It’s a small, well-kept farmhouse in northern California. So clean and white it seems to glow in the sun, the walls broken by giant oak beams. Around it the fields are a verdant green, lilting softly, the hills undulating like a calm ocean. A few big, powerful horses grazing contentedly among them, and the smell of coastal pines and cedar and lavender intoxicating to the point where you really feel like it might all just be a dream.

I know the place as well as anyone—I picked it, and spent months preparing it, but here and now, in the back of my father’s classic Rolls Royce, it feels like I’m heading into a place unknown.

I turn to look at him, and find that he’s already looking at me with that subtle, proud smile he’s had all morning.

“You look beautiful,” he says, for the twentieth time today.

I look down bashfully at the bouquet in my hands.

It was rough at the start. Real bad. Knowing what my dad had done, and confronting him about it was hard and messy. I filled Grace’s house with shouted rage, and though my father had some shame when I articulated how betrayed and disrespected I felt at what he had done, he still stood his ground firmly. He told me everything Teo had—that I was meant for so much more, that he couldn’t in good faith accept Teo.

I was ready to cut the cord, to remove my father from my life entirely. And then Teo did something amazing. He told me not to blame my dad, that he was only doing what he thought was best for me, that it was from a place of love that my father had done all these terrible things to us. He came with me to see him once again, and as we spoke—Teo calm and confident, my dad sounding petulant and arrogant in comparison—we somehow managed to gain some peace, a first building block toward a proper relationship, toward where we are now.

“Here we are,” my dad says, sounding about as anxious as I feel.

He steps out and comes to my side of the car, opening the door and offering his hand. I take it and step out onto the carpet, laid out on the grass, lavender and rose petals scattered across it. It goes all the way up between the rows of chairs, the guests turning to look at me, all the way up to the wooden, canopied arbor, decorated with sunflowers and orange marigolds, where the man I love stands nobly.

Isabel starts playing, plucking on the country guitar in her bridesmaid’s dress. An old, soft ballad Teo and I had listened to in the woods, a song I used to play to remind me of him, a song he told me he played to remember me. I take my father’s arm, and start to walk.

I hear some gasps and murmurs, and turn to look at faces I’ve never seen so earnestly kind. When I finally get to the arched arbor, I barely have time to acknowledge the others, Kayla, Grace, Ginger, Jenny—it’s like I can’t pull my eyes from Teo. In his suit, and with his face so free of sadness, it’s almost like seeing him for the first time, and I can’t bear even to look at the minister as he speaks. Teo takes my hands and we look at each other, frozen in perfection.

Duke barks from Ginger’s side and there’s good-natured laughter, then the minister continues, and finally asks the question.

“I do,” Teo says, in that strong, confident voice, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Again.

“I do,” I say, whispering it meaningfully, just for Teo.

Teo’s dad steps forward, bearing the rings on a small white cushion. He looks good now, since he’s been going to the rehab Teo arranged for him. Clean shaven and nicely-dressed, you can see where Teo got his looks from. He sniffs a little, wipes an eye, then holds the rings toward us. We take them and place them on each other’s fingers, then don’t even wait for the minister to say it. Teo pulls me into his lips, into a kiss that feels like it could last a thousand years. I barely hear the whistles and applause, so lost in this moment with the man I love, will always love.

The reception passes by in a blur of happiness and excitement. Everything people say to me, to us, a compliment, a congratulation, a best wish. Praise for choosing this rustic farmhouse, filling it with candles in jars, fairy lights wound around the beams, fresh flowers tied to the chairs, the dark, triple-tiered gateaux. I almost feel guilty for accepting it, as if I wasn’t the one who organized the wedding, as if I’m somebody else now.

And after the dancing and drinking, the joy and the elation, Teo emerges to take my hand, and I notice that everybody is looking at us, parting for us. He leads me to the door, almost running as petals cascade upon us, all the way outside, into the open door of the Rolls Royce, where we collapse into each other, kissing and laughing. We stop only to look back and wave at the disappearing crowd as the car pulls away.

In his arms I gaze up at him, smiling so hard I wonder if I’ll ever manage to stop.

“I don’t know how this could get any better,” I say.

Teo pulls his hand from my waist and places it on my stomach, looking at it longingly.

“I can think of something.”

He glances back up at me, noticing my look of surprise.

“Really?” I say. “You think you’re ready to be a dad?”

He nods slowly.

“I think I can do anything with you beside me.”

His eyes narrow, and I know that he means it. I know that he’s going to be absolutely perfect.

Perfect.