Something Made of Vacuum
Chapter 20: Suns and Raindrops

The wedding parade stepped off at exactly eighteen minutes to sunset, from the outskirts of Sinus Amoris village, a time calculated precisely by the wedding planner the Easterday family had hired. The bride and groom wore suits decorated with stylized suns, with patches of brown paper over their hearts. They had decided not to require any uniform dress for the Maid of Honor (Yeni), the five bridesmaids (the only five women Helene had substantially met on her first visit), the Best Man (Gregor), the groomsmen (all relatives of Tom) and the assorted cute toddlers, all of whose mothers had dressed their suits up in bright colors anyway. They danced to the music provided by the band and waved to the crowds along the streets, heading for the First Baptist Church.

The sunshades began to come down in the village, folding up, rolling up, settling down. At the precise moment the parade entered the church, the sun set, and the Night sky unveiled its benediction on them. The Earth was a sliver in the sky, blue and white and warm.

The minister stepped up to perform the ceremony. Tom and Helene held hands, then peeled off their brown stickers to reveal the shared symbol they had chose to represent their marriage to others. It was a pattern of rain drops, a stylized image which was not familiar to Moon Men and which they would have to explain over and over. They recited a little speech, alternating lines, about how they would refresh and nourish each other, wet down their marriage with shared tears of joy and sorrow, be grateful for the blessings that fall from the heavens, and other even sappier sentiments. Both of Tom’s parents cried noisily, and Helene’s parents also cried, on a telephone link with a one-and-a-quarter second delay. The wedding planner distributed their weeping to everyone.

The crowd pulled back to open up the dance floor. The groom’s attendants picked up Tom, the bridesmaids picked up Helene, and they were thrown into the sky as the band began to play.

They met at the apogee, grasped hands and whirled around their common center of gravity. They settled slowly down and their feet touched the lunar ground …

… to begin their dance together!