Page 89 of Beacon

“Okay. Rina, Callie is getting hungry, so I better feed her before we go home. Tell Anna thank you.”

“Thank you, Anna,” Rina says with another big smile. “I can’t wait until tonight!”

“Me too.” My heart bursts into little flutters of anticipation. “Me too.”

Four hours later, I’m sitting in a chair in my living room as I get my hair beautified.

My friend Olivia is working on it since she’s better at fancy hairstyles than anyone else I know. Rachel is lounging on the couch, watching with interest after she’s made it clear she’ll be of no help at all with this enterprise.

Olivia has paused with the top half of my hair in a beautifully intricate braid since she’s gotten so excited regaling us with a story of her son, Gabe, who rallied all the other boys in their community to organizing an Olympic-style athletic competition.

He’s only five years old.

“He’s so smart and so focused and so serious aboutanything he sets his mind to,” Olivia says with a fond grin. She still looks like a movie star with her tousled blond hair and tall, lithe body. “He’s a little like Grant but not like me at all. Actually, he’s exactly like… like my dad.” Her smile breaks briefly as her long-dead father crosses her mind.

“Well, from everything you’ve said about him, your dad was pretty great,” Rachel puts in. “So there could be worse people to take after.”

“Exactly right.” Olivia nods.

“Didn’t you name him after your dad?” I ask. “I thought I heard someone say that.”

“Oh no. He wasn’t named after my dad.” Olivia’s wide mouth twitches up in dry amusement.

“Then who?” Rachel asks.

“Okay, but you can’t tell anyone.” Olivia leans forward and says in a stage whisper, “He’s named after his father.”

It takes a few seconds for this to process. Then I gasp, and Rachel sits up straight with her mouth hanging open.

“Grant’s first name is…”

Olivia puts a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture that makes Rachel and I burst into laughter.

There’s a tap on the door to the cottage just then.

Rachel jumps up. “That better not be Mack coming by to sneak a peek!”

Olivia has moved back around me so she can continue her work on my hair, but we’re both looking over as Rachel opens the front door.

It’s not Mack. It’s Layne carrying a huge armful of wildflowers.

“I’m here!” she announces. “Sorry I’m so late, but I had to wait for Travis to get home. Oh, you look beautiful, Anna. You didn’t have all kinds of fun without me, did you?”

She must see something on our faces despite our reassurances because Layne starts frowning and narrows her eyes. “Y’all have been sharing secrets without me. I can tell. Someone better tell me what I missed. Right now.”

A couple of hours after that, I’m in my dress with my hair fixed up and twined with wildflowers, waiting to walk down the aisle.

The wedding is taking place in the central town square. Every Friday for years now, folks in Halbrook and the surrounding areas have gotten together to share food, talk, laughter, and music. A dedicated attempt to recapture fun and enjoy life, even in this difficult new world. Because Friday evenings have already been reserved for gatherings, most weddings take place then too. But there are more people gathered in the town square tonight than I have ever seen in all the times I’ve been here.

It’s packed full of people from nearly every town and community within easy range of Halbrook. There was no way there would be enough seats for people, so they didn’teven try. Everyone except the elderly and the disabled are standing on either side of the roped-off aisle decorated with flowers.

We don’t have any regular attendants. Hardly anyone uses them anymore because finding dresses and following old wedding rituals are nearly impossible now. But Layne’s three older children and both of Olivia’s children, plus two-year-old Molly, are all waiting with me and being wrangled by Travis and Jackson.

The kids are each holding baskets of flowers, and when the music starts, Travis and Jackson get them pointed in the right direction. The children all either run or toddle down the aisle with their baskets, dutifully tossing out their flowers.

Abigail and Gabe are the only two who do it perfectly. Molly dumps all her flowers in her first attempt to scatter them, and Benjamin, Michael, and Emily throw their offerings too exuberantly, getting flowers everywhere, including on the people in the crowd.

But no one cares, of course.

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