The organ segued into "Ode to Joy," and the crowd rustled expectantly. The side door opened and Henry, the groom, and our son Freddie, the best man, followed the minister out. They looked so handsome, I opened my purse and started looking for a Kleenex.

"Oh, God. They're both chewing gum," Mary Alice hissed.

"What did she say?" Fred asked.

"They're chewing gum, Fred!"

The men turned to face the audience. Freddie smiled at us, and all three of us made chewing motions madly. For a second he looked surprised, and then we saw his Adam's apple disappear as he swallowed. He poked Henry with his elbow, and in a minute Henry's gum went down, too.

"Good," Mary Alice nodded.

Our daughter, Haley, was the first down the aisle. The rose-colored bridesmaid dress, while not practical, was very becoming. Its Basque bodice made her waist look incredibly tiny, and the color gave her olive skin a pink glow.

Mary Alice's daughter, Marilyn, was her sister's matron of honor. Almost six feet tall and brunette, she was so much like her mother had been at that age, it was eerie. To see her standing by my five-one, reddish blond Haley was to see Sister and me thirty years before.

The organ crashed into a fanfare that brought

everyone to their feet, and the bride swept down the aisle on her cousin Philip Nachman's arm. Really swept. Her dress would have put Princess Di's to shame.

"My God," Fred said. "That much virginal white could damage your retina."

"Shut up." I punched him with my elbow as we sat back down.

"Dearly beloved," the minister began. Mary Alice and I both got out Kleenex.

It was a traditional ceremony. Debbie, this most independent of women in her thirties, who had been making it on her own for years and doing a fine job of it, thank-you-ma'am, and who, when she decided she wanted children, had been inseminated at the University sperm bank, was "given" by her cousin to Henry Lament, who was seven years her junior. A wonderful man, granted, but without the proverbial pot to pee in. A temporary condition. Henry was going to be one of the great American chefs. We all knew it.

After the vows were exchanged, Debbie and Henry knelt for a prayer, and then the organist blasted out the recessional. They stopped to kiss Mary Alice and an elderly cousin of Henry's who had sat in the mother's place on his side. The wedding party rushed by, grinning, and then Philip Nachman escorted his Aunt Sister out while Freddie collected Henry's cousin.

"Well, that's it," Fred said.

People were getting up, talking, laughing. I wiped my eyes one last time.

"That was a sticking wedding," I said.

"A what?"

"You know. You can just tell some couples are going to stick together."

We worked our way out into the aisle.