It had always been Harriet’s dream to get married more than mine. I’ll never forget us as little girls on summer holidays, stretched out on twin beds, poring over her magazine cutouts of white wedding dresses, multi-tiered cakes and overflowing bouquets.
We would muse what our husbands’ names would be and how many children we would have. They would be born at the same time, so they could grow up together as best friends. Just like we had.
At that age, the future was an inevitability, controlled by our choices and the confidence that life would always be the way we manifested.
I’m sure things weren’t always perfect, but thinking back to our childhood summers together is like a series of joyful montages. Building sand castles just to knock them over. Playing tricks on our parents while they settled into long, lazy dinners. Cackling at ourselves getting dumped in the waves on our boogie boards, board shorts falling down to our ankles. Nights staying up late side by side in the dark, whispering about boys and school and our secrets.
The day we got married at the coast was one of the typical, silly things we did together – an idea that seemed to stem from both of us as if we were one organism. I remember sneaking into my parents’ bedroom and giggling as we draped ourselves in silk nighties and scarves, before traipsing into the garden to find fistfuls of flowers.
We stood on the deck in front of the water and did our best job of pretending to act very seriously in front of my parents and grandmother, who watched on, bemused but happy for us. When it came time to kiss the brides, we pecked and made faces, falling into hysterics.
I never thought that was the closest Harriet would come to a real wedding, that her future was outside both of our control.
My best friend passed away in a horrible accident, leaving the world in a hospital bed surrounded by flowers. She was 21.
I remember her every year I return to the beach like we both were that long-ago summer – two girls tied at the hip, marching through life, in love with the world and each other.
