EPILOGUE

 

Five Weeks Later

 

With my luck over the past sixteen months, I half-expected to awaken this morning to a category five hurricane, a freak June snowstorm, a corpse in my coral bells—or all three. Instead, the weather report called for a sunny day with only the hint of a breeze and highs in the mid-seventies. Perfect outdoor wedding weather.

Although, with my track record, there was still the possibility of a dead body. Last summer, in the middle of Mama’s marriage to the late Lawrence Tuttnauer, the police had interrupted the ceremony, and it wasn’t to offer their congratulations.

I’d had enough of dead bodies.

“Ready?” asked Alex.

My sons had drawn straws to determine which one would walk me down the makeshift aisle of strewn rose petals and which one would act as Zack’s best man. I shook all thoughts of murder and mayhem from my brain and replaced them with the love I felt for my family and the man standing next to Nick across the yard under a floral arbor.

“Ready,” I said, taking Alex’s arm as Mama stood waiting on my other side.

“You look beautiful,” she whispered.

Mama had insisted on taking me shopping for a full-blown wedding gown, complete with train and veil. After tense negotiations, I had convinced her that a simple white dress was far more appropriate for a forty-something widow walking down the aisle for the second time. I had chosen a white lace sheath with a scooped neck and cap sleeves. Instead of a veil, I wore a garland of white tea roses perched atop my head.

All physical remnants of my recent ordeal had disappeared. Cuts healed. Bruises faded. The emotional scars still haunted me, though. I knew those would take more time. They had joined a long list that began with the shock of Karl’s betrayal and had snowballed ever since.

I caught Zack smiling at me from the end of the aisle and smiled back. Today was the first day of a new beginning.

When the Westfield High School string quartet struck up the first notes of Pachelbel’s “Cannon in D,” friends and family, seated in the rows of white chairs on either side of the aisle, stood and turned toward us.

As Alex, Mama, and I slowly walked down the aisle, I focused on Zack but couldn’t help noticing the beaming faces on either side of the aisle. Every one of them meant so much to me. Old friends like my bestie Cloris McWerther, who’d insisted on catering the wedding luncheon as her gift to Zack and me. And newer friends like Tino Martinelli, and Shane and Sophie Lambert. Even my half-brother-in-law Ira Pollack. Annoying though he was, he always meant well. I hoped someday he’d find someone to love who would not only return his love but somehow find it in her heart to love his three spoiled kids.

Even Detective Spader had come, as well as Agent Aloysius Ledbetter and his wife, and Zack’s ex-wife Patricia with her husband and their twins.

Only Lucille was missing. Although invited, she had refused to attend. Harriet Kleinhample’s house arrest had ended. She had arrived early this morning in yet another Volkswagen minibus to pick up my mother-in-law. With any luck, they’d stay away until all our guests had departed.

We arrived at the makeshift altar. I handed Mama my bouquet of lilies, tea roses, and baby’s breath, turned to face Zack, and placed both of my hands in his.

Life was good. Now, if it would only stay that way from this day forward.