Lily and the Octopus(20)

When it’s their turn, we climb the grand marble staircase, Meredith and Franklin first, Jeffrey and me and Franklin’s parents silently behind them. I look up at the dome. It’s supposedly the fifth largest in the world and it’s a marvel to behold. At the top of the stairs we stand in a rotunda in front of two double doors. Behind them are the mayor’s offices, where San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and supervisor and gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk were assassinated by a former colleague in 1978. I shudder when I remember this. The location seems solemn, but important.

The ceremony is simple, Meredith and Franklin holding hands in front of the judge, exchanging rings and vows. I try to manage being a combination of witness, photographer, family of the bride, and maid of honor. I take out my digital camera and snap as many pictures as I can without feeling disruptive, knowing the rest of my family will want to see them. I do everything I can to be present, even if my mind is 381 miles away.

To focus, I think of how dogs are witnesses. How they are present for our most private moments, how they are there when we think of ourselves as alone. They witness our quarrels, our tears, our struggles, our fears, and all of our secret behaviors that we have to hide from our fellow humans. They witness without judgment. There was a book once about a man who tried to teach his dog to speak a human language, to help him solve his wife’s murder. It said that if dogs could tell us all they have seen, it would magically stitch together all the gaps in our lives. I try to witness this moment how a dog would witness it. To take it all in. For the rest of my family, this wedding will be a gap in their lives, and I need to do my best to fill it.

The ceremony is perfect for my sister and her new husband—all business, no flourish. Nothing about the bride as property. No one to give her away, no mention of them being man and wife, no mention of a Christian god that none of us really believe in. They are both attorneys. The law is their church. When the judge unites them he says, “By the power vested in me by the State of California, I recognize you as married.” And just like that, as quickly as it began, the ceremony is over.

I wander to the third floor, with its peripheral balconies, to take some photographs from above. Really, I need a moment to breathe. I want to call the animal hospital, but I don’t. They won’t do what I want them to do, which is to put Lily on the phone. In her drugged-out state, on sedatives and painkillers, she won’t talk much to me anyway. Below, Meredith and Franklin descend the central staircase and I capture a lovely shot of them holding hands. I snap another of Jeffrey leaning on a marble pillar looking relaxed and handsome.

After the wedding, we head back to the Fairmont Hotel and I excuse myself to the lobby bar. The same * is there, playing the same piano. I purchase a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the bartender and get him to give me six glasses. We pop the champagne back in Meredith and Franklin’s room and I toast the newlyweds and Meredith makes a round of phone calls to break the news to my family. They go down like this: everyone is shocked, everyone offers heartfelt congratulations, and after each call she hands the phone to me. And then I get the brunt of it.

“Did you know about this?”

“How long did you know?”

“Did you put her up to this?”

“You didn’t tell me?”

“Why were you invited?”

“Is she pregnant?”

In everyone’s shock, they forget to ask about Lily. I just sip my champagne and roll with it as best I can. But inside I’m wondering why on the day of my sister’s union more people aren’t thinking about me.

My mother is on the phone last. She’s on the verge of tears; I can hear it in her voice. She would have liked to have been here. I think she’s especially hurt that Franklin’s parents were in attendance. She doesn’t see my having been the ambassador for our family as adequate balance. And she’s right. There is no one equal to a mother.

“Meredith looks really happy,” I say into the phone, trying to defuse some of my mother’s sadness. Should I have been more insistent with Meredith?

“I wrote a check for one thousand dollars and put it in the mail,” my mother says, but I’m not sure she’s talking to me.

“Excuse me?”

“For Lily’s surgery. I’m sorry that I don’t have more to contribute.”

Now it’s me on the verge of tears. “You didn’t have to . . .” I start, but I stop. It’s an incredible gesture and instead of protesting I should just be grateful. “Thank you.” I think it comes out audibly.

After the calls I snap a few more pictures of the newlyweds in front of their enormous window. The top floor has a stunning vista of the city and the bay, and I frame them with Alcatraz far in the distance, just over my sister’s shoulder. This is my silent statement about marriage. Or maybe about my own relationship with Jeffrey.

When are you back?

Afterward, we pile into cabs that race over the city’s famed hills at enormously inappropriate speeds to Howard Street to dine at a restaurant called Town Hall—the perfect bookend with our earlier errand at city hall. Town Hall is housed in a much simpler structure, brick instead of marble, red awnings instead of a dome. The sun has dipped below the sweeping hillsides and the air has turned cold. Inside, the exposed brick and modern chandeliers are warm and welcoming. I’m offered a seat between Jeffrey and Franklin’s mother.