Chapter 1 - Twenty-Two Steps
My brother asked whether he could take over Dad's job. We'd been sitting at the kitchen table close to an hour by then, and he kept starting sentences only to let them trail off unfinished.
That's simply how Desmond operates whenever something actually matters to him. He'll stare at the table, run his thumb along the side of his mug, say "So..." three separate times, and then quietly decide the thing can wait a while longer.
That particular night, it couldn't wait.
"Can I do Dad's job? At the wedding."
I assumed he meant handing out programs at the door. "What job?"
He looked at me like I was being deliberately obtuse. "Walking you," he said. "Down the middle part."
The aisle.
Dad had been gone eleven months by then. Desmond is thirty-one, has Down syndrome, and the two of them had been inseparable his entire life — Saturdays spent together in the garage, the same battered coffee mug, the same terrible jokes that landed for absolutely nobody except the two of them.
Dad taught him how to change motor oil, sharpen garden tools, make grilled cheese without scorching the pan. Desmond, in exchange, taught Dad how to stop taking himself quite so seriously.
When Dad died, something in both of us went quiet in a way that never fully came back.
For eleven straight months I'd avoided even thinking about who would stand at the back of that church with me, because every single answer I came up with felt like the wrong one. Uncle Nathaniel — too obvious a substitute. Mom — she'd be crying before we even reached the first pew. Walking alone — technically possible, sure, but every version of that plan still ended with me noticing, sharply, exactly who wasn't standing there.
Then Desmond asked.
I pressed a hand over my own mouth. He waited.
"Beatrix?"
I nodded, because speaking wasn't quite available to me yet.
"Yes."
His whole face transformed. "Yes?" he repeated, like he needed to hear it confirmed a second time.
"Yes, Desmond."
He shot up so fast his chair scraped hard across the floor, then wrapped me in a hug tight enough to genuinely hurt. "I won't go too fast," he promised into my shoulder.
I laughed. "Good."
"I practiced with Dad before."
I pulled back. "What?"
"For your wedding."
"You practiced with Dad?"
Desmond shrugged, like the whole thing was obvious. "A long time ago." Apparently Dad had once joked with him, years earlier, that whenever I finally got married, Desmond would need to make absolutely sure he didn't trip over his own feet walking beside me.
I started crying again. He looked genuinely alarmed by that.
"Did I say it wrong?"
"No."
"Then why are you crying?"
"Because apparently that's simply what brides do."
He accepted that explanation without further argument.
Desmond started practicing that very same week. My uncle told me about it later — he'd caught Desmond walking the upstairs hallway with one arm extended, holding nothing, quietly counting each step aloud. One, two, three. Pause. Turn. Again.
Practicing at home wasn't nearly enough for him, though. He called the church himself, without telling a single one of us, to ask the priest exactly what he was supposed to do once we reached the front.
Father Elias called me afterward. "Your brother is taking this extremely seriously."
"I know."
"He asked whether he bows before handing you over, or after."
I laughed. "What did you tell him?"
"That nobody is actually handing you over to anyone."
Apparently Desmond objected on the spot. "Dad said that's what it's called."
So Father Elias worked out a compromise. He walked me through the final plan — Desmond would guide me to Julian, shake his hand, hug me once, then take his seat beside Mom. Desmond wrote the whole sequence down and practiced that too, word for word.
May you like
Whenever anyone raised a doubt, he had exactly two words waiting for them. Mom worried the crowd might overwhelm him. "I practiced." Uncle Nathaniel wondered whether the music might throw off his timing. "I practiced." Julian gently asked whether he wanted someone seated beside him in case he forgot where to go. Desmond just frowned. "I practiced."
Everyone said yes in the end. Mom cried. Julian said it was the only version of that day that actually made sense to him. And for a while, that settled it entirely.
