Not the dignified single tear of a groom performing emotion, but real, openly, wiping at his face with the back of his hand, undone by the sight of her.

And Gemma, walking toward him in her dress with her curls pinned up and her whole face lit like a lamp, looked at him crying and laughed with delight, and the whole small chapel laughed with her, and for that moment it was simply, uncomplicatedly, a wedding of two people who loved each other.

It was afterward that the cold thing brushed against me again.

My parents sat in the front pew wearing their polished, distant smiles, and after the ceremony my father crossed to Gabriel, and clapped him firmly on the shoulder, and said, “You chose well, son.” You chose well, son.