Retta drove them over to the church. Duncan didn’t try to fill the silence, sensing she might need time to mentally prepare. Once they arrived, he assumed his role as boyfriend and took her hand in his.
“You ready?” he whispered, kissing the back of her hand.
She nodded and smiled at him as they entered the church. The foyer was bustling with perfectly dressed children who ran around and adults in vibrant colored outfits.
“Coretta! Look at you, my darling,” a woman with a pink dress and a matching hat said from across the foyer. She came over to hug Retta.
“Auntie, this is Duncan. Baby, this is my Aunt Cynthia.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Duncan said, giving the woman his biggest, brightest smile.
“Oh, Retta,” the woman said, looking between the two of them. She drew close to her niece and whispered something in her ear.
Retta laughed, monotone and airy. Nothing like her natural squeaky cackle.
When the older woman departed, Retta leaned in toward him and said, “She thinks you’re handsome, but my dress is too short apparently.”
Duncan looked at her green outfit that popped against her brown skin. Her long legs extended forever past the hem. “I disagree.”
She squeezed his hand in response.
“But I will say,” he lowered his voice, “I’ve already pictured you bent over in this dress.”
Retta didn’t even look at him. She simply dropped her head and brought a finger to her ear like she had a Bluetooth earpiece on. “Mhmm. Beelzebub? Yeah, I have a twenty-nine-year-old male for you.”
He threw his head back and laughed. She was definitely more relaxed than she had been at the engagement party.
As they continued to walk around the foyer, they stopped once in a while for Retta to introduce him to more of her family.
“The man approaching us in the red tie is my Uncle Seth,” she whispered and turned her head so her mouth wasn’t visible. “He refuses to remember what anyone in the family under the age of forty does for a living. He assumes we’re all still in school.”
“Hi, Uncle,” Retta said, turning back around and smiling at the stocky man with thin glasses.
“Oh, Coretta, I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s school going?”
Duncan smiled.
Retta shrugged and steered him into a brief conversation about some sporting game before they exited that conversation as well.
Mrs. Majors appeared from somewhere in the crowd and advanced toward them. “When did you get here?”
“A few minutes ago,” Retta said to her mother.
Mrs. Majors looked at him. “It’s nice to see you again, Duncan. You’ll need to come to dinner soon so we can actually have a proper conversation.”
“I’ll have to look at my schedule,” he said, feeling a bit bad about the fact that he already knew there wouldn’t be a dinner.
Satisfied with his response, Mrs. Majors squeezed both their arms and left to talk to others.
Meanwhile, the two of them headed to the auditorium to grab their seats.
“Left is for the bride, the right side is for the groom,” an usher said as he handed them programs in the shape of fans and two vials of what Retta told him was bubble solution.
“For after the ceremony when they walk out of the church,” she elaborated.
Immediately inside the sanctuary, there was a large framed photo of Irene and Chris that Retta stopped to study.
Duncan wished he was a mind reader. “You okay?”
