot at a second phase of life in a new place. I met your father when he showed me that house, and I was luckier than I could have ever hoped. I fell in love, first with the property and then with him, and then with you and your brother. But Mike is in St. Maarten now. You’re in New York. I’m ready to say goodbye. You’re about to enter a second phase in your life, and if it’s okay with you, I’d like to be there for it.”
“Are you kidding? Of course. I’d love it. I can start looking for apartments near us.”
Her mother let out an uncharacteristically loud hoot. “Oh, me—in the city? Absolutely not. I’ve done my research. I’d like to move to Long Island, on the east end. I’m thinking Southampton. That way, I can still live near the water but also be close to you. Especially now that I’m going to be Grand-Nan to your adorable stepdaughter. What do you think?”
The move would put her mother within a two-hour train ride instead of a six-hour drive. “I absolutely love it. But are you sure?”
“Indeed I am. I’m a very, very grown woman and know what I want for myself. Now, let me get you back to your husband.”
As Charlie pulled her into a tight embrace, Melissa was so filled with joy that she did not notice someone nearby focused only on Riley, counting down the days when the two of them could be alone together, away from all these people. It was just a matter of time.