Shep held himself in suspension below the waves, relishing the weightlessness, the cool, the soft pressure cushioning his ears. Two inches above his head the air was a conduit for heat and noise: the scent of fat rendering on the grill, the broiling midday sun, the disembodied laughter of family and acquaintances and everyone in between. A pair of smooth arms grabbed him from behind and jerked him to the surface.

"I have the best big brother in the world!" Rachel shouted in his ear, not as much for his benefit than that of the guests sprawled out across the beach. He took hold of her wrists and dragged her back under with him as she screamed in gleeful protest.

"Two birds with one stone," Robin reminded him a little later as Shep leaned into his shoulder and finagled an asparagus spear off the grill. Originally, he had balked at the idea of hosting the wedding party over the Fourth of July long weekend—"I don't think I have to tell you how morally objectionable it would be for a minister to have to go over his own living room with a black light come Tuesday morning"—but now, thanks to Robin's gentle reasoning, he was more or less inured to it, resigned to weather the next three days in waves.

Today, Saturday, everyone and their mother was mingling on the patio and beach post-bridal shower. Rachel and Kyle's new Tupperware sets, ice cube trays, and Le Creuset crock-pots were stacked on the chaises amid remnants of ribbon and tissue. As extraneous shower guests trickled out later that afternoon, the male cohort would make their way back to Brooklyn for the stag party, culminating, of course, at Kyle's favorite comedy club; mercifully, Shep had a ready-made excuse to retire early, needing to appear somewhat presentable for the following morning's service.

Sunday, the bridesmaids had their fitting and a series of exorbitant spa treatments ahead of them, that night likely to bleed into Monday morning with the throbbing, sickly creep of a vodka hangover. Perhaps a few of them—those without flights to catch or families to crawl back to—would rally to watch the Independence Day parade serpentine through Newhampton's sandy streets, but Shep suspected the house would be his and Robin's again in time for the fireworks.

"You two have a beautiful home," Shep heard for the fifth or sixth time, smiling and returning yet another vaguely familiar woman's one-armed hug. Rachel and Kyle stood at the end of the front walk, hand-in-hand, waving off the each of the cars as they looped around the circular driveway like show ponies taking a final turn past the judges. After the last fender had disappeared behind the hedge, Kyle let out a whoop.

"Gentlemen!" Anthony, his best man, boomed. "T minus one hour!"

There came a fraternal cheer from the pool, where the other ushers were still lazing in their swim trunks.

"Oh good, Sumi says they just hit Bohemia," Rachel announced to no one in particular. The last three bridesmaids were yet to arrive, struggling through traffic from the airport.

The patio cleared as squabbles ensued for the outdoor showers. Shep went to help the women organize the gifts; then he spotted Robin stretched out in one of the daybeds like an indolent, white-chinned tiger.

"I hate you," Shep muttered, nestling in alongside him. He felt cossetted by the wicker awning and excess of pillows.

"How unchristian of you," Robin yawned.

"You don't have to eat bar food and listen to jokes about whacking it for the next five hours."

Robin, for all his willingness to enable his sister-in-law's runaway wedding, had had no difficulty in recusing himself from the stag in fewer than five syllables: "I'll pass."

"You're salty," he breathed into Shep's hair. Shep nearly replied, "Damn straight I am," before he realized his husband was being literal.

The pleasantness of the moment disarmed him; the ocean washed his brooding from him with each withdrawal from the shore. Deserving was a product of dilution, of flushing out the chambers of one's heart to nourish the body whole. He would speak no evil when no real evil visited upon him. In his good fortune, he could range the world over like a blanketing sea.

'You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion,' he thought, feeling it deeply, like a shield of calm.

And yet, beneath the calm—

Leviathan.