“He says he’ll marry me anywhere, anytime, or never, as long as I choose freely.”
“That sounds like something a man says after a great deal of therapy.”
She smiled. “It does, doesn’t it?”
I studied her face. The tightness from that brunch was gone. Not because everything had become easy, but because she had stopped pretending it was. There is a peace that comes from happiness, and another that comes from telling the truth. Emma had the second, which is more durable.
“Do you trust him?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you trust him to keep choosing you over her?”
She took time with that.
“Yes,” she said finally. “And I trust myself to leave if he stops.”
That answer settled something in me.
“Then I’ll walk you down any aisle you choose.”
Her eyes filled. “Even a backyard one with paper lanterns?”
“Especially that.”
The wedding happened eight months after the verdict.
Not at Vizcaya. Not at the Ritz. Not under floral installations created by an imaginary designer from Palm Beach. It happened in my backyard under the live oaks, with sixty-three guests, paper lanterns strung between branches, and a breeze coming off the canal that smelled faintly of salt and grilled fish.
Emma wore an off-the-rack dress that cost four hundred and twenty dollars. She found it at a small bridal shop in Coconut Grove with a seamstress who clucked over her like a grandmother and refused to let her buy a veil that cost more than the dress. It was simple, ivory, sleeveless, with a skirt that moved when she walked. Around her wrist she wore Linda’s gold bracelet.
Brandon wore his father’s old suit.
