June arrived with the particular beauty of a New York summer that hadn't yet tipped into oppressive heat.
The kind of June that reminded you why people wrote poems about this month. Soft light. Warm evenings. The feeling of possibility that comes with the longest days of the year.
Elena Rose and James had chosen to marry in our backyard.
Not a grand venue. Not a hotel ballroom or a Manhattan rooftop or any of the places their professional accomplishments and family connections might have warranted. Our backyard, with its specific history of family gatherings, its particular associations with every significant moment we'd navigated together across decades.
"This is where it all happened," Elena Rose had explained simply when we'd asked about the choice. "Every important conversation. Every crisis navigated. Every celebration of something good surviving something terrible. This is the right place."
The guest list was, by any standard, extraordinary.
