Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Storms

“Ava!”

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.”

She 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.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” she says.

“I have every idea,” Patrick says. “I love you, Mom. Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“Oh, 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.”

“Your 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.

“Do 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 pregnant. Miraculously, Ava bumped into Potter Lyons, the nice young man she and Margaret met in Anguilla, and now he’s here as Ava’s date. Potter seems perfectly at home despite the fact that he knows exactly nobody; he is sitting with Kevin and Isabelle and Genevieve. Genevieve is old enough to stand on Kevin’s lap, and when she’s standing, she grabs Potter’s ear, but he doesn’t seem to mind. His eyes are glued to Ava as she proceeds down the aisle; Margaret can decipher the expression on his face even from a hundred yards away. He’s smitten.

“Now is not the time to worry about Ava,” Kelley says. “Now is the time to worry about yourself.”

But Margaret doesn’t have any worries. She is marrying a man she is madly, hopelessly in love with, a man she respects, a man she enjoys. When the music changes to Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary, she and Kelley take their first steps forward. Margaret’s gaze is fixed on Drake, so handsome in his tuxedo at the altar. But she can also see the years of her future unfurling before her, and they are all golden.

He’s been watching Jennifer, paying closer attention to her than he has in all the years he’s known her. Is she thinner? Is she manic? Is she sluggish? Are her hands shaking? Are her pupils constricted? She seems the same, but he feels like he’s missing something. Her hair is longer; it looks nice.

Kevin remembers the first time Patrick brought Jennifer home. They had met in New York at one of the soulless bars on the Upper East Side-not J. G. Melon’s or Dorrian’s, but someplace like it. What Kevin recalls is how Jack-and-Jill Patrick and Jennifer were, like male and female versions of the same person. Not in how they looked, certainly-Patrick has red hair and a doughy face, whereas Jennifer has coal-black hair and sharp features-but in how they acted, how they viewed the world, how they spoke, the things they liked to do. They both got up early to go running; they both ate twigs-and-leaves cereal topped with fresh berries and skim milk; they both read the New York Times like it was the lost Gospel; they both took quick, efficient showers and then made a plan, with sub-plans, for their day. Kevin had thought he’d never come across anyone as anal as Patrick-until he met Jennifer. Together, they were almost too much, with their achieving and their problem-solving, their loquaciousness, their eagerness to discuss this foreign film, that Argentinean steak house, if Franzen was losing his touch, what the best use of forty million Starwood points was, which was higher on the bucket list-New Orleans for Jazz Fest or the Kentucky Derby? They’re going to implode, Kevin used to think, like a star . The couple they most reminded him of was Kelley and Margaret just before the divorce-back when Kelley had a cocaine habit and Margaret was consumed with breaking through the glass ceiling in broadcast journalism.

But Paddy and Jennifer had made it, an impressive feat, especially considering this most recent set of circumstances-indictment, jail time, public humiliation, and separation for eighteen months.

Maybe Jennifer did buy pills from Norah once or twice-could anyone blame her?-but she certainly isn’t an addict. This isn’t something Kevin needs to worry about.

The ceremony is stunning in its elegant simplicity. Margaret walks barefoot through the sand in her ivory gown with her famous red hair swept up in a chignon, decorated in the back with a single white calla lily. Drake grins like he’s the luckiest man on earth, which he most certainly is. Kelley hands Margaret over at the altar, but first he gives Margaret a hug. Kevin has never cried at a wedding in his life, but he feels tears prick his eyes when he sees the embrace between his mother and his father. They were married for twenty years. They had three kids and a brownstone in New York City and friends and traditions and a life together. And although that life didn’t last, here they are: friends, best friends, more than best friends. They love each other; they want each other to be happy.

It’s a beautiful thing, Kevin thinks, the relationship between his parents. Anyone can fall in love, but not just anyone can achieve forgiveness and acceptance and real, deep respect for his or her former partner the way those two have.

Kevin would never give Norah Vale away. Nope, not in a trillion lifetimes.

After the ceremony, there’s a reception on the beach. Kevin had offered to cater it, but Margaret didn’t want him working on her wedding day. She hired Nantucket Catering Company to do an old-fashioned beach picnic: hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, pickles, watermelon, and grilled corn on the cob. Patrick has brought a football that he throws to his sons at the waterline.

Genevieve is being passed around. Everyone wants a chance to hold her, which gives Kevin the opportunity to make a plate. When he turns around to sit, he can’t find Isabelle. He sees Mitzi talking to George and Mary Rose; Ava introducing her date, Potter, to Lee Kramer, the head of CBS; Kelley chatting with Shelby and Zack. He notices Jennifer heading up over the dune by herself, which is odd. Maybe Isabelle has gone that way too? Kevin checks on Genevieve-Margaret’s assistant, Darcy, is holding her. Kevin sets down his plate and trails Jennifer.