And after the ceremony was over, Paris and Peter stood at the entrance to the church with the bride and groom, the matron of honor and the best man, and they formed a receiving line as people came past to greet and congratulate them. For a fraction of an instant, it felt like being married again, and then Paris looked across the vestibule through the crowd, and saw Rachel watching her. There was a strange look of apology on her face, and not the mask of victory Paris had feared would be there. The two women nodded discreetly to each other, so that no one else could see, and Paris nodded as though to tell her she forgave her. There had been no way of stopping Peter from what he wanted, and Paris knew it. And in some ways it was more about him than either of the women. And Paris was able to accept now that losing him was what was meant to be. A lesson of some mammoth proportion, a loss she had to experience of nearly everything she loved and believed in except her children. It was one of life's enormous cruelties, yet somewhere in it she knew there would be a gift one day. She had not found it yet, but she knew it was there, waiting for her to discover it, and when she did, she would be free. And until then she was struggling to find it, and still growing stronger every day. Rachel had been part of the journey, and Peter, and even Bix, and Jean-Pierre. And one day Paris knew that she would discover why it had happened to her.
But in the meantime, this woman Peter had left her for seemed insignificant suddenly. Paris envied her less for him than for the baby they now shared. Someone handed the baby to Rachel as Paris watched them, and she was mesmerized, and saw her holding the little girl close to her. She was only four months old, and she was everything Paris wanted now. It was all that was left to her. If a man was not going to love her, then perhaps another child would one day, in addition to those she had. She had said nothing to her children, but this was what she hungered for now, it was the path she was taking, or would soon, she hoped. And then she turned away from Rachel to greet the rest of their guests, and Meg and Richard were standing only a few feet away. Paris had never seen a happier couple in her life. Her new son-in-law embraced her, looking far older than his mother-in-law, and he thanked her profusely for everything she'd done for them, and for being so supportive of their marriage. He was grateful to her, and enormously fond of her now.
“I'll always be here for you, Paris,” he whispered as he hugged her, and she believed him. She and Richard were friends now, more than just being related by marriage, and she knew he would take wonderful care of Meg. She was a very lucky girl, and she deserved it. Paris knew she'd be a good wife to Richard, and a loving mother to his children. It was wonderful to see them embark on their journey, and to share in it. She wished them an abundance of happiness for the rest of their lives, and hopefully never grief. All her prayers, as Meg's mother, were that life would be kind to them.
The wedding party left for the club a short time later, and they spent an hour posing for photographs while the guests had cocktails and laughed and chatted, and Bix wove expertly through the crowd, greeting people, meeting friends, introducing some guests to others, and keeping an eye on all the details.
All three hundred guests had been seated according to careful seating charts, and there were two long tables with escort cards on them, which Paris had checked herself at the crack of dawn that morning. Two young women were handing them out as guests arrived. Paris and Peter were at separate tables, and were seated as far apart as correctly possible, and Bix and Steven were sitting with her, along with a handful of her friends. There had been three gaps at her table, because she wasn't close to that many people, even after being in San Francisco for nearly two years, but she worked so hard for Bix she had no time to cultivate friendships, except with clients for a brief time until their events were completed. So they had put Richard's business partner at her table, and the matron of honor's parents, whom Paris knew from Greenwich, which made a nice group for her.
Natalie and Virginia had come out for the wedding, and Paris had scarcely had time to see them. They were leaving in the morning, so she still wouldn't, but Meg had wanted them at other tables with a large group of Peter's friends who had come out from Greenwich, so socially it was kind of a lost day. There were too many other things for Paris to do than to sit and catch up on gossip with her friends.
