Page 100 of Last Comes Fate

I’d never told Xavier about it, but somehow, he knew. Just like he would have known how beautiful the Beaux-Arts setting would be for a wedding, with its tall arched windows, curlicued gilt-carved ceiling, and the dozen or so chandeliers that looked like upside-down wedding cakes.

Music floated through the doors as my sisters followed us into the outer reading room. The wedding was to be held through the double doors, outside of which our little wedding procession was already starting to gather.

“Mama?” Sofia turned from where she stood next to Joni and pulled at my hand.

I looked down to find my little girl staring at me with genuine awe. Dressed in her own frilly pink dress that (according to her) topped any of the costumes in her closet at home, Sofia had left long before I had finished getting ready at the house, so this was the first time she had seen me in my full wedding regalia.

“Where’s your crown?” she asked, pointing to my head.

Gingerly, I touched the veil hanging over my hair. “My crown?”

“You look like a princess,” she told me. “And Daddy says you’re going to be a queen. So you need a crown.”

My sisters chuckled.

“She has a point,” said Kate. “I told you we should have sprung for a tiara.”

I smiled as I bent down to look eye to eye with my daughter. “I think real royalty doesn’t have to have a crown. If you’re a queen, you know it in here.” Gently, I touched Sofia’s chest, making her giggle.

“Do you know it?” she asked me.

I glanced toward the open doors, through which I could hear the sounds of our small crowd chattering away, where my beloved waited for me at the end. “Yeah, baby. I do.”

Sofia grinned as I stood up. “Good. Me too. We’re gonna go get Daddy now, right?”

I grinned back and nodded. “Yep, now we get to be a real family.”

But my daughter just shook her head. “We were always a family, Mama. We just had to figure it out first.”

Before I could answer my wise-beyond-her-years daughter, she was ushered away by the wedding planner, who did her final check of me, handed over my bouquet of pink gardenias, then lint-rolled Matthew’s shoulders before checking with her staff in the microphone.

“All right,” she said into her headset. “Bride’s a go.”

With a wink and a nod, she opened the door to the reading room, where my brother escorted me up the red brick path that led straight to my heart’s desire.

It was a small congregation for such a large room. Most of the reading desks were still in their places, filling the space the way a large number might. But we had chosen to keep things intimate. To the soft parochial tunes of a string quartet, I followed my sisters in their blush-colored dresses to the end of the aisle, where Xavier’s and my collection of friends and family had gathered.

I barely saw any of them. My eyes were only on the man to the side of the officiant, standing taller than anyone else in a dark blue tuxedo that matched his bright gaze and made his black hair shine.

Xavier’s eyes were stars as I made my way slowly to him. It was clear that just like I could see nothing other than his strong, shadowy form, I was the only light in the room for him.

“Who gives this woman?” asked the justice in accordance with the ceremony we’d written with him.

“I do!” Sofia shouted with glee, though she looked concerned when it caused a smattering of soft laughter from our guests.

“Me too,” Nonna offered.

“And me!”

“I do!”

Eventually, all my sisters had offered their answers, eager to be a part of the joke until I was grinning so hard I could barely breathe.

“Jesus Christ,” Matthew muttered, though even he couldn’t hide a smile. “We all do, your honor.”

The justice nodded with a smile of his own, then waited as Matthew lifted my veil and leaned down to press a brief kiss to my cheek.

“Love you, Frankie,” he said. The green eyes that matched my own shone with something like tears.

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