For one brief second Bethany was not the new chief of police or a woman trying to have a peaceful wedding. She was a little girl in the pavilion, watching her father work above her head. He had carried those beams. He had spent Saturdays repairing them. He had stood on the same sand after long shifts, with his back aching, so the town could have something beautiful.
Bethany brushed the sand from the letter and returned the frame to the table.
“Don’t touch my father’s photograph again,” she said.
Her voice was soft. The sentence was not.
Candace looked offended. “There’s no need to be hostile.”
“Then let’s stop giving each other reasons.”
“You people always make everything personal.”
Bethany’s hands went still. She wondered what Candace would say if she knew how personal this place already was. She wondered whether even the name Hiram Tisdale would reach her through twenty years of instructions and assumptions. But she did not tell her. She refused to trade her father’s dignity for the chance to impress a woman who had not earned the explanation.
Alma drew closer. “Beth, baby, let’s go get the dress ready.”
“There’s time.”
“I know what time it is. I’m looking at your face.”
Bethany exhaled. “Just give me a minute.”
They went toward the bus together. Inside, the air was warm and smelled faintly of vinyl seats and peppermint candy. Bethany sat behind the driver, still holding the letter. Alma lowered herself across the aisle.
“Your daddy would have gone down there,” Alma said.
“Daddy would have fixed her gate and said nothing.”
“He might have fixed the gate. He wouldn’t have approved of this.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you tell her?”
Bethany looked at the letter. “Tell her what? That I’m the police chief? That the man whose picture she tried to throw away worked here? Which fact am I supposed to produce to become entitled to what Parks already gave us?”
Alma had no quick answer.
“I promised myself I’d be the bride today,” Bethany continued. “Just the bride. If I pull rank over folding chairs, she gets to say the first thing I did as chief was run neighbors out of a park for my own wedding. She’ll tell that story to the paper before we’ve cut the cake.”
“She’d be lying.”
“She’s already doing that.”
Alma reached over and held her daughter’s hand.
“Then don’t let her make you forget why you’re here.”
Outside, Quentin and Rowan were putting the picture back on the table, this time farther from the edge. A gust rattled the linen, then moved on. Bethany looked toward the pavilion through the bus window. From this angle the brass plaque was visible in the sun.
“I won’t,” she said.
She meant it. She did not yet know how difficult the promise would become.
Chapter 10: A Chair for Pastor Quimby
The church bus arrived at one-twenty with its air conditioner groaning and its passengers already discussing who had forgotten the potato salad.
Pastor Estelle Quimby stepped down first. She was a compact woman with a purple hat wide enough to challenge the laws of architecture and shoes chosen for the comfort of her feet rather than their appearance. She surveyed the lake, the pavilion, and the line of chairs across the aisle, then announced that somebody had misunderstood the definition of a wedding.
“Where’s my bride?” she asked.
Rowan pointed toward the bus where Bethany was helping her mother with a garment bag.
“Good. Where’s my seat?”
“We’re working on that.”
The pastor looked at the barricade. “I can see.”
Candace approached with the air of a woman greeting travelers who had taken a wrong exit. “The senior bus trip is at the casino lot,” she said. “You’re on the wrong side of the lake.”
