While David tried to get his friend the sheriff to arrest Annette for spousal abuse, I took a moment to gaze around in delight. I had honestly thought that these two groups of in-laws would never truly be able to meet and mingle. I had been wrong. Martine’s little, gray-haired, irascible husband, Jacky, former chocolatier for the famous Parisian chocolate-maker Christian Constant until he developed multiple sclerosis, was telling Dana her “Death by Chocolate” beat anything he had ever made; long-haired, Scarlett-wannabe Martine was trying to get Annette’s coleslaw recipe out of her, and Annette seemed like she might actually be willing to give it; and the French men were discussing whether it would be better to take a smoker back on the plane, try to find one in France, or have Jean-Charles make one from scrap. Making one from scrap was exactly the kind of thing David would do in a pinch, and he forgot Annette’s arrest to eye Jean-Charles with appreciation. It was another kind of Feast of Kings. The two worlds had met, and they were getting along like a house on fire. To see them do it, bridging two cultures looked as easy as pie. I reached for Sébastien’s hand, feeling more optimistic than I had since we first started visiting immigration offices.

Because the French would take their turn at frenzied wedding preparations in only a few short weeks, they were excused from this round and used the afternoon after the rehearsal to tour small towns in the surrounding area. Meanwhile, every family member on the American side worked at a frantic pace. My parents and aunts organized things at the house. Anna made bouquets, crouched in skimpy pajamas over a mass of greenery spread out over my mom’s sewing-room floor until just a half hour before the wedding. I did not take a picture of her with her butt sticking up in the air in those tiny pajama shorts; that was our older sister Mary Kay, who had descended on the gathering the day before and immediately started causing as much trouble as she could. Mary Kay was the eldest sibling and the reason I could take Adela in stride. She had hair as kinky-curly as Anna’s, but had recently dyed it pink in an anti-aging move. She claimed the pink was on purpose, but we weren’t sure; she had been known for self-dying accidents when she was a teenager. Nieces ran everywhere, doing hair, helping with bouquets. My mother’s friends from church, women in their seventies I had barely seen since I was a child, whipped up food in their kitchens and hauled the dishes over to the church hall. Not a hair on her stylish blond head out of place, Annette ran decorations, a major operation that required every other able body in the family, including her two daughters, David, all five of her brothers-in-law, Mary Kay, and me.