WREN

“Too tight?” Eleanor asks, looking at me in the reflection, her grip firm on the strings of my corseted bodice, wedding dress belling out in a cloud of white below.

My mother rushes over in a modest, taupe dress that flows just below her knees. Hurriedly she sets her borrowed champagne flute on the antique vanity. “She can’t even breathe to answer!”

But before she wrestles the job away from my Maid of Honor, who is also in taupe but hers is floor-length and fit to show off curves, I stop her. “No, Mom, it’s perfect. Let Eleanor do it. I was just soaking this in.”

Their curious gazes rest on me in the mirror and both soften. Eleanor fidgets with the bow, shaking her head. “You look beautiful.”

Swiping the glass back into her nervous hand, Mom sighs, “Stunning, honey, really. Why am I shaking and you’re not!?”

“I’m not afraid,” I say simply. Eric and I have spent every day together since the night we cleared up the terrible misunderstanding. I’ve flown everywhere he’s had to go. Carla and Mike welcomed me back to the bar and I’m always able to cover a shift when the team travels. I cheered for him at the Super Bowl. We went out and partied with the team after and then alone in his hotel room there was a better celebration. We get along better than we expected to, credited to us sharing the same sense of humor. We crack each other up all the time.

Nancy Cocker flies into her bedroom wearing a pretty, floral knee-length gown and pearls. She freezes upon sight of me. “Oh Wren, look at you!”

Turning around, I lift the train and touch my naked collarbone, fingers oddly still. “What do you think, Mrs. Cocker? I know you wanted pearls but I like it this way.”

“I told you please call me Grandma Nance! Eric does, and so do all of my grandchildren.” Under her breath she adds, “Why it doesn’t make me feel old is a mystery. Maybe because I am!” Clapping her hands, graceful strides bring her to inspect me. “Drew is right behind me—Oh, here she is! Drew, dear, what do you think of your future daughter-in-law?”

The woman who made this possible, melts and covers her mouth, eyes as misty blue as her dress. “Emma did a lovely job on your hair!” She hurries over, inspecting the combs. “It was so nice of Ethan to loan you these. They’ve been in my family for over a century, but Kaya won’t be wearing them for decades! My grandmother and mother wore them to their weddings before I wore them to mine. And—”

“I wore them to my wedding,” Emma laughs as she enters the sunny bedroom with fresh champagne. “Yes, Mom, Wren knows the story. You told her at the bridal shower!”

Drew demurs, taking the empty flute glass offered her. “Well, I’m sorry, but I think it’s terribly romantic, and good luck! All of those marriages lasted.”

Emma rolls her chestnut brown eyes and pours. “Jury is still out on mine.” She gives me a wink as both Grandma Nance and Drew get all crazy, fluttering their hands and eyelashes while they insist Tanner is perfect for her.

“If a little bit pig-headed,” Drew acquiesces with a smile.

Eleanor holds two glasses for filling, one for me. We all lift them, about to make a toast when the door creaks open and we hear, “Now hold on! Don’t leave me out!”

All heads turn to the familiar voice, and Grandma Nance rushes over to help Grams, Eric’s great grandmother, the real family Matriarch, join our little female circle.

She and her true love and husband Jerald, may he rest in peace, are the reason we’re all here. Her cane thumps the ground as she delicately makes the journey. We of course walk closer, but do it subtly.

But you can’t get anything past this woman. Oh no, don’t even try! With an amused glint in her sharp, blue eyes she drawls, “I might be over a hundred but I’m not an invalid! I could have come to you. I made it up those stairs didn’t I?”

Drew can’t hold back a shocked, “Did you?”

May Cocker giggles, “Well, I’m not one to lie. I may have had some help. Jake and Jeremy carried me up them, clasping their hands together and me sitting pretty in the best looking, living and breathing, two headed chair you ever did see!”

The room bursts out laughing, and Eleanor and I exchange a look. I’d told her Grams was amazing and now she sees for herself that it’s oh so true.

My mother hands her generously poured champagne. “Here ya go, May.”

“Oh thank you, dear! I love the bubbly.”

“Don’t we all,” Emma smiles from behind her glass, my future sister-in-law in a taupe bridesmaid dress that matches El’s.

I’m standing between the two of them, which makes me realize something for the first time. “I guess I have a thing for people whose names start with ‘E.’”

The girls react. “Oh, that’s right!”

“Emma and Eleanor, I hadn’t thought about it!”

I remind them, “Don’t forget Eric.”

His sister adopts an innocent look. “Who?”

Charlie runs in holding Kaya, her matching, taupe dress fluttering in the breeze of her strides. She’s Ethan’s wife and since she’ll be my sister now, too, I wanted her in the wedding party. Eric got three, and I wanted three, too.

“What did I miss,” she asks, red hair pulled by her daughter.

“Grab a glass,” Drew tells her. “You’re just in time.”

“Kaya’s still too young to remember today but I wanted her up here with us. However, wrestling her away from my husband—your son—is not easy. I never thought I’d say this but sometimes he’s too good of a father.” Grinning and breathless, she joins our circle and spots May among us. “Grams!”

“Surprised I made it up those stairs?”

Charlie blinks, tries to recover her blurted surprise. “Not at all!”

May Cocker wiggles a finger. “Fibber.”

Blushing Charlie glances to me for help. Perfect timing because I wanted to say something. “I know I’m not the one who’s supposed to come up with toasts today—”

“It should be one of us!” Nancy Cocker interrupts with a wave of her hand, “but if you’ve thought of a good one, go ahead!”

“I have.” They wait to hear what it is while I meet each of their smiling eyes, my heart calm. “To family.”

The champagne flutes float together into the loveliest wind-chimes-sound any of us have ever heard.