CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

On Saturday, the eve of the wedding, I watch Lake Michigan under the setting sun as we drive to the Butterfly Bed & Breakfast for the rehearsal dinner. Sitting in the back seat of Mom’s car while she and Dad talk quietly in the front feels weird because I’ve gotten so used to Sam being around and ushering us to tastings and selection meetings. Heading to the rehearsal without her reviewing every step along the way feels off. I feel like a piece is missing. I always felt that way when she left for college and I had to get used to family time meaning three people instead of four. But I started getting used to her being around again, nagging in that familiar way that isn’t always annoying. Sometimes it’s just a reminder that she’s there, with us.

The music playing from the speakers covers my parents’ conversation like a light dusting of snow. Through the window, I see the houseboat lights, their colors twinkling on the water. I try to take a video to send to Gavin, but it comes out too blurry. Instead I text him that “Gypsy” by Fleetwood Mac is playing on the radio. He replies, calling it a classic.

I wonder what our song would be. What would it be like if “First Class” played at prom and I rested my arms over Gavin’s shoulders, stood with my chest against his chest, my forehead tilted up to meet his tilted down. Sam told me that she and Geoffrey have a playlist of songs from different moments in their lives. She said that their song is “Jupiter Love” by Trey Songz, but that’s inappropriate to play for their first dance at a wedding. I was surprised when she told me they’d chosen “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Billie Holiday. That’s a true classic, tasteful. That’s probably the only detail of Sam’s wedding that I’m jealous of.

The rehearsal itself is small. Mom and Dad sit off to the side while Sam directs me and her bridesmaids with Geoffrey and his groomsmen about how to walk down the aisle. We practice until we get it perfectly timed to the orchestral music she chose for her procession.

When Abby and Victor show up, they wave to me from the back of the heated tent and unfold some of the chairs waiting to be set up tomorrow. Soon Sloane and Grace trickle in, and I feel more excited with them there. Originally Sam didn’t invite them to the rehearsal, but she changed her mind after deciding to let me go to the wedding without a date.

Even though the reception is going to be inside the precious temperature-controlled tent, Sam arranged for the rehearsal dinner to be inside the dining room of the inn. I sit at a table with my friends that ends up pushed close to the table my parents, Sam, Geoffrey, and his parents are all sitting at. Cheryl, Armao, and a few groomsmen push another table up against ours, and we end up with a long banquet-style-feast setting. It feels cozy and close as conversations float up and down the table the way a ripple flows through a slinky.

Eventually I tell my friends about how embarrassing it was when Sam asked Gavin if he was taking me to the wedding.

“I thought they were on a date,” she says defensively. “I really wasn’t trying to cause trouble.”

“He probably didn’t care, to be honest,” I say, secretly wondering what he thought. Does the idea of him taking me to the wedding resonate at all in his imagination the way it does in mine?

“You guys have been talking a lot, though,” Grace says before eating another spoonful of cake.

“What do you talk about?” Sloane asks.

“Music, mostly. We talk about the garden, school, the wedding—you know, normal stuff.”

Sam sits back in her chair and looks between me and my friends. When she just stares, it makes me feel uncomfortable.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says, flashing me a familiar mischievous smile.

I roll my eyes, wondering what price I would have to pay to know her thoughts right now.

Sam reviews the plans for tomorrow with everyone, pointedly telling my friends to arrive early with the wedding party to help out, before we all head our separate ways for the night. Sam follows us home in her car because she and Geoffrey want the first time they see each other tomorrow to be when Sam comes down the aisle.

Once we’re all back at the house, Sam kicks off her stilettos in the entryway and leans against the wall. Mom tells us to change into our pajamas and meet her in the den. Mom comes down sometimes in the middle of the night when Dad snores too loud. Sam used to crash on the sofa when she’d sneak midnight snacks after staying up doing homework or reading. Sometimes they’d run into each other, and when I’d hear them talking, I would sneak to the bottom of the stairs and listen. One time, when I was eight, I fell asleep and Mom carried me back to my room and told me that the only person not invited to the secret girls’ club is Dad and that I should come to the next secret meeting.

So sometimes we’d all end up in the den at one or two in the morning. Mom would make us hot milk and get Oreos out of the cabinet, and as I got older, I realized it was a twilight time of the night when Sam and I felt safe confiding in Mom the things we couldn’t say during the day. Sam would mostly talk about boys; I would talk about my friends. After Sam moved away to college, whenever she was home for break, I wouldn’t sleep at night. I would lie awake, specifically waiting to hear a door open or a floorboard creek. I didn’t want to miss a chance to hear about her life far away from here, to know what she was doing.

Now by the time I get down there, Mom and Sam are tucked under blankets on opposite sides of the couch. They’re each holding a mug of cocoa with whipped cream, marshmallows, and chocolate syrup. I grab my mug off the coffee table before sitting down in the middle and pulling the ends of their blankets over my legs.

“By the time we got to the wedding, your father and I couldn’t have cared less. We wanted it to just be over so we could get to the part where we could spend our lives together. All we could think about was falling asleep together and being able to wake up and the first thing we saw be each other.”

“Aww,” Sam says, looking down at her cocoa, somewhere in her own thoughts.

“How did you know that Dad was the one?” I ask.

Mom smiles a big goofy smile, the kind of smile you can’t control. You can’t help yourself when you feel so happy that you smile like that.

“Oh, Mia,” she says, though something in her voice makes it seem like she’s saying it more to herself or to her memory. “Out of everyone I had ever dated, he just… I felt like I was returning to a place that I had once been a long time ago. Like everything I was missing was all there in him. And for him, all those missing pieces were with me. And together we created a whole that felt like home.”

“I feel like that’s how Geoffrey and I are,” Sam says, chewing on a marshmallow. “He balances out my special brand of crazy.”

“That’s a godsend,” Mom confirms, making Sam gasp and me laugh.

Part of me wants to text Gavin and ask him how he and his girlfriend met. I want to ask him what her name is, what she looks like, what school she goes to. I realize that my curiosity is something I’ve been burying, and it’s been easy, since Gavin and I don’t see each other every day. But if we’re going to be friends, I know she’s a part of him that I’ll have to accept and like.

Still, I want to ask if he thinks she’s the one. I hope that he would say she’s not, and that maybe I could ask him what he thinks about finding the one person you’re meant to be with the same way you find your way back to some familiar place.