Speaking of too low, I spotted the maid of honor and her most revealing décolletage—even from afar. Molly and her cleavage stood out. She was standing at the periphery of the milling crowd. The caterers were still setting the dinner tables, where only a few of the wedding guests had taken their seats. Fewer people were falling and crying out—mere blunderers, felled by the flower beds. I was confident that Dottie had harnessed and leashed the dog man. She likely had the biter under control.

Yes, I was drawn to the night groomer. Molly commanded the attention of every alert male under the wedding tent. Maybe that was why she’d stepped away from the ongoing fray? The trail groomer was the tallest woman standing, and she was showing the most cleavage. As I cautiously approached her, I was wondering if I would ever recover from encountering her bra. But when I got closer to her, I saw she’d been crying. Unmindful of her tears, Molly was as vividly transported by her thoughts as the diaper man was muddled by his.

Yet when Molly noticed me standing next to her, she immediately snapped back to the reality of the moment and the matter at hand. “You’re right on time, Adam the Kid—you have just what I need,” the night groomer said, taking the handkerchief that matched my tie from the breast pocket of my suit jacket. “Why do you think I put it there?” Molly asked me, wiping the tears from her face with my handkerchief, which she matter-of-factly returned to my breast pocket.

“You put it there?” I asked her. It was difficult to speak, at eye level to her cleavage.

“When your mom and I were laying out your wedding clothes, I asked her for a handkerchief to put in your pocket—I knew I would be bawling my eyes out, and I was going to need one,” the trail groomer told me. “They are not just the cutest-looking couple I know, Kid,” Molly said. “Of the couples I can think of, I’ll bet your mom and the snowshoer last the longest—I’m betting they go the distance.”

I was so suddenly moved to tears by Molly’s remarks that the snowcat operator hugged me. The bridge of my nose was flattened against her breasts, and I remembered my mother’s tearful shouting (“I can’t breathe!”) from my attic bedroom. My aunts’ awful aspersions must have affected me more than I realized. To have someone as stalwart as the night groomer speak with such authority about the veraciousness of my mom’s marriage to the little snowshoer—well, it truly mattered to me. I needed to hear it.

“My aunts say my mom is Elliot’s beard—Nora told me they think he’s a little light in the loafers,” I said to Molly. She was using my handkerchief again—this time, to wipe the tears from my face.