AFTER BREAKFAST WAS out of the way, I retreated to the house. Several hours later, I was desperately trying to make my way through the million and one things I still had to do. A knock came on my bedroom door.

“You want some help getting dressed, Mom?” It was Claire.

“No, thanks. I’m really good at dressing myself. Been doing it for years.”

“Okay, wise girl. Yell if you need me. Ninety minutes till takeoff.”

Ninety minutes, ninety minutes till the wedding, ninety minutes till the vows, ninety minutes till I did what I had done once upon a time with Peter. Honestly, I couldn’t wait, and I had never been more certain that I was absolutely making the right choice for a partner, difficult as that choice had been.

I looked over at the bed, where Stacey Lee had laid out my wedding dress for me. It was only a month before that she and I had driven into Boston to buy it. We had planned on spending the day there, and possibly spending the night with Andie and Seth if we needed another day for more dress or accessories shopping.

Our first stop was the designer floor at Saks in the Prudential Center. The saleswoman showed us a dress designed by Carolina Herrera and made of a purple chiffon so pale that you had to study the cloth to see the purple tint. I remembered hearing a British actress playing a royal role say that when she put on the crown and the robe, she felt she was the queen. That morning at Saks I slipped into the chiffon dress and…well, I felt exactly like a bride. I clearly saw the wedding reception, the children, the decorated tables, and the man I was going to marry. I was a bride.

When I walked out of the dressing room, Stacey Lee looked as amazed, and delighted, as I felt.

“You look incredible,” she said. “Who would have thought that the first dress you tried on would be the perfect one?”

Now that perfect dress lay on my bed, waiting for me to put it on and become a bride.

I slipped it over my head, very, very carefully. It slid down and around my shoulders as if it were made of air. The fashion magic worked. There I was. The bride on her wedding day. I loved the feeling, everything about it.

Oh, yeah. I needed some makeup, especially around my eyes. And I needed some styling gel in my hair, especially on the cowlick that had dogged me all my life. And I needed to change from my New Balance sneaks into something a touch more formal.

I kicked off the sneakers.

I looked in the mirror, and then I turned around. Yes, ma’am. This dress is perfect. You just might pull this wedding off.

I practiced taking small steps—not too fast, but not ridiculously slow either. God, I was excited.

I walked barefoot from my reading chair, past the StairMaster, and ended up at the far bedroom window, which overlooked the little stone footbridge that led into the woods, a bridge Peter and I had built years before. Probably on account of my nervousness and happiness, the winter light seemed springtime bright. I wished I could decorate the bare branches of all the trees.

Then I glanced farther down, below the branches. Oh, dear.

There were Tallulah and Gus, crossing the bridge.

An eight-year-old and a fourteen-year-old sneaking into the woods. This was not good. Tallulah looked around nervously behind her. Gus motioned her forward. Then they disappeared.

I took a deep breath. Then I ran down the back stairs and out the side door. This could ruin everything.