“You know what,” said Sébastien, unable to wrench his eyes from her hands. “I’m sure you’ve performed at millions of weddings. Just play whatever you want.”

I waited until we were out in the car to hyperventilate. Titi had loaned his tiny twenty-year-old red Ford Fiesta to us for two weeks of wedding errands. “Did you hear what she was playing? And you told her to play whatever she wanted? What is our wedding going to sound like?”

“She looked so stressed. Do you want her nervous breakdown on our conscience? What if she ran amok in the church because of the pressure of playing ‘The Wedding March’?”

“I thought of that. But then I realized she’d never get her hands on a good assault rifle in this country, so we would probably survive. If I have a nervous breakdown, however, things could get ugly.” I was trying and failing to imagine the sounds that would accompany me down the aisle.

“Oh, you’ll do fine, crevette.” He squeezed my hand. “I mean, we’ve already gotten married twice in the past few months. How hard could another two times be?”

Thirty-four

Morning,” Titi said, setting his tray of breakfast things on the teak table. Five days before the wedding, the sun was shining, and we were still breakfasting calmly in the garden. We were also still eating lunch calmly in the garden and lingering over dinner calmly in the garden, with a total time spent on meals per day of around ten hours. At this pace, getting married two more times in a half-foreign country might not be that hard after all. Somehow, undoubtedly a continued lack of understanding of my culture-in-law, I had imagined us so busy by this point that we wouldn’t be taking time to eat.

“Morning,” I said from under the mirabellier. The mirabelles had started coming in a few days before, like condensed sunshine. Tiny little jewels, dark gold flecked with red when ripe, they burst into my mouth in two delicious bites of sweetness, and I considered them an excellent breakfast.

“You’re going to make yourself sick,” Colette said, coming out with a basket over one arm and heading toward the vegetable garden. It’s amazing how many times in my life people have told me that in connection with food. It’s almost as if they think I have no self-control or something.

“Desserts today, Justine?” I asked.

She nodded immediately. “You’re going to show me how to make the chocolate thing, right? The fug.”

“Will the fugs keep?” Titi and Colette asked at the same time, startled. “They’re chocolate.”

“Fudge and cheesecakes are great make-aheads. The cheesecakes will have to be refrigerated, but they’ll keep fine.”