Amelia pushed open the heavy door of the church and helped Alma over the doorstep. She pulled the door closed, and the bright shaft of light cut off again behind them. Small dusty beams of sunlight peeked through the small windows, but the church wasn’t much brighter than Marta Felicia’s house.
Instantly, Amelia froze on the threshold. That presence was here somewhere, watching her. She didn’t have to see him to know he was there. Her eyes sought him out in the gloom.
There he was, standing by the altar. His eyes bored directly into Amelia’s soul. A distant, primal calling drew her toward him. No force in heaven or earth could keep her away from him.
Only when she felt Alma groping for her arm did she realize she hadn’t returned to supporting her sister. She secured Alma’s hand in the crook of her elbow and the two squared themselves for their long march down the aisle.
Somewhere between the door and the altar, Amelia became aware of her father, Allegra, and Jude sitting in the front pew, watching them. She heard Alma sniff and glanced over. Tears streamed down her older sister’s cheeks, and she was looking directly at Jude, her husband.
That unstoppable power forced Amelia’s attention back to her groom. Bruce Manfield of El Paso, Texas. She exchanged a couple dozen letters with him over nine months, but she never thought meeting him would affect her this way. She watched Alma’s transformation, starting from the moment she first laid eyes on Jude. The process fascinated Amelia so much she decided to get married herself. But she never dreamed it could alter her so radically, so irreversibly, and so instantaneously.
Now here she was, walking down the aisle. And there he was. Somewhere between the door and the altar, she noticed he wasn’t wearing the shabby work clothes he had on outside the church. He had changed into a brown woolen suit with a chocolate brown silk waistcoat, a ribbon tie in his collar, and shiny leather shoes.
The suit definitely was not new. Fading showed on the shoulders, but the jacket was immaculately brushed, and Bruce wore his hair slicked back from his face with no hat. He’d wetted and combed his hair just for this.
No matter what else she noticed around the periphery of her attention, she could not pry her eyes away from his. His eyes bewitched her. They mesmerized her, so she couldn’t look at or think about anything else but him.
How on earth did she ever live so long without him? How did she avoid going mad from longing for him? How could she not know he was out there somewhere, waiting for her? How could she not bend all her energies to find him and draw him into herself?
I didn’t know. In her mind, the words repeated again and again. I didn’t know. If only I had known, I would have….
The words repeated all the way to the altar. Would they repeat forever? Would she ever think anything else?
She felt a tugging at her arm and had to turn away. Alma was trying to extricate herself from her to sit down in the pew with the rest of the family. Flustered, Amelia loosened her elbow to free Alma’s hand and deposited her in the pew. Allegra snickered.
When she turned back, Amelia noticed one more thing. They weren’t alone in the church. Two other men stood on the other side of Bruce. Even though Bruce’s long body stretched high above Amelia’s head, these other two men towered still higher than he did. The first man looked so tall Amelia wondered if his head would bump into the ceiling. The other stood only slightly shorter than him.
She took in the sight of these giants only briefly before she found herself face to face with Bruce, and his presence obliterated everything else.
The priest babbled in the background. She saw only Bruce. She heard her own breathing and the surge of her own pulse in her ears. The church swirled around her, but only his eyes remained motionless, immovable in the maelstrom. He startled her when he said, “I do.”
Something snapped in Amelia’s mind, and she suddenly heard the priest very distinctly asking her if she took this man as her lawfully wedded husband. That part she heard and remembered. Nothing else. It’s a good thing she did hear it, too, otherwise, she probably would have stood there like an idiot without responding when her time came to say, “I do.” Instead, she managed to say, “I do,” clearly and calmly enough to make it look like she heard the whole service.
The priest kept talking, but Amelia didn’t hear anymore. She stood there like a tree trunk, not moving, until Bruce moved closer to her. What was he doing? He didn’t show any signs of stopping, either. His face came closer and closer. Was she hallucinating? Was she falling into him completely? Was she having some sort of fit?
Then she realized the service was over. He was trying to kiss her. She blushed with relief and smiled at him. His eyes widened with surprise. He inched one more fraction closer to her, but he just couldn’t bridge the gap between them.
Amelia saw his confusion. She reached out and took his hand. It hung cold and damp in her grip, and was it trembling slightly? The poor man. He must be ready to fall over from nervous anxiety.
And he just couldn’t kiss her. She could see he was trying his hardest, but he just couldn’t. Not here, in front of everybody. She didn’t know who those strange men were, but he couldn’t kiss her in front of them and her family and the priest.
She took pity on him. She took one long step to cross the distance between them and laid a soft, sisterly kiss on his cheek before she stepped back. She kept hold of his hand. She would never let go of that hand again. With that kiss, she claimed him as her own.
Whatever kept them apart in the past would never keep them apart again. She would never be alone again as long as Bruce Manfield was alive. Alma was right. She would never be the same, and her life would never be the same. She would never go back to being the dry sharp husk she was only this morning.
When she stepped away from him and met his eyes again, she saw them swimming with tears. Bruce smiled at her, but the smile only crackled and twisted into a half-suppressed sob. He must feel the same way she did. Oh, the tiresome and tedious years they’d spent apart! Never again!