Bride & Groom

very ill.
    “I carried Uli up the stairs,” he explained. “He said his good-bye. Judith said hers. More times than I can remember, I’ve helped in just this way. A dog should leave this world peacefully, cradled in his owner’s arms. It’s always sad, but it’s easier when the dog has bitten repeatedly, when everyone understands that the dog is a danger, a menace, and that all you can offer is that final act of caring. I always perform that act with love. As I did this time. A final act of caring.”
     

CHAPTER 41
     
    I returned home filled with overwhelming love for everyone in my life. As I drove back to Cambridge, I didn’t even miss Steve, who was staying with Mac until the police arrived and Mac turned himself in. Steve’s love and kindness traveled with me. When I got home, Leah, Rita, and Gabrielle were in the midst of a crisis; they barely noticed that I was late for our trip to the salon. My family being my family, the crisis was a dog crisis: Sammy the puppy had somehow managed to eat the rolled leather collar right off his own neck. He’d rejected the buckle and his tags, but he’d treated the leather as what it was, namely, a length of dead animal. My cousin, my best friend, and my stepmother had Sammy in the kitchen and were hovering around him so closely that he was in immediate danger of suffocation. Still, his tail was wagging^ and he had a big, satisfied smile on his gorgeous face. I hugged Sammy, and then hugged Leah, Rita, and Gabrielle. I would, of course, tell them about the horror and sadness. But at the moment, I needed their fidelity, their commitment, their loyalty to me, which were not, as poor Judith had thought, illusory, but almost palpably real.
    “The chances are good,” I said, “that the collar will either come up or pass right through him, probably in the middle of our wedding. But don’t worry about it. Steve won’t let anything bad happen to Sammy.”
    Or to me, either, I thought.
    By the freakish coincidence known in my family as “God spelled backward,” Mac and Judith’s wedding present had been delivered during my absence. Leah, ever herself, had high-handedly opened the package. I’d ordinarily have scolded her. Now, I felt nothing but gratitude to her for being her bossy self. The gift was a set of five large hand-painted ceramic dog bowls, duplicates of Uli’s, but marked with the names of Steve’s and my dogs: Rowdy, Kimi, Sammy, India, and Lady. I was running my hands over them and crying when Rita announced, “Holly, what’s with the sentimentality? I know you! You’re looking for an excuse to get out of having your hair and nails done. Remember? This is your show, and you’re about to go Best of Breed. You’re not walking into the ring of marriage ungroomed! We need to leave now!”
    “But what about Sammy?” I protested. “Someone needs to keep an eye on him.”
    God spelled backward. Pete, Steve’s best man and fellow vet, arrived, having already delivered the champagne and other drinks to Ceci and Althea’s. Pete didn’t really need to come to our house. I strongly suspected that he was just hoping to see Rita. As it was, he ended up keeping a watch over Sammy.
    I don’t have a clear memory of the salon. I know that on the drive there in Rita’s BMW, I told Rita, Leah, and Gabrielle about Judith and Mac. It distressed me to tell the story. When I’d been with Judith, my emotions had been under tight control. Safe with my bridal party in Rita’s posh car, I suffered from delayed shock. For some reason that I couldn’t explain to myself, however, I omitted all mention of the dossiers. Before I’d left Mac and Judith’s, Mac had said that Judith had wanted me to have the file folders on the kitchen table; she’d begged him to promise that I’d take them away. I’d complied. Last wishes and all that. Before leaving for the salon, I’d hustled them into my office, the abode of my cat, Tracker. Tracker had, as usual, hissed loudly and scratched me. Still, I felt such a surge of loyalty to her that I didn’t even mind being scratched.
    For the rest of the afternoon and evening, I was in a daze. I returned from the salon to discover that Steve, the last person to abandon a dog, had brought Uli home with him. I didn’t mind. Far from it. In fact, rattled though I was, I made a quick phone call to Carla Guarini, our florist, to order yet one more floral collar. I know that the salon made us look beautiful, but only because I