She takes the single scan image she’s given for free on the NHS straight to her night job, without looking at it as she changes buses, and it’s only when she’s getting out her cleaning supplies, taking care to avoid the sealed bags of satin and silk wedding dresses, that an overwhelming earthquake of raw and unadulterated emotion trembles through her. She drops the cleaning supplies, taking a deep and rasping breath.
They’re having a girl. Agirl. A daughter. Tom is having a daughter and he’ll never know.
Abruptly, Ari hates the wedding dresses, sitting on their pretty white hangers in their alabaster white bags. She hates them with the burning passion of a thousand hot suns, seeing in them a future that she and her daughter will never have.
Tom isn’t coming back,Ari thinks bleakly, doubt creeping through her. He’s never coming back for her. If he really loved her, he wouldn’t have left her, not for anything. If he really wanted her, he would have left her with a number, an address... anything other than just a wretched playing card, tired and old.
A token isn’t a future, Ari realises. A token is just an empty promise.
He offered to marry her, but he never meant it, Ari tells herself, tears once again falling from her eyes. She’ll never wear one of these pretty dresses to marry Tom. She’ll never stand by him in a church, vowing to stay with him forever. Ari’s sadness, acute and miserable, stretches forth into the future too, as she realises with a stab of pain that their daughter, if she ever marries one day, will never have her father by her side.
She’s truly alone in this. Placing a hand on her belly, Ari cries again. It’s not just her now. It’s them. Them, and they’re truly alone. Alone, as she’s always been, and as she always will be.
She doesn’t feel the arm that sneaks around her shoulders, holding her as she sobs. She doesn’t register the male presence, making soothing and sympathetic noises in her ear. It’s only when her cries subside, transforming from sobs into soft hiccups, that she startles to find Luis beside her. She jumps up, hurriedly wiping at her eyes, taking a few steps back and adjusting her uniform, hoping it covers her bump.
“Ari,” Luis says, his eyes sweeping over her.
Ari goes pale, dismay causing her stomach to sink. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, “I’m really sorry.”
“You should probably be sitting down,” Luis remarks, taking in the rounded bump of her belly. “Right?”
She nods sadly. “Right. I am sorry,” she says again, her head down, and she can feel her brother-in-law’s eyes upon her.
“No need to be sorry,” he replies jovially. “Have you seen this place since you started? Spotless. I love it. And you’re having a baby. That’s wonderful news.”
At that, Ari looks up, giving Luis a small smile.
“That’s better.” Luis smiles back. “I’m going to call Sebastian. We should go out for dinner. Celebrate. Oh, and maybe have a little talk too.”
“I didn’t mean to cry,” Ari begins to explain, but Luis holds up his hands good-naturedly.
“Crying women in a wedding dress studio is kind of par for the course,” he tells her. “My brides cry, their mothers cry, their sisters and aunts cry, grandmothers cry... and I guess whoever gets my bill cries too. Come on. Let’s go out and have that talk. I’ll call Sebastian, get him to meet us at the restaurant.”
Luis takes her to a nearby Mexican place, where he scowls at the menu. Salvadoran, he takes his Latin American food seriously.
“My mama would cry if she saw what they put in their tamales here.” Luis shakes his head, before waving the server over. “But their cocktails are amazing,” he adds with a wink. “Two Macuás with extra rum and a virgin piña colada.”
They make small talk until Sebastian arrives, and when her brother walks into the restaurant Ari throws herself into his arms and cries. For about five minutes he just holds her, and tells her, again and again, how everything will be okay.
Eventually, when she’s all cried out, Sebastian takes a seat and stares at her. “How far along are you?”
“I just had my twenty-week scan.”
“That’s exciting. Know what you’re having?” Luis asks, sipping at his Macuá, even while Sebastian frowns.
“Twenty weeks?” Sebastian asks. “And you’ve only just told us?”
Wordlessly, Ari pulls her scan picture from her pocket, and hands it to the two of them.
Sebastian looks at it blankly. “I don’t know what I’m looking at here.”
“It’s a girl.”
Luis grins at her. “That’s amazing, congratulations,” he says, and even Sebastian smiles.
At that, Ari’s lip wobbles, and she takes a deep breath, which is not lost upon them. She tries to regain her composure, chewing on her lip, before straightening up and tucking the scan picture back into her coat.
“Sorry,” she whispers again.
