The townspeople who filled the church knew nothing of this drama.  They sat amidst its beauty and listened to the beautiful pipe organ that a Porter had donated to the church many years earlier. The mixture of location,  music and happiness of the occasion filled everyone with a sense that they had themselves had been blessed.

The bride’s dress was much simpler than was customary.  Although all of Kennard women, including aunts and cousins, had worked almost round-the-clock to make the dress, two weeks was not long enough to create the intricate embroidery that was expected.  However, the bride didn’t notice.  Neither did the groom.  No one in the church, except those with hard hearts, noticed.

Tina had sat in the front with her family on the bride’s side of the church, rubbing   her mother’s back when she wept from both her happiness and her loss.  Tina was happy for Hannah, who had found her mate and was able to marry him, despite the social class gap. The happiness that radiated from the couple warmed her, as it did all those who attended.  The girl, though, had watched the ceremony with some detachment.  Tina listened to her sister’s vows:

“I Hannah, take thee Aloysius, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part, if the holy church will ordain it. And thereto I plight thee my troth.”

A wedding just like this was what she had always hoped to have, what she expected to have.  This time, though, she watched the rituals and listened to prayers as if they were from some foreign culture, not as something she had seen and heard many times before.  During all of those earlier ceremonies, she had imagined herself as the bride.  Now, she didn’t and could not articulate what had changed.  She knew that she was now grown, and she wanted her own life, away from the home of the parents and sisters she loved.  She just had a sense that it would not be as it was for her sister.

Alice sat at the back of the church, dressed for the party at the groom’s parents that would follow the wedding.  She had rushed into the church at the last moment and had pushed her way through an aisle so that she could sit next to Bette.