Bride & Groom

before my first and only wedding, Buck was standing at the stove burning things. The entire stove was covered in grease. Six slices of blackened bacon rested on a paper towel set directly on a countertop, not on a plate. The air was thick with droplets of hot fat. Eight revolting-looking brown objects sizzled in a pan. They appeared to be lumps of rubber and certainly smelled that way.
    “Sunny side up!” my father proclaimed.
    He was not alone in the kitchen. Sammy the puppy lay at his feet. On the counter next to the burned bacon and the battery from the smoke detector rested my directory of the membership of the Alaskan Malamute Club of America. The thick booklet was held open by a grease-covered sugar bowl. Jabbing an elbow toward the directory, my father said, "You see that? The centerfold! That’s how proud Twila is of North. Two full pages, thirteen photographs, smack in the center of the directory, everything from a puppy picture to show photos to shots of North working in harness. Now that’s what I call pride!”
    “Good morning,” I said. “Yes, since you asked, I slept well.”
    Reading from the centerfold, Buck said, “ ‘North, as we travel the path together, you enrich every moment of the journey. Thank you.’ And you know what that represents, Holly? It represents appropriate gratitude to a deserving dog.”
    “Yes, it does,” I agreed.
    Turning from the stove to look me in the eye, Buck said, “And where, I ask you, is your public expression of gratitude to your Alaskan malamutes?”
    “May I remind you that I am getting married tomorrow afternoon? And that this is probably not the best time to criticize me?” With an expression of transparently fake abashment, Buck made a show of shifting his gaze to Sammy, who continued to hold his down-stay while whipping the floor with his happy tail. “I’m in the doghouse, kid,” Buck said. “With my daughter and my wife.”
    I was tempted to go to the third floor to make my own breakfast. With the intention of keeping Buck two floors away from us, we’d stocked the refrigerator with milk, eggs, butter, yogurt, juice, and fruit, and the cupboards with coffee, sugar, cereal, and English muffins.
    “With Gabrielle, you deserve to be,” I said. “Has Sammy had his breakfast?”
    “Steve fed all the dogs an hour ago.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Taking a shower. And in his absence, let me tell you that you’ve got my approval for this marriage.”
    “I’m glad,” I said.
    Smiling at Sammy, he said, “Nothing to be ashamed of! Quality dog! Best reason on God’s green earth!”
    “If you ever so much as hint at any such idea, if you ever so much as think it—”
    The phone rang. The first of many calls, this one was from Ceci, who apologized for the early hour, but needed a consultation about the tents. Would we really need them? The forecast sounded perfect, but New England was, after all, New England, and... I’d no sooner promised to check the National Weather Service web site and hung up than the phone rang again. Uncle Don needed a reminder about directions to my house. I supplied them, and then made coffee and toast. Buck leaped to the conclusion that my polite refusal of his bacon and eggs indicated morning sickness. This new explanation for my marriage delighted him. I didn’t have the heart to disappoint him. Or the stomach to digest his cooking. Not long after Steve emerged from the bathroom, the uncles arrived, and Buck inflicted breakfast on them. I escaped into the shower. When I’d finished bathing and dressing, the uncles and Gabrielle were leaving to pick up Leah, who was accompanying Uncle Don, Uncle Dave, and my stepmother to Ceci’s house to assist in preparing for the wedding. To my relief, Twila had consulted my father about the possibility of finding a place to run her dog team, and Buck had not only suggested a state forest south of Boston, but had inveigled an invitation to go along. Before our guests departed, I reminded Gabrielle that she, Leah, Rita, and I had a one o’clock appointment to get our hair and nails done, and I reminded everyone that the rehearsal was at five o’clock at Ceci’s. We’d go directly from there to Nuages for the rehearsal dinner.
    My father and I had a little tiff. He wanted to take Rowdy and Kimi with him. Having groomed them for the wedding, I refused. On September 28, there was obviously no snow, and Twila’s team would be pulling a cart, not a sled, along trails and dirt