Jean-Charles braked to a halt and climbed out. At the sight of his face, Sébastien and I followed him. The left rear tire had blown up to the size of a crane wheel, swollen and deformed, surface shiny and taut as a balloon. Jean-Charles glared at it, humiliated at this abrupt ending to his cars’ grand finale. We had to leave it there and make the last hundred yards to the stone farmhouse in the Al Capone red and blue car.

Above the teak arbor that led to the garden, a sign had been nailed: “Laura & Sébastien,” it said, in curling French blue, with sheaves of wheat framing it on either side. “Éric painted it yesterday in the barn,” Sébastien whispered in my ear. “And my mother decorated it this morning.”

Long white pavilions, oil-drum grills, and bales of hay filled the yard. Multicolored lights strung from tree to tree and around the dance floor set up in the center. Valérie had come to dance at our wedding, although Giulia was pregnant and too close to her due date, and Adela was in Spain. We circulated, people took pictures, and I complimented Sébastien’s father and uncles for not killing the priest. “Congratulations to you, too,” they said, looking down at me from a bulky height. I came up to their navels. “We heard about the wedding dress through the window episode, so we were afraid we might have to pull you off him. But except for the little argument over the ‘Our Father,’ you were impressively self-disciplined.”

“This is beautiful,” my sister Anna said as family all around carried out food and got the grills going. “What a fantastic end to all these weddings. You are done with the weddings, right? I can throw out this dress now? By the way, did I tell you I had to change into it in the confessional in the church, and I accidentally flashed the priest? . . . Laura? Are you okay?” She slapped my back vigorously until I stopped choking.

As the guests lined up for food, I sidled up to Sue, a microbiologist. “What are your feelings toward chicken that’s been left at room temperature for over twenty-four hours?”

“Gratitude that I’m a vegetarian. Well, except when meat looks too tempting, like these kebabs here.”

“And homemade mayonnaise with raw eggs in it?”

“Are you telling me there’s nothing here we can eat?”

“No, no, no. There’s always cheese. I’m just curious; I’m not saying any of these things necessarily happened.”

She pursed her lips. “It’s been so cold these past few days that probably everything will be okay. Would you say it ever got above fifteen degrees Celsius?”

“In a farmhouse with stone walls two feet thick? No.”