I turn around and take a deep breath. I don’t know what to do.
I don’t want to say ‘yes’ or ‘I do’ or whatever it is that will bind me to Luke for forever. I’m just not ready. But how do I stop this? My window for escaping this future is narrow and ever shrinking.
Music begins to play. The double doors open, and my father clenches his jaw and looks straight ahead. We begin to move under his impetus, his arm dragging slightly against mine.
I want to shout, ‘Stop! Wait a minute!’. The urge to turn and run is so strong. I’m just about to unhitch my arm from my father’s as Luke turns his head to watch me coming down the aisle.
Instantly, I’m in trouble. His expression holds both everything I want to see and everything I dread. Against my permission, my heart skips inside my ribcage and I flush with warmth. Even though a small muscle twitches in his jaw, I can see the love and hope in his eyes. He looks at me as if I am everything he needs. Nothing more, nothing less.
My throat thickens. He used to look at me that way all the time, but I realize that, back in my normal life, I haven’t seen that look for months. Possibly longer.
A memory of Luke sitting across the kitchen table from mecomes into focus in my mind. We’d been discussing something, although I can’t recall exactly what, and I realized I’d been doing all the talking for at least ten minutes. When I glanced at him, he was staring out the French doors into the garden. At the time, I’d got angry, thinking he wasn’t listening to me, but now I feel a sudden pang as I realize there is another interpretation for that moment.
And I’d seen the same expression on his face a handful of times before our big argument on our tenth anniversary; I just hadn’t registered there was a pattern.
It was me … I was the one who hadn’t been paying attention.
Comparing how he looked then to how he looks today, I realize all the light had drained out of his eyes. Had all the love, too? I really don’t know. All I know is that, in that moment, my husband looked … sad. As if he’d given up.
I’m only a handful of steps away from the front of the room and in a few short seconds, I’ll be standing next to my groom. There’s only one way to stop this now. I have to say, ‘I don’t’ instead of ‘I do’. I have to tell the minister I know a reason why we shouldn’t be married when he asks.
My father and I come to a halt. He smiles at Luke and peels off to the left. Robotically, I turn and hand my bouquet to Hannah before she shepherds the twins onto the front pew and I catch a glimpse of the people crammed into the church – our families, our friends – all looking either happy or wistful or tearful, and then I turn back to face Luke.
If I pull the plug now, I do it in front of all of them.
A shiver reverberates through me. I meet Luke’s gaze as the rest of the congregation sits down and the minister starts his speech about love and marriage.
How can I publicly humiliate him in front of all his friends and family? The simple answer is, I can’t. I don’t have it in me. So, when the minister asks me to say my vows, words of faith and love and devotion spill out of my mouth. When Luke is told he can kiss his bride, tears spill down my face.
The women in the room make sympathetic noises as I dab my eyes, because they think these are happy tears, but I know the truth. I also know this isn’t the first difficult moment this day will hold.
I should be at the top table at my wedding reception, blissfully in love and cherishing every moment of my special day. Instead, I am in the ladies’ loos of the Lubbock Hotel in Chislehurst trying to find my mother.
It doesn’t take long, due to the loud watery sobs coming from the stall at the far end of the row. I knock on the door softly, find it unlocked, and nudge it open.
‘Mum … ?’
She’s sitting on the closed toilet lid, head buried in her hands, body juddering, and so caught up in her distress that I don’t think she’s even heard me. It’s clear that she managed to snaffle quite a few of the introductory glasses of fizz at the welcome reception. Exactly like last time. Which is why I’m hunting her out rather than attempting to enjoy the meal. The first time I lived this day, it went steadily south as the day wore on, so I’m going to do my best to change that. Even though, as part of this strange experience I’m having, I can only seem to alter minor things about my life,anythinghas to be better than what happened last time.
I gently lay a hand on her shoulder, and she jumps. When she sees it’s me, she leaps up and throws her arms around me and cries into my shoulder. I instinctively pull her close, as I have some many times before when she’s been in this state, but I can’t lie, I’m also a bit worried about her getting snot on my wedding dress.
‘It’s just s-so … hard!’ she sobs into my shoulder. ‘Seeing him … and withher.’
‘I know,’ I say calmly, because I don’t know what else I can say. Mum always gets like this at family functions when she and Dad are going to be present. I don’t understand it. They’ve been apart for sixteen years at this point, yet she can’t seem to move on.
‘H-he didn’t even say hello to me,’ she hiccups, lifting her head to look at me with bleary eyes. ‘It’s because of that bitch of a wife of his!’
‘No, Mum … It really isn’t.’ Lola just hasn’t got time for Mum’s drama. She’s always civil, if somewhat distant, with her predecessor. And I can’t blame her.
‘Don’t you take her side!’ she yells, letting go of me, then stepping back, stumbling because she’s forgotten the toilet is in her way and steadying herself on the cubicle partition. ‘You always do that! You always take your father’s side! Never mine … ’ And with that, she pushes past me and weaves her way out of the ladies, using the wall for support.
I stare after her, but I don’t argue back. There’s no point. She only remembers what she wants to remember, the things that line up with her feelings to justify them. And, of course, she doesn’t recall all the times I’ve been there for her, helping her get into bed or making excuses for her to friends, family, even her boss. I shake my head.
It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it? Never anything to do with the fact you create chaos wherever you go. That has nothing to do with why my father prefers not to interact with you unless strictly necessary.
Last time, I ran after her, comforted her. It didn’t do me any good. So, this time I’m just going to leave her to it. Besides, I think I have a plan to stop her having her ‘outburst’ later, and it’s probably a better idea to concentrate on that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
