her, flooding her arteries with adrenaline and setting her heart racing.
“Lucy,” she called out. “Agnes?”
And finally, “Sebastian.”
“Over here,” he said.
She turned her head in the direction of the altar and saw him. The beams of light breaking through and into the nave actually made it harder to see from that distance. She needed to get closer.
“Don’t move,” she said, edging herself out of the long pew toward the center aisle of the church. “I’m coming.”
She paused, unsure whether to genuflect, bow her head, or just keep moving. It had been so long since she’d had to think about it. She did a little of all three—bending a knee, lowering her chin a touch, and slouched forward toward the altar. It was a far cry from how she’d pictured her wedding as a little girl.
Back then, her gait was slow and steady, in waltz time, her white-satin-and-bead gown flowing, the pews full, silk streamers hung into the aisle, bouquets of roses and peonies wrapped with fresh Irish bells adorning every square inch of the church. Waiting for her, of course, was the perfect guy. She could never actually see his face, but he cut a handsome figure nonetheless. Tall, tuxedoed, trim, she imagined him walking right out of a fairy tale when she was younger. These days walking off the cover of Rolling Stone would do just fine.
How different her life was turning out. Instead of a charming prince to cuddle, it was an endless parade of sketchy pervs, all take and no give. Their appeal to her soon became their utter predictability. They got what they came for, and she got what she asked for. A circle-jerk of boredom, guilt, punishment, and self-hatred. Expect nothing and you will never be disappointed, she’d heard it said. Cecilia was never disappointed.
She admired her dress, feeling like it was made just for her, but when and by whom, she had no idea. She felt like a goddess. As she approached the altar, she stared down at the two marble steps preceding it and looked up again at Sebastian, who was standing near the lectern, a harp behind him. A sudden bout of vertigo struck her and her ears began to ring, as if she’d been hit in the head. She felt unsteady, slowed.
“I’m waiting . . . ,” he said. “For you.”
“Where are the others?”
“We’re here,” he said, reaching out his hand for her.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”
“The altar or me?” he said, his piercing eyes catching hers, burning through her resistance.
“Is there a difference?” To her, they felt like one and the same. A sacrifice.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said reassuringly, reaching now to her with both arms open.
She lifted her leg from the floor and placed it onto the first step. She was finding it hard to breathe. “I feel like a child. Why is this so hard?”
“Because it’s right.”
She bowed her head and gently began to sway it in time to the sound of the harp, which was just beyond her reach. “I hear music.”
“What is it?”
“A love song. Do you hear it?”
She began to mumble, then hum, and then sing softly as if channeling an invisible karaoke machine. It was an old habit. A chant to prepare her heart for battle.
“I do,” he said. “Blues?”
“Johnny Cash,” she said. “ ‘Hurt.’”
“Sing it for me.”
“No. Too sad. The saddest song I ever heard.”
“The happiest.”
“Is there a difference?” She moved her other foot up on the first step and then the second, music blaring in her head. She walked into his arms and pressed her ear against his chest. It was muscled, hard, unlike the guys she’d usually “dated.” She rested there in his warmth for a while and felt his hands roll over her back, which she was always self-conscious of. All those years of dance as a kid, she supposed. Her spine was an outie the entire length of her sway back, a ridge of bony angles pushing up through her skin. Reptilian. At least that is the way she always described it. Ugliness inside trying to get out, and if not out, then to make itself visible. A warning. A way to keep love at arm’s length. Like a cobra baring its fangs.
“You are so beautiful,” he said.
She was embarrassed, both by the tenderness of his words and the depth of her own self-loathing. She’d heard those words before, from overenthusiastic fan girls spewing random compliments or smarmy one-night stands trying to make nice before asking her to