Winter Storms by Elin Hilderbrand Page B

doesn’t have a date. All of the wedding-guest numbers include Scott; without him, the event will be lopsided, off balance, or so Ava convinces herself. She is so desperate that she considers asking Scott if he will break his cold-turkey rule and escort her to the wedding and reception out of mercy; he can tell Roxanne he was grandfathered in. Next, she considers calling Nathaniel and begging him to come from Block Island, but she immediately realizes this is unfair, bordering on cruel. She could always suck it up and go alone.
    When she walks out of Flowers on Chestnut carrying the box that holds her mother’s bridal bouquet as well as the bouquet that she, Ava, will be carrying as maid of honor, she hears someone call her name.
    She turns but can’t identify the source of the voice. Town is packed. There are people everywhere—parents, children, grandparents, dogs, college kids, and couples, couples, couples.
    â€œAva!”
    Okay, she isn’t imagining it. Male voice. She stands still. And then, crossing the street in a diagonal she sees… she sees… a man heading straight for her. Tall, dark hair peppered with gray, blue polo shirt, blue-striped shorts. It’s… it’s…
    He offers her his hand. “Hi, it’s Potter. Potter Lyons? I met you in Anguilla.”
    Â 
MARGARET
    S he is sixty-one years old and in two hours, she will be getting married for the second time. She would have said that the details of her wedding didn’t matter, anything was fine—and yet, with two hours left, she finds that things matter very much. She is wearing an ivory gown designed for her by Donna Karan that is possibly more flattering to her figure than her original wedding dress was, even though she’d worn that one at the age of twenty-three. She doesn’t want to make comparisons like that—first wedding versus second wedding—because after nearly forty years, so much has changed. She’s a different person.
    But she is still, apparently, type A. She relaxes only once Patrick, Jennifer, and the boys have arrived, and she puts her hands on the sides of Patrick’s face and gives her firstborn a kiss.
    â€œYou have no idea how good it is to see you,” she says.
    â€œI have every idea,” Patrick says. “I love you, Mom. Thank you for not giving up on me.”
    â€œOh, honey,” she says. For a second, she is speechless. Is she thrilled that Patrick broke the law and went to jail? Obviously not. But she knows him well enough to realize that he has learned his lesson and he’ll bounce back just fine. As for her giving up on him, well… he has three boys of his own, so he understands that no parent ever gives up on his or her child.
    Patrick says, “I can’t believe you gave Dad my job. I thought
I
would give you away.”
    â€œYour poor father,” Margaret says. “He’s earned it.”
    The ceremony is simple but that doesn’t mean it’s uncomplicated. There are two dozen white chairs lined up on the beach, twelve on each side with a sandy aisle between. At the end of the aisle is the altar—a white arched trellis dripping with roses. There is a harp, a cello, and a trumpet, and Gordon Russell to sing. When all of the guests are seated— including George’s girlfriend, Mary Rose, wearing a remarkably large hat—Darcy, Margaret’s assistant and de facto wedding planner, gives the signal, and the harpist and cellist launch into Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
    Ava, Kelley, and Margaret are standing on top of the dune, watching the action below. Ava advances down the aisle, looking beautiful in a pink silk sheath that is exactly the color of her flushed cheeks.
    â€œDo you think she’s okay?” Margaret asks Kelley. Ava broke it off with Nathaniel back in June, and then only a week ago she and Scott broke up when it turned out that he’d gotten the other woman he was dating