She squeezes my hand. “I want us to be like you and Wes. You make me believe that I can forget . . . that I can just be with Lucas without any other darkness.”
“There’s always a little darkness,” I tell her. “But Dean would want you to be happy anyway.”
At the mention of Dean, her eyes fill with tears and she looks away. “Oh, I’m being so silly.” She grabs a handkerchief off the vanity and blots at her face. “It hasn’t even started and I’m already crying.”
“Cry all you want. We can always redo your makeup.”
She gets up from her seat and turns to face me. “That’s why I like you, Lydia. You’re unbelievably practical.”
I laugh. “Not really.”
“You are! You’ve only been here a month and you already got Wes to put in indoor plumbing.”
“That’s because I refused to live in a place without running water. He was just scared I would leave him.”
She picks up her bouquet of wildflowers from the bed and links our arms together. My left arm is still in a cast, though Dr. Bentley says I won’t have to keep it on for much longer.
He didn’t ask me why I was there in the woods until a few days later, after the rescued children were adopted or placed in orphanages. I told him that Wes and I went out to the camp to see if the bomb testing was real, then saw that the bunker door was open, and realized there was some kind of secret facility underground. While we were exploring, the bombs went off. I’m not sure he believed me, but he let it go. By then the papers were reporting that several civilians had built an underground hideout and were kidnapping children for nefarious purposes. According to the papers, the police never found any evidence that the facility was connected to the government, and I know the labs were all destroyed before they reached them. No one was even arrested; police claimed that the culprits must have disappeared in the confusion and the smoke. Only the children and three dead bodies remained—unidentified soldiers who were too close to the explosion.
“I can’t believe you’re already thinking of moving away, even though you just got here,” Mary pouts at me. “Lucas wanted to talk to Wes about starting a fishing business.”
We leave her childhood bedroom and walk down the stairs of her parents’ house. “Don’t panic,” I tell her. “We don’t know what our plans are yet. I just always thought I would get a degree, and Wes has been thinking about it lately too. We can always come back.”
“But you’re already working at the paper! And you said you liked it!”
“I do like it.” I pull her skirt out of the way before she trips on it. “But I still want an education.”
“Just so you can lord your degrees over the rest of us humble folks.”
“You’re a nurse! Not exactly humble.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, let’s not argue. I’m about to get married.” We reach the front door and she stops me, her fingers digging into my arm. “How do I look?” Her voice shakes as she asks. I step back and examine her, from her rosy pink cheeks to her new satin shoes.
“You look perfect. Lucas is going to freak out, trust me.”
She laughs. “Lydia, you do say the oddest things.”
“I’m here; I’m here.” Dr. Bentley walks down the hall toward us, still knotting the tie at his neck.
“Daddy, we’re going to miss the ceremony if you don’t hurry up.”
I disentangle my arm from Mary’s, and open the front door. “I’ll see you out there, okay?”
She gives me an anxious look. “If I faint, swear you’ll catch me.”
I reach over and squeeze her hand one last time. “You won’t faint. I promise.”
“We should have just eloped, like you and Wes.”
I smile, then give her a tiny wave.
The sun is high, shining bright and hot on the crowded backyard. I start to walk down the aisle. There are only a few seats set up in the grass, and most of the guests are standing to the sides, facing the priest. A few turn to look at me as I pass. I see Wes and Lucas up ahead, talking quietly.
Someone grabs my arm and I look down. Peter is smiling up at me. “Hi,” I whisper.
“Hiya.” Peter’s mother is sitting next to him, still drawn and ghostly. But between Mary, Lucas, Wes, and me, we’ve been able to keep Peter occupied, and he seems to be doing better—asking fewer questions about his father, and making more friends around the neighborhood.
I miss my grandfather and my parents every day, but having Peter here is making it a little easier. I haven’t completely lost my grandfather. He’s still a part of my life, and I’ve become like an older sister to him in the past few weeks.
“When’s Mary coming?” Peter asks me. “I’m hot, and I want to eat cake.”
“Soon. But I have to get up there or Mary’s going to yell at me.”
His green eyes get wide. “Mary doesn’t yell.”
“No, you’re right, but she might talk me to death.”
He giggles and sits back in his chair.
“After the ceremony’s over, go ask your grandmother for cake,” I tell him. “I bet she’ll sneak you some before anyone else.”
“You better hurry,” Peter says, sounding a lot older than eight. “Uncle Wes is staring at you.”
I look up. Wes is staring at me, smiling slightly, his hands in the pockets of his dark suit. I smile back, and continue walking down the aisle toward him.
I take my place on the left side of the aisle just as a hush falls over the crowd. Mary and her father appear across the lawn. She is beaming, and I hear Lucas take in a quick breath.
There have been times when I catch myself in a mirror and am startled by my own reflection—the tight curls, the smart dresses, the large
