She walked down the aisle in Marion's 1987 dress. She looked like the most beautiful version of Jillian I had ever seen in my life. Her father cried. Will, at the altar, literally staggered for a second — he took a small step back. I watched from my bridesmaid position, trying not to cry and failing, and I thought about the bathroom at the steakhouse. I thought about the group chat. I thought about Abby writing "someone has to say it." I thought about the four inches of reserve silk that Marion had known, somehow, thirty-seven years earlier, to leave in a dress she had not yet bought for a daughter she had not yet had.

The wedding was beautiful. The reception was beautiful. The eight-thousand-dollar Monique Lhuillier went to Jillian's sister, who has agreed to turn it into a christening gown for her future children. Nobody has ever officially told the guests what happened. I have been to three family dinners with Jillian's parents since the wedding, and Marion has winked at me from across the table every time we have been in the same room. Jillian has never, to this day, thanked me out loud. But at her thirty-eighth birthday in November, she gave me a bracelet engraved with the numbers "1:47 AM."