“What?”
“You moved first.”
I stared.
“So?”
“I start.”
“Why?”
“That’s how we practiced.”
I looked at Adrian.
He was already smiling.
“Fine.”
Ethan reset.
“One.”
We walked.
“Two.”
Then:
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Too fast.”
“You’re the one counting.”
“I know.”
Adrian finally started laughing.
Ethan glared at him.
“This is serious.”
Adrian immediately straightened.
“You’re right.”
“Again.”
We did it again.
And again.
By the fourth attempt, I said:
“Ethan, we’re walking thirty feet, not landing an airplane.”
He looked offended.
“I want it right.”
That shut me up.
Adrian understood before I did.
He waited until Ethan went to get water.
Then quietly said:
“This matters because he thinks he’s doing something for your dad.”
I looked toward the kitchen.
Ethan was carefully refilling the same glass because he had spilled two drops.
“I know.”
Adrian squeezed my hand.
“He’ll be perfect.”
He was the first person, other than me, who never questioned it.
My mother worried that Ethan might become overwhelmed by all the people standing.
Adrian said:
“Then we pause.”
My uncle wondered whether the music might confuse him.
Adrian said:
“Then we wait.”
One bridesmaid asked whether someone should walk behind us in case Ethan needed help.
Adrian said:
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“He’ll tell us if he needs help.”
Every concern ended the same way when it reached Ethan.
“I practiced.”
That was his answer.
Crowd?
“I practiced.”
Music?
“I practiced.”
Turn at the front?
“I practiced.”
Handshake?
“I practiced.”
And that should have been the end of it.
Everyone who mattered supported the plan.
Then Margaret Cole invited us to dinner.
Margaret was Adrian’s mother.
I had known her for almost five years by then.
We had never been close.
But we had always managed civility.
Margaret was a woman who believed almost every social problem could be prevented through advance planning.
Christmas cards went out before December.
Dinner napkins were pressed.
Family photographs required coordinated colors.
Once, she asked Adrian to change his sweater at Thanksgiving because his navy shirt “fought with the dining-room centerpiece.”
I thought she was ridiculous.
Usually harmlessly ridiculous.
Three weeks before the wedding, she invited Adrian and me to dinner at her house in Bellmere.
I assumed she wanted to discuss table assignments.
Instead, halfway through dessert, she said:
“I wanted to ask about the ceremony.”
Adrian looked up.
“What about it?”
“The processional.”
Something in her tone made me put down my fork.
She smiled.
“Is Ethan still walking Claire?”
“Yes,” I said.
Margaret nodded slowly.
Then:
“I wondered if perhaps we should rethink that.”
I stared.
“Why?”
She took a sip of water.
“I’m only thinking practically.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“Mom.”
“Let me finish.”
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She looked at me.
“Ethan is obviously invited.”
The word obviously immediately irritated me.
“Nobody is suggesting otherwise.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
She hesitated.
That was the moment she still had an opportunity to stop.
She didn’t.
“Perhaps your mother could walk you.”
“No.”
“Or you could walk alone.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“Ethan asked.”
“I said yes.”
“That’s decided.”
Margaret’s smile tightened.
“I understand the emotional part.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
She ignored that.
“I’m thinking about the photographs.”
Silence.
I genuinely did not understand.
“What photographs?”
“The processional.”
“The wedding album.”
“The framed pictures.”
“All of it.”
Adrian went very still.
Margaret continued.
“If Ethan walks you, his face will be in virtually every important aisle photograph.”
I stared at her.
I kept waiting for another sentence that would somehow make the first one less ugly.
It did not come.
She continued carefully.
“You and Adrian will have these photographs for the rest of your lives.”
“So?”
“So perhaps you should think about what you want displayed.”
My pulse started pounding.
Adrian said:
“Mom, stop.”
Margaret looked irritated.
“I am not saying anything cruel.”
I almost laughed.
“What exactly are you saying?”
She looked at me.
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Then toward Adrian.
Finally:
“I would prefer that the wedding photographs focus on the two of you.”
“They will.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“Say what you mean.”
Margaret looked uncomfortable now.
Good.
“I simply don’t want every image of Claire entering the chapel dominated by Ethan.”
There it was.
My brother’s name.
Finally.
But she was still not finished.
“I’m imagining the large photograph we might hang at home.”
“The family album.”
“Forty years from now.”
I stared at her.
“You don’t want Ethan’s face in them.”
Margaret said nothing.
That silence was an answer.
Six different sentences exploded into my head.
That’s my brother.
My father is dead.
What exactly about Ethan’s face offends your decorating plans?
Do you think Down syndrome ruins photographs?
Why does your hallway get a vote in my wedding?
Would you say this if he were sitting here?
I opened my mouth.
Under the table, Adrian took my hand.
One squeeze.
Then he said:
“We’ll work something out.”
I turned toward him so quickly my chair almost moved.
Margaret relaxed.
For one horrible second, I thought Adrian meant what she wanted him to mean.
Then I saw his expression.
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