We had a team of three residents and a nurse out in the gardens filling flower vases. The landscapers wouldn’t be thrilled, but I hadn’t seen Carol so animated in years, so nothing was going to rain on that parade. Let her gather flowers to her heart’s content.
Lavonda in the kitchen had insisted she would bake the cake, which turned intocakesto meet the dietary restrictions of our diverse residents. The diabetic one topped with unsweetened whipped cream was going to be a treat for some folks who didn’t get that kind of dessert often. Griffin and Harvey had gone online to order three of the most extravagant groom-and-groom toppers they could find, and the delivery had arrived that morning, just in time.
Jonas and a few others grumbled loudly about“turning the place queer”but we ignored them and added more banners.
Leaving the scene of bustling activity, I made my way down to Vicki’s room. Noreen looked up from taking vitals as I came in.
“How’s she doing?” I murmured.
Noreen tipped her hand back and forth. “She’ll make it through the wedding, seems to be resting comfortably.”
I went over to the bed, lifted Vicki’s limp hand off the covers, and squeezed gently, noting the blue tinge of her nail beds despite six liters of oxygen flowing. There was room to go higher, so I turned her tank to eight and waited for her to pink up a little. Her fingers lay flaccid in mine. I wasn’t sure how muchshe might still be hearing, but I took a minute, leaning close to her ear. “I’m sorry you’ll miss the wedding, Vicki. You’d have enjoyed it.”
When she’d first come to us after her massive stroke, she’d still been able to communicate and enjoyed bright colors and music. At least she was feeling no pain now. “You might hear the music,” I told her. “We’ll leave your door open. Griffin Marsh playing the wedding march ought to be something. Plus some guitar selections he refused to tell me about. Harvey’s a bad influence.”
I was joking, mostly. The shine in Harvey’s eyes and the gusto with which he’d plunged into the wedding prep had been worth any blowback we might get. More than once, I’d met Owen’s gaze as Griffin and Harvey had their heads together, and we’d smiled at each other in satisfaction. No regrets.
“Another hour and a bit,” I told Vicki. “Noreen will be here with you.” She’d offered to stay so I could attend without worrying or being called away. A couple of the aides who were a bit scandalized by the idea we were holding a gay wedding had volunteered to watch the other patients who weren’t coming to the lobby for the main event.
Work didn’t hold off for weddings though, so I hurried to my office to squeeze in a call with the pharmacy about a compounded medication they claimed didn’t exist this month, even though we’d ordered it every month for the last year. Once we figured out it was a change of supplier issue, I still had time to get all the paperwork completed for Anna’s transfer to the hospital tomorrow. She’d be spending four days or so there after her surgery, and I made sure they had all of her complex medical history in a readable format. Sonny was going in too on Friday,just a brief trip for an MRI, but I double checked we’d booked medical transport with all the support he needed.
A knock on the doorframe made me look up. Griffin stood there in a tux and he took my breath away. Just plain,Holy shit, look at that man!
He raised an eyebrow. “Coming to the wedding in scrubs?”
I peered down at myself, then glanced at the clock on the screen. “No. Crap! Give me five minutes?”
“You probably have ten. Bringing all the residents in is taking longer than we thought.”
“I should’ve been there to help.”
“Trust your people. They’re doing fine. Just a little slow.”
“How about you?” I got up and went to him, setting a hand on his chest below a white rose he’d tucked into his buttonhole. “Nervous about public speaking?” The officiant site he’d signed up with had a lot of sample services and speeches on it, and he’d spent an evening paging through them, reading out a few good lines here and there while I watched a ball game on his TV.
“Nah, that’s pretty much my bread and butter. At least this time, I don’t have to make it rhyme or set it to music.”
“Hah. When you put it like that, yeah, you’ll rock it.” I touched his cheek, letting my fingertips drift along his cheekbone above the neatly cropped beard.
Griffin leaned in as if to kiss me, then stopped and said, “You were getting changed.”
“Oops. Yeah, I was.” I moved back. “The sight of you in that tux scrambled my brains.”
He grinned. “You like?”
“Wear it home tonight and I’ll show you just how much. I’ll peel it off you bit by bit.”
“Crap. Don’t give me a stiffie when I have to stand up in front of women who could be my grandmothers.” Griffin gestured me to the door. “Come on, get dressed. Ten minutes.”
I didn’t have a tux, never having been a Grammy nominee. My good suit jacket was tight across my chest and I chose breathing over closing the lowest button. Still, checking in the small mirror of the staff bathroom, I figured I’d do. I ran a comb through my hair, though nothing ever really tamed those carrot-colored curls, and tidied up my beard as well. Swapped my ortho shoes for leather lace-ups, washed my hands, and headed for the hum of voices coming from the main room.
The place had been transformed in the past hour. Enough vases of flowers lined the walls to make me plan to be elsewhere when the garden crew arrived on Monday to see the devastation we’d left. Every resident who wanted to attend was there, creating a traffic jam of armchairs, wheelchairs, and a few beds. Several men in suits and a couple of older women whom I didn’t recognize had to be Owen and Harvey’s friends from the outside.
Griffin dodged through the crowd and came up to me. “You clean up pretty fine yourself.”
“Is there anything you need me to do?”
“Nope. Well, yeah, maybe. We’re bringing Harvey up front in his chair but he said he’d be damned if he’d get married in a wheelchair. So we set up those two wingbacks for the men of the hour, kind of like thrones.” He pointed at a pair of chairs angled toward each other, draped in royal red fabric. Familiar royal red.
