Bride & Groom

mortifying. Do you have any idea what it is?”
    “It will sort itself out. We’ll think of something. We always do! The tablecloths?”
    After I’d found the tablecloths in a kitchen drawer, I kept running back and forth between the house and yard. I set the tables for dessert, answered questions about the locations of household items, and caught scraps of conversation.
    “SHOUTING?” my father bellowed. “I’M NOT SHOUTING!”
    In saying that she wanted a “quiet word” with Buck, Gabrielle had referred to her own part of the proposed conversation on the subject of mushing boot camp. She’d known him to be just about incapable of quiet words.
    After she’d said something inaudible, he bellowed, “MISREPRESENTATION? Ask Twila! She’s been to Ginny Wilson’s boot camps, and she’ll be the first person to tell you that she’s had a wonderful time. You can hear the gusto in her voice.”
    Gabrielle’s reply got lost in a lecture that my cousin Leah was delivering to Twila’s kennel helper. “The term kennel girl is sexist. You aren’t a girl, are you?” The silent kennel person must’ve whispered a reply. “Well, yes,” Leah conceded, “kennelwoman does admittedly sound ridiculous. But there’s no reason you can’t stand up for yourself and insist on kennel help, is there?”
    “No,” my father boomed, “I did not imagine that you were the bivy type. We’re staying in our own private cabin.” After evidently listening for an unprecedented ten seconds, he said, “Because everyone else there will be the bivy type, that’s why. Everyone else will be in bivies or tents or out under the stars. Therefore, we’ll have the cabin to ourselves. And that’s about as private as you can get! And Twila didn’t think that you were joking about taking a bichon. If she had thought you were joking, there’d have been only one thing for you and Molly to do, and that’d be to get right out there and show her! Gabrielle, when life issues you a challenge, there’s only one way to respond, and that’s to get yourself right out there and show what you’re made of!”
    At about that time, Pete and Rita came downstairs with shortcakes and strawberries. As I supplied Rita with cartons of heavy cream and a handheld electric mixer, Pete kept talking to her in a hushed, fervent tone... drunk,” he said. “And then she came on to me. It was the last thing I expected. And then she sent me this E-mail about the moon.”
    “Embarrassing,” Rita said.
    “Yes. And I’ll have to go to her funeral. I don’t know what I’m going to say to Daniel.”
    “Anything,” advised Rita, “except the full truth.”
    “Poor Claire,” Pete said. “I won’t mention the moon.” When all of us reassembled in the yard with strawberry shortcake and coffee, the gathering took on a superficial tone of returning to normal. Uncle Don and Uncle Dave acted in a way that Steve usually dismissed as "Minnesota nice.” At Buck’s request, Twila got North, who greeted everyone by flashing his eyes and wagging his tail, and displayed a rare quality in an Alaskan malamute: the ability to be in the presence of food without stealing it. Buck tried to persuade Gabrielle that in hearing a reference to an outhouse, she’d misheard an innocuous reference to an outbuilding. “At our age,” he said with hideous sympathy, “it’s easy to get confused.” Jennifer kept plucking at Kevin’s sleeve and muttering in his ear. He nobly resisted her efforts to break up the party. Now that a semblance of order had been restored, however, I wished that everyone would leave.
    In fact, no one stayed late. The uncles left for their hotel. Kevin and Jennifer gave Leah an unofficial police escort back to Harvard. My father helped Twila and the kennel woman with North and the rest of the team. Pete insisted on accompanying Rita in walking Willie, who unaccountably displayed no desire to bite Pete’s ankles. While Steve and I were giving our own dogs a chance to run in the yard, I kept thinking of Mac and Judith. Maybe they hadn’t answered the phone because Mac had gone to the police to turn himself in. As I imagined the scenario, he’d made a full confession to Judith, who was bravely accompanying him. Or maybe it was Ian or Olivia who had confessed, and both parents were loyally accompanying the murderous child.
     

CHAPTER 37
     
    When I walked into my kitchen at seven-thirty on the morning of September 28, which is to say, on the day