Becca pulled me aside during the cocktail hour and said: “Good toast.”
“Thanks. Yours was better.”
“Mine was the maid of honor toast, mine is supposed to be better.”
We had a drink together and watched Claire and Owen on the dance floor.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Becca asked.
“I think they’re good for each other,” I said. “Which is different from everything being okay, but it’s a good start.”
Becca nodded.
I left before the final hour of the reception. Not dramatically, not as a statement. I said my goodbyes, I hugged Claire, I shook Owen’s hand, I kissed my mother on the cheek. I got in my car in Willowmere’s gravel parking lot and sat for a moment in the quiet before starting the engine.
The barn was lit up in the distance. I could hear the music.
I started the car and drove home.
## The Months After
The six months following the wedding have been quieter than the six weeks before it, which is either progress or simply the passage of time, and I’m not always sure which.
Claire and Owen went to Portugal for their honeymoon, which had always been the plan. She posted photos on Instagram, the two of them in Lisbon and the Alentejo and the Algarve, and the photos were beautiful in the way that her Instagram is always beautiful, curated and warm and slightly golden.
I liked the photos. That felt like a small thing and also not a small thing.