At night she dreams of running fast across open country. She wakes breathing quickly, the room altered, the silhouette of the tree’s branches thrown starkly onto the wall.

Epithalamium

2008

IT IS SATURDAY, WHICH IS MARKET DAY. IT IS LATE SPRING, OR early summer. It is May, and the dog roses are in bloom in the tangled garden at the front of the house.

They take turns in the shower, Lissa and Cate, then dress quietly in their rooms. It is cool and overcast, but the forecast for later in the day is good.

As Lissa dresses she thinks of Nathan. Her friend. She knew him first. And she has always suspected that all those years ago, when they met again after university, had she been more available, he might have wanted to be with her. Would he have been hers now? Somehow, today of all days, she wants him to notice her, notice her beauty. She would not admit it to herself, but she wants to outshine Hannah, she wants to be seen. So she cuts the tags off the silk dress from the department store, which she definitely cannot afford, and slips it on. She outlines her eyes in green eyeliner. She wears heels that make her over six feet tall.

Over in her flat, Hannah dresses. Her mother and father are with her. Nathan has spent the night away, at his brother’s house. Her mother knocks on the door to come in.

“Oh, Hannah,” she says, when she sees her daughter in her dress. “Oh, Han.”

THEY STAND WAITING in the largest of the municipal rooms in the city clerk’s office. It is, they all agree, for a couple like Hannah and Nathan, the best possible place to get married—its very utilitarian nature invests it with a sort of magic.

Nathan waits at the front of the room. Lissa watches him, his face, his blue suit, asking his brother for the third time to check his pocket for the rings.

The music starts, they stand, and Hannah appears on the arm of her father. She is wearing a simple green dress, her eyes shining, and at the sight of her, Lissa is chastened—how could she have thought she would ever outshine her? This woman that she loves. Here, in her green column of a dress, walking slowly towards Nathan, Hannah is mythic, archetypal. And Nathan here, standing at the front, has eyes for no one else, his face eager, lit, waiting for his bride.