A five-month Beacon Hill standoff over Westwood Station ended in dramatic, if confusing, fashion Friday afternoon, when the state Senate pushed through a beer and wine license for the development’s anchor tenant, Wegmans.

Canton’s Brian Joyce had blocked passage of the bill Thursday, and looked set to repeat the performance on Friday. However, Joyce was not present to hold the bill up when the Senate reconvened from a recess. With Joyce absent, the chair, Sen. Anthony Petruccelli, D-East Boston, and the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Marian Walsh, D-West Roxbury, pushed it on to the governor’s desk.

“I got a call from the Senate President’s office, we came back in, the bill was in front of me, and Senator Walsh moved reconsideration,” Petruccelli said. Asked why Joyce was not in the Senate chamber, Petruccelli shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

In the moments after the vote, Joyce was seen storming out of Senate President Therese Murray’s office. He didn’t respond to reporters’ questions, waving his arms in the air angrily and saying nothing.

Walsh left the chamber immediately after the vote to attend to a personal matter and was not available for comment, an aide said.

“I’m very grateful to Senator Walsh, the Senate President and for the prior efforts of Rep. McMurtry. This is a major economic development project in a time of terrible stress for the economy,” said Jay Doherty, president of Cabot, Cabot & Forbes. He said state highway engineering had “become, in effect, hostage to the second-guessing of the town of Canton.”

Doherty said on Friday afternoon that he hadn’t made any concessions that might have assuaged Joyce.