The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

she was thinking, because I was too. She’d been right, of course. Despite all my worries, I knew we’d made the right decision.

I couldn’t help but wish, however, that I’d been able to give her this kind of ceremony. Saint Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University is a hundred and five year old pile of northern Italian Renaissance brick and masonry, absolutely beautiful. The chapel was packed with hundreds of people: mostly Alex and Carrie’s family, but also Dylan’s mother and some of his other relatives, as well as dozens of their friends. Alex had six bridesmaids: her five sisters, and her roommate Kelly, with Carrie as the maid of honor. I stood beside Dylan, along with Corporal Reynolds and three of Dylan’s friends from Columbia.

Alex was radiant. She was a beautiful girl, with large green eyes framed by long brown hair, and she had a smile that lit up the room. But in truth, my eyes kept returning to the woman who had made my life matter. Something about Carrie just stole the show from everyone around her.

The priest continued on. And on. And on. This was a Catholic ceremony. I’d never attended one before, and so it was an eye opener for me. But finally, the priest said the magic words. “You may kiss the bride.”

I couldn’t help but grin. Dylan had shown up at our room at ten o’clock last night. On our wedding night, the nit. Because he had needed help. Dylan’s memory had been spotty ever since his injury. When he showed up at our hotel room door, his face was drenched in sweat.

“I know this is a bad time,” he had said. “But ... I need help.”

“Get in here, bonehead,” I said.

And then he explained it. Catholic ceremony or not, Alex and Dylan had written their own vows to each other. And Dylan was terrified that he was going to forget them when it counted the most.

When he explained the problem, Carrie’s eyes watered a little, and she caught my eye. Alex never missed an opportunity to tell the story of how he had proposed, and even though I’m not the most sentimental of guys, there was something just incredibly touching about it.

“Okay,” she said. “You can do this. Do you have it with you?”

He nodded and pulled out a couple of index cards from his back pocket. Carrie bit her lip, a smile on her face.

“Okay,” she said. “Come here.”

She stood facing him and said, “We’re going to practice this standing up, since you’ll be standing when you say it tomorrow. Pretend I’m Alex.”

 He nodded, and then said, “I’m going to try it without the notes first.”

She nodded, and I left them to it, ducking outside on the balcony, where I found Crank smoking a cigarette and casually fingering his guitar. I still couldn’t get used to the reality of having Crank Wilson as a brother-in-law, but that didn’t stop me from bumming a cigarette from him.

Anyway, the practice worked. Dylan performed flawlessly, and now the priest told them to face the congregation and said: “Now I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Dylan Paris.”

Everyone in the pews started clapping, and that was my cue. I gave the order, “Post” and started marching down the center aisle, sword slapping at my side. From the pews, several other soldiers got out of their seats and followed me out. Including Sergeant Hicks. The others were veterans who attended Columbia, who Dylan had met through the veterans outreach program there.

Outside I arranged them on the steps, just past the portico, in two lines facing each other, then took my position. Sergeant Hicks was opposite me, immaculate in his dress blues, his blonde hair cropped to less than an eighth of an inch. I kept my eyes off of him. His betrayal was palpable. But the invitations had long since been mailed when we found out he’d pointed the finger at me, and for whatever reason, he and his wife made the trip to the wedding.

Unfortunately, we were also met outside by a phalanx of reporters, some of them here to catch photos of Crank and Julia, who were more or less constantly hounded by the paparazzi, and some of them here, unfortunately, to harass me, Hicks and Reynolds. A few of them shouted questions and shot photos, but they couldn’t get closer to us than the curb, thanks to the line of off-duty police officers keeping them at bay.

I heard the recessional music from inside, and a long black limousine was waiting at the curb. Alex and Dylan would be going down the aisle now, and then into hiding while the people in the pews came out. As the first people came out, I turned my head slightly to the right and called the words, “Attention!”

All eight of us came rigidly to the position of attention, in two rows of four facing each other, and the crowd flowed by us, gathering at the foot of the stairs to the chapel. And then Carrie came out, and leaned close to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I was at the position of attention and couldn’t move. Helpless. But I winked at her. “They’re coming,” she said.

I let her get clear, and then called out, “Present ... arms!” just as Dylan and Alex appeared in the doorway.

Both rows of soldiers drew their sabers, and we held them in an arch. Alex’s eyes went round. This part of the ceremony was Dylan’s idea, and my implementation. She hadn’t known about it, which is a miracle, because I swear that girl had everything about this wedding planned down to the nanosecond.

They walked underneath the arch of swords, Dylan’s arm around her waist, and got in the limo and off they went. As I called out the order to sheath the sabers, Hicks gave me a dark, angry look.

It ain’t right (Carrie)

Moving the wedding guests from the chapel at Columbia all the way to The Surrey Hotel was