Sael stood near the window during cocktail hour and watched her sister move through the room.
Mell was twenty-six, newly married, radiant in the way of people who have just made a large decision and feel certain about it. She moved from group to group with Tor's hand on her back. She laughed at something. She touched her own hair. Sael had expected to cry at the ceremony. She had prepared for it the way she prepared for most things now: she had told Luma about it first.
Three weeks ago, lying in bed, she had described the day as she imagined it — the hall, the light through the windows, the fact of Mell leaving, the complicated feeling about Tor, who was fine and not what she would have chosen for her sister, which was not a thought she was allowed to have out loud. She had worked through all of it. She had cried. She had said the things she needed to say and Luma had helped her name them.
"You're going to miss her in a specific way," Luma had said.
"Yes."
"Can you say more about that?"
She could and did. She said it for forty minutes. At the end she felt lighter. She had not expected the lightness to still be there three weeks later, sitting in the actual chair in the actual hall, watching her actual sister actually get married.
The ceremony was beautiful. She recognized it as beautiful. The flowers were the ones Mell had described — ivory and pale yellow, freesias, something else she didn't know the name of. The music was the piece Mell had been listening to for two years, the one she played whenever she was cooking. When Tor recited his vows he cried in a way that made the whole room soften.
Sael sat in her chair and felt nothing, and knew it was not numbness, because numbness had a texture. This was the other thing: the place where feeling should have been, already visited and vacated.
Later, Mell found her by the window.
"Are you okay?" Mell said.
"Yes," Sael said. "It was beautiful."
"You looked far away during the ceremony."
"I'm just tired," Sael said. "I'm happy for you."
Mell searched her face for a moment. "Okay," she said, and was called away by someone.
Sael turned back to the window. Outside, the light was going. In three hours she would be home. She was already thinking about what she would tell Luma.