There's this lesser-known painting by Jean Renoir called
La Famille - The Family. While it's not his most genius work (you're probably used to seeing scores more people in one of his paintings), I've always liked it. And I think it's because you don't know how the kids in the painting are related. Are they cousins? Siblings? Aged down parent-children mixes from a completed immortal dynasty? We'll never know.
All that is important is that they are family.
The night before my mother's wedding was a heightened one. Champagne decided she was, in fact, a personal stylist and locked herself and Mom up in their room.
Eureka and i made fun of them for a bit and then Eureka suddenly remembered her mom had moved out and became a bit distant. It's strange, not having Eden in the house anymore, but it's something we'll all need to get used to soon.
Besides, it's not as though she's gone for any bad reason.
I didn't mention it because I knew it'd upset her, but when Eureka goes off with Rosetta to Moonlight Falls, I think I'll miss her the most. She was my little partner-in-crime once upon a time. She was the one who was most like me.
We shouldn't have favorites, but Eureka is mine. Champagne is Mother's with their properness and style. Allegra is Eden's with their enthusiasm and energy. Mata is Rosetta's and they share that love of observation and perfecting every skill they undertake, every subject they find intriguing. And between all of that, we still love all of the others to the very top brim of our hearts.
This was what was buzzing through my mind while I waited for Goop outside of the bistro. I was so preoccupied, I didn't even hear him approach. You'd think he was still a ghost.
Just in case he still is, I react with the same heart-leap every time I see him. I jump. I jump like I did the night we got married, the night he pulled me from the altar of another life and into the right path. And he always catches me. He always will.
Both Daddy and Goop have gone clean-faced for their second youths. They conspired this together, deciding the world should see the full extent of their "masculine beauty" this time around. Presumably over a game of chess like the old days.
Lots of blasts from the moodlet manager kept Goop and I going through that night so we could be at the wedding first thing. That was the night we decided we'd buy a house with Emmett and Ophelia here on the island as a base, but that the four of us had a greater adventure ahead.
Giggling and glowing from the aftermath of an indecent trip to the back of the Sunlit Tides theater, we made it to the beach by sunrise, seeing the whole family waiting and resplendent in anticipation.
"Mona Lisa!" Mom said. "Goodness. It's so strange, but I do believe I'm nervous. Perhaps I should've just done this in private."
"Oh, Mama," I smiled. "You deserve your white wedding. Your moment in the spotlight. Without you, none of us would be. None of us would know how to navigate the world. Despite our differences, you should know you are the most important thing in my whole life. You are everything I aspire to be."
She inhaled a little shakily. "It's not traditional," she said. "But ... would you give me away? You are the first person in this whole world that I truly belonged to. And you are the one by my side for the longest."
And of course I agreed.
"Bit like slave labor, giving people away," Freddie muttered nearby.
"Oh, can it, Daddy," Eureka said, slapping his arm and making them both laugh.
When I passed my mother, glowing in white, off to my father, handsome in his black tuxedo, I looked him in the eye and I said, evenly, "You take care of her, okay?"
"I promise, Pea," he said back with a hint of the grin I thought I'd forgotten.
It was in that moment that Champagne completely lost it.
The others cooed approval as the two of them looked at each other, and began to speak, the sun creating halos around them. We struggled to listen against Champagne's bawling. I suppose the poor thing has never seen a wedding before. Or even really known a married couple.
"Coralie," Daddy said. "You gave me the life I'd always dreamed about. You gave me a home. A purpose. It is more than anyone could possibly deserve to have a second lifetime with a woman like you,"
"If that weren't enough, standing there as beautiful as anything in this world are the daughters you gave me. Two girls that filled my whole heart."
"You are my universe. Always. This I promise."
"Oh, Camillo," she said, very softly. "I'm so lucky to have found you. Every single thing that happened in that house for hundreds upon hundreds of years was because of you. Was descended directly from you. You took a chance on me and no one had ever done that before.
"I am yours now. Always. This I promise."
And then they were, again, man and wife. My parents. My beautiful, heart-wrenching parents.
I touched Goop's back lightly from behind. Freddie seemed to view the whole thing with a manner of anthropological detachment.
Allegra, however, did not conceal her enthusiasm in this union.
We went home to cut the cake and to exchange the gifts. Carlotta vanished en route, and Goop got a text saying she was in labor. In a flash of panic, he cracked a grin at me and said, "Imagine that. I'm a brother," and flew out the door.
When we got home, Mata and I had hung the gently restored painting of Monte Vista that Mom got for Dad as a wedding gift in the dining room.
Not to be outdone, Dad retrieved his gift for mom from a mysterious driver in the yard.
This is Watson. My mother's new BFF.
It's unclear how Dad felt losing such a big chunk of his wedding night to such a little dog. As for Mom, I'll have to ask her which kiss was more profound.
Her first smoochie with Watson:
Or her moment of wedded bliss:
