He saw me looking at him, and smiled. “Piano lessons at church school, singing in the choir.” He closed the hymnal and put it back on the shelf under the seats of the polished wooden pew.
We sat and listened to the vicar’s sermon, stood for another hymn, and finally the vows began. They were just reading the two stanzas from the poems they had chosen to represent their promise to each other, when I felt a hand reach for mine. I tried to grasp back, but I felt his fingers move mine apart, and grasp them at the base. Then I felt a cool, smooth band of metal slip on to my finger, and slide down. Before I could do anything, another one was placed between my thumb and forefinger, and I held on, almost about to drop it. I looked up at Tristan. He was facing the ceremony, as though nothing was happening. I looked down. His hand was across his body, resting on his other arm, waiting. I picked up his finger.
“That’s it,” he whispered.
I slipped the ring on to his finger until it was seated. And stared at the band of silver colored metal for a moment. Platinum. Then I looked up and around. Everyone’s eyes were on the bride and groom at the front.
“Will you?” Tristan whispered, just after the vicar had asked the same question of the bride at the altar. “Say yes, Lily.”
“Yes.” I gazed up at him.
Tristan watched me, his eyes full of expression. “Ask me.”
“Will you?” My voice trembled.
He leaned down to kiss me, gently. “Yes,” he whispered into my mouth, as the crowd cheered the pronouncement of husband and wife.
I felt the tears start, hot and unexpected. He grasped my hand tightly. Skin. And then his eyes were wet. “I know.”
A voice came from behind us. “Shh. There’s a wedding going on.”
* * *
The rest of the ceremony went by in a blur. The only thing I could focus on was Tristan’s warm hand, wrapped tightly around mine, as if I were a balloon that might get snatched away by a sudden breeze. Then it was over, and we were outside, in the grey cool air of a British late summer’s day, waiting for rain, and the emergence of the wedding party. Tristan was still holding my hand. I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. I just held on.
Sarah and Nick finally came out, to great cheers and handfuls of bird seed and confetti. She looked beautiful and slightly stunned, and Nick seemed to embody all the qualities of settled masculinity, with a quiet, happy look around his eyes that spoke of the gladness of a house finally complete, a chase successfully concluded, a desire fulfilled. They waved to the small crowd, and they did look apart from everyone else, the trappings of the ritual hanging heavy on them, and giving them both the weighted presence of royalty. They moved through the crowd, carefully, one of the flower girls holding on to the small train as though she had been entrusted with the movement of the planets. When it was finally time for her to relinquish it, she turned to her mother, shaking with overwrought tears. The car pulled away over the small gravel forecourt and out on to the road, honking, tin cans crashing merrily on the pavement. The guests started filing towards their own cars, in order to head to the reception.
Tristan turned to me, and pulled me by the hand around the corner of the church, and stopped under one of the yew trees. “You followed your dream, Lily. You didn’t know where it would lead you, but you listened—and you didn’t give up. Somewhere along the road, you found me. I wouldn’t presume to think that I’m your entire dream—but will you share with me?” He fell with a graceful swoop on one knee, extending an arm to the skies and out, to encompass everything.
I sank to my knees, careless of my dress, of anything else but Tristan. He wrapped his arms around me, as I rested my head in the crook of his neck. “Yes.”
The End
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