A Life Between the Fences

Towards the bottom of the beach, an oak wedding arch had been assembled, decorated with pink and yellow flowers, with dozens of footprints cratered in the surrounding sand. Although neither Astrid nor Ryan were members of his denomination, they had called a priest from Spring Garden to perform the service. He was a sprightly man with big red cheeks and thinning white hair, and his love of weddings meant he was happy to officiate theirs.

The day she was set to marry, Astrid's hands trembled all morning long. She told herself the doubts that tumbled in her stomach were only cliches. Everyone had doubts and fears on their wedding day, but not everyone was marrying someone as wonderful as Ryan. He was a good man, and good for her; he was neither unappealing nor unstable, and he had always been so kind to her. But as the day wore on, those feelings she'd tried so hard to drown for two years coughed up, and all she could think of was James and their last kiss.

She wished for inclement clemency, but the only drizzle was the warm sun pouring on their heads as her brothers arranged the white chairs on the beach. In the late afternoon, as she was sequestered in her bedroom, her bleary-eyed mother brought her the bouquet and sat next to her on her bed.

"You look so beautiful, Astrid," her mother said, fussing over the folds of the pure white wedding dress. "Ryan is very lucky today."

"Am I?" she asked.

Her mother's face stalled, and she touched at her own blonde hair as she stood in thought. She looked down at the wedding dress, then back to Astrid. "You don't think you are?"

"I don't know." Astrid fanned her eyes, chasing tears away. "God, I spent so long on this makeup, I don't want to cry." She laughed.

"Oh, you're lucky, honey—of course you are. Ryan is a good person. He has a big heart, and he loves you as much as you love him. Everyone can see that."

"I don't think I love him right."

Her mother took her hands. "There's no wrong way to love someone if you love them honestly."

"You think I should go through with it then?"

Her mother sighed sadly and squeezed Astrid's hands. "Honey, it's just nerves. Everyone feels them. I don't think it's a mistake at all." Her mother squeezed again and then said she had to finish getting things ready and left.

Not long after, a knock came and Caleb pushed into the room. He'd put on a well-fitted suit, his wavy light hair well-combed. "You look great," he said. "And everything out there looks great. It's shaping up to be a great day."

She smirked. "You're using the word great a lot, and that's concerning."

"You're great. Ryan's great. It's all great. The seagulls definitely haven't started attacking people on the beach."

She laughed. "Don't say that—don't even put it out there."

"No, really, it looks great out there, and we're ready whenever you are." He squeezed her shoulder and opened the door, but she stopped him with a small sound.

"What do you think of James?"

Caleb closed the door, swallowing as he turned to her. "James?"

With hurt she looked at him, unsure how to ask the question in her throat. "Do you not like him?"

"I like James," he said tenderly. "He's a good friend."

"Then why did you hide his letter?" Her voice was thinner than ice on an autumn puddle.

Caleb's head tilted back looking to the mess of things spread across her bed. In him, there was a cycle of tumultuous tides that washed across his face, and he took a seat on the chair nearest to her mirror. "How d'you find out?" he said finally.

"I heard you talking to Mike about it."

He took a deep breath. "Astrid, I think the world of you. You're my baby sister, and I want you to have a good, long, happy life." He put his hands on his knees. "James is a good person. I like him. But when he stopped talking to you two years ago, with no warning... I'd never seen you so hurt. I like him, but I hate him for doing that to you." His voice choked, not with anger, but well-meaning despair. "For a whole month, you stopped answering our calls. I didn't want it to happen again."

She delicately sat on the bed, far away from him. "You didn't have a right to do that."

"No... maybe I didn't." The air escaped from his nose in a long sigh. "But do I have the right to tell you what I think now?"

She nodded slowly.

"Ryan's the best man you've ever dated. I trust him to be good to you. He's kind, and thoughtful, and he doesn't solve his problems by ignoring you. He took most of the summer to be here with us. As much as I like James, I know Ryan is the one you're meant to be with. He's a good man, and what you have is good, and it will be keep being good."

"But what if it isn't?"

"You think it would be better with James?" He shook his head. "Don't put yourself through this. I know you're nervous, but you have a great thing here. Don't think about what you're missing. Think about what you have. Think about how happy you are."

Her face slackened, and the whole summer she'd spent with Ryan came to her. It had been pleasant, and she did care for him. He was a good man and kind to her, and she would be foolish to give him up. "It wouldn't be fair to hurt him at this point, would it?"

Caleb crossed the room and gently took hold of her wrist, squeezing. "It's just a stressful day."

"You're right," she said. "It's just stressful."

He put on a half-smile and whistled. "Man, can you imagine if you had a wedding with hundreds of people? I don't know people do it."

She grinned as he left, but behind him, she closed the door and slid down against it. The bed she'd slept on next to Ryan for that whole summer looked bigger without him, even if it was full of a mess of her things, and in all that time she'd still not had a good sleep.

Outside, the violins edged on, drawing her out of the cottage. The procession of her bare steps on the sand brought her into the garden of her ruination, where the people rose, black-suited and darkly dressed, like bent rows of blossoming death. All eyes turned to her. The violins strained. Ryan smiled from under the oak arch, and she put her red cheeks down, walking the dark carpet that was laid out like a plank on the beach.

The black-robed priest spoke pointedly of their union, reciting what they'd told him, keeping his remarks short and hurrying them into their vows. Ryan's smile was as wide as she'd ever seen it as he took her hand and told her all the things he loved about her—the way her nose crinkled when she did mental math; the way she always woke up with one lazy hiccup; the way she inspired him to always be better. He loved everything about her, he said, and he would spend his life proving it to her.

Cold white flower petals tumbled across the beach on the breeze. James watched from the back of the crowd as Astrid stared ahead blankly until Ryan put his hands on her shoulders. She snapped out of it, as if remembering where she was. She said her vows, and the pang of fear caught in James's throat. A part of him—small and stupid and hopeful—had convinced himself that she wouldn't go through with it. Ryan slipped the ring onto her finger, smiling and overjoyed, and with a smaller smile Astrid slid a ring onto his finger as well. James's heart sank as he watched them sharing a long smile, but as they leaned in to share their kiss, James stood.

"Astrid Thompson, I love you," he said. The breeze died. The water stilled. One by one the weddinggoers looked to James in the back of the crowd. "I loved you before I even knew what love was, and I know you love me too."

The breath of each cottage summer carries with it a different kind of hope. The warm summers that mollify; the wet summers that breathe life into the wildflowers. Those summers when it seems the moon is brightest, and those when the stars are as brilliant as the sky. The days of wavy beaches, and the nights of silver waters. The cool mornings when water bugs ripple inappreciably in the shadows, and the blue afternoons when children catch yellow sunfish from the docks. These are the hopeful moments of cottage summers, and they are what she thought of as she stared between the two men she loved.

And it was in those memories of hopeful summers that she realized she only loved one of them honestly.

He was twenty-four and she was twenty-five the summer he married her on the beach. A tall oak arch stood above them, decorated with brilliant white carnations as the waves lapped the afternoon shore. The white-robed priest—who had promised to officiate the wedding only so long as there were no hysterics this time—smiled at them and listened to their vows as James and Astrid promised to love one another, forever and always. Their friends and families watched gladly as they shared that first wedded kiss and that summer at last they swam the lake together.

Where James grew up, the soil was tanned and undrunk like winter leaves, and where Astrid grew up, it was hidden beneath crabgrass and rustling reeds. But where their children would grow up, the soil was soft and dark and flecked with white stones like ancient arrowheads—where the black shore flows out to meet the sun and the last waves of the day.