All The Summers Between Us | TSITP

The Empty Aisle.

For a long, stunned beat, the garden behaved like a photograph—no sound, everyone fixed mid-breath, lanterns caught in a windless hold. The only thing that moved was the gate Lydia had slipped through, rocking back and forth on its hinge as if it still expected her to change her mind and come back.

Laurel's hand, white-knuckled around her clutch, found Adam's sleeve. She didn't look at him; her eyes were pinned to the space where Lydia had been.

"Go," she whispered, voice scraped thin. "Go up there right now and say something to all these people."

Adam nodded once—of course—and stood. When he did it, it let the world breathe again. At the arch, the officiant blinked, still turned toward emptiness, his book a useless prop.

Adam started down the aisle, and like a small flock suddenly remembering they could move, the bridal party shifted. Taylor reached for Belly; Steven's hand found the small of Taylor's back and steered her gently. On the other side, Conrad stepped down first, the movement so contained it looked like a muscle twitch; Jeremiah fell in behind him.

Together, the five of them vacated the front like the tide receding—no words, just a shared instinct to stop being the center of something that had just lost its center.

They slid into the front row beside Laurel and John, knees almost touching, the line of them uneven and human. Denise slipped into the space on Laurel's other side, a small nod passing between them that meant I'm here. John's jaw was tight enough to make a vein stand out. He stared straight ahead, elbows braced on his thighs like he was readying for impact.

At the arch, Adam touched the officiant's arm. "Mind if I—?" he asked, polite even now.

The officiant stepped aside as if released from a spell. "Please," he managed, voice too loud in the hush.

Adam turned to face the guests. The sky had the gall to still be beautiful. He cleared his throat—twice, because the first one didn't catch—and tried a smile that felt like tightrope walking.

"Hi," he began, lifting a hand in a helpless little wave. "I'm Adam. For those of you who don't know me, I'm—well, I'm the guy who usually makes the worst toast at the end, so this is... great timing."

A few people made the noise polite people make when they can't tell if they're allowed to laugh. Most didn't.

Adam swallowed. "I, uh—" he looked down the aisle where the gate had stopped moving. "On behalf of the families, I want to say how deeply sorry we are for the shock and the confusion. This is... obviously not what any of us expected when we woke up this morning. Or... ever." He offered a weak grin. "We didn't plan it this way. If we had, there would've been a dress rehearsal. With understudies."

Silence held. A gull heckled them from the hedge. He nodded as if he deserved that. "Right. Not the time." He took a breath, steadied, and let himself be the man everyone trusted when ceilings caved. "What I can promise you is that she's safe. She's loved. We will take care of her. And we will take care of each other." His voice softened. "If you've come a long way, thank you. If you made a casserole, bless you."

A small murmur of nervous smiles.

"If you were here to see two people make the biggest promise a person can make—well, sometimes the bravest thing is to say the truest thing before you make the wrong promise. I know that's hard to hear right now."

He glanced to his right, to Daniel. The groan stood a step behind the arch as if he'd forgotten where to put his hands. His parents had made it halfway down the aisle and stopped, hovering, faces pale with worry. Adam's voice gentled further. "Daniel," he said, and the way he said the name made all the air lean toward kindness. "I am so sorry. You are a good man. We're... we're going to get through this with as much grace as we can manage."