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PROLOGUE
BY THE TIME SHE WAS EIGHT, MACKENSIE ELLIOT HAD BEEN married fourteen times She’d roos, three cats, and a rabbit
She’d served at countless other weddings as roomsman, best man, and officiant
Though the dissolutions were invariably aes lasted beyond an afternoon The transitory aspect of e came as no surprise to Mac, as her own parents boasted two each—so far
Wedding Day wasn’t her favorite ga the priest or the reverend or the justice of the peace Or, after attending her father’s second wife’s nephew’s bar mitzvah, the rabbi
Plus, she enjoyed the cupcakes or fancy cookies and fizzy lemonade always served at the reception
It was Parker’s favorite ga Day always took place on the Brown Estate, with its expansive gardens, pretty groves, and silvery pond In the cold Connecticut winters, the cere fires inside the big house
They had sis, star-crossed elopements, circus themes, and pirate ships All ideas were seriously considered and voted upon, and no theeous
Still, with fourteenDay
Until she experienced her seminal moment
For her eighth birthday Mackensie’s char and mostly absent father sent her a Nikon caraphy, and initially pushed it aith the other odd gifts he’d given or sent since the divorce But Mac’s mother told
her mother, and Grandma muttered and complained about “feckless, useless Geoffrey Elliot” and the inappropriate gift of an adult cairl who’d be better off with a Barbie doll
As she habitually disagreed with her grandmother on principle, Mac’s interest in the ca for the su in her retirely believed she belonged—Mac hauled the Nikon around with her She toyed with it, experimented She took pictures of her room, of her feet, of her friends Shots that were blurry and dark, or fuzzy and washed out With her lack of success, and herdivorce froan to wane Even years later she couldn’t say what pro to Parker’s that pretty su Day
Every detail of the traditional garden wedding had been planned Ee their vows beneath the rose arbor Emma would wear the lace veil and train Parker’s mother hadand affable golden retriever walked her down the garden path to give her away
A selection of Barbies, Kens, and Cabbage Patch Kids, along with a variety of stuffed aniuests
“It’s a very private ceremony,” Parker relayed as she fussed with Emma’s veil “With a small patio reception to follohere’s the best man?”
Laurel, her knee recently skinned, shoved through a trio of hydrangeas “He ran away, and went up a tree after a squirrel I can’t get him to come down”
Parker rolled her eyes “I’ll get hi It’s bad luck Mac, you need to fix Eet Mr Fish out of the tree”
“I’d rather go swi
“We can go after I get married”
“I guess Aren’t you tired of getting married?”
“Oh, I don’t ’s so pretty”
Mac gave Emma the clutch of dandelions and wild violets they were allowed to pick “You look pretty”
It was invariably true Emma’s dark, shiny hair tumbled under the white lace Her eyes sparkled a deep, deep brown as she sniffed the weed bouquet She was tanned, sort of all golden, Mac thought, and scowled at her own milk white skin
The curse of a redhead, her ot her carroty hair froe and skinny as a stick, with teeth already trapped in hated braces
She thought that, beside her, Eypsy princess
Parker and Laurel ca with the feline best man clutched in Parker’s arms “Everybody has to take their places” Parker poured the cat into Laurel’s aret dressed! Emma—”
“I don’t want to be maid of honor” Mac looked at the poofy Cinderella dress draped over a garden bench “That thing’s scratchy, and it’s hot Why can’t Mr Fish be maid of honor, and I’ll be best man?”
“Because it’s already planned Everybody’s nervous before a wedding” Parker flipped back her long brown pigtails, then picked up the dress to inspect it for tears or stains Satisfied, she pushed it at Mac “It’s okay It’s going to be a beautiful ceremony, with true love and happy ever after”
“My mother says happy ever after’s a bunch of bull”
There was a moment of silence after Mac’s statement The unspoken word
divorce see in the air
“I don’t think it has to be” Her eyes full of sy Mac’s bare arm
“I don’t want to wear the dress I don’t want to be a bridesmaid I—”
“Okay That’s okay We can have a pretend maid of honor Maybe you could take pictures”
Mac looked down at the ca around her neck “They never coht”
“Maybe they will this tirapher”
“Take one of me and Mr Fish,” Laurel insisted, and pushed her face and the cat’s together “Take one, Mac!”
With little enthusiasm, Mac lifted the camera, pressed the shutter
“We should’ve thought of this before! You can take for the cere the Cinderella costuood, it’ll be fun You need to go down the path with the bride and Harold Try to take soo!”
There would be cupcakes and le later, and fun It
didn’t rand for the camera
It didn’t ain, or that her stepfather, who’d been okay, had already moved out
It didn’t matter that happy ever after was bull, because it was all pretend anyway
She tried to take pictures of E the files of her thumb, like always
When the music started she felt bad that she hadn’t put on the scratchy dress and given Erandmother had put her in a bad mood So she circled around to stand to the side and tried harder to take a nice picture of Harold walking Earden path
It looked different through the lens, she thought, the way she could focus on Emma’s face—the way the veil lay over her hair And the way the sun shined through the lace was pretty
She took an the “Dearly Beloved” as the Reverend Whistledown, as Emma and Laurel took hands and Harold curled up to sleep and snore at their feet
She noticed how bright Laurel’s hair was, how the sun caught the edges of it beneath the tall black hat she wore as groom How Mr Fish’s whiskers twitched as he yawned
When it happened, it happened as rouped under the lush white curve of the arbor, a triangle of pretty young girls Sohtly, tilting the camera just a bit She didn’t know it as coh the lens
And the blue butterfly fluttered across her range of vision to land on the head of a butter yellow dandelion in Emma’s bouquet The surprise and pleasure struck the three faces in that triangle under the white roses almost as one
Mac pressed the shutter
She knew,
knew, the photograph wouldn’t be blurry and dark or fuzzy and washed out Her thu the lens She knew exactly what the picture would look like, knew her grand after all
Maybe happy ever after was bull, but she knew she wanted to take more pictures of moments that
were happy Because then they were ever after