After Forever Ends (55 page)

I was shocked at Merlyn Pierce, though. He’d grown up for sure. My husband and I were standing in the churchyard when Oliver suddenly turned away from me and bolted toward the road shouting, “I’ll stop the world and melt with you, Merlyn Pierce!”

There was a gigantic black man standing in the middle of the street with his arms held wide open, “You see the difference and it’s getting better all the time, Oliver Dickinson!” He bellowed.

“There’s nothing you and I won’t do, Merlyn Pierce!” A second later they were embracing, banging each other on the back. Merlyn had Oliver in a bear hug, swinging him off the ground, even though Ollie was a good four inches taller, “Good Lord, Merlyn Pierce! It’s been donkey’s years!”

Merlyn shoved him off, “Blimey, Ollie! You haven’t changed one damn bit! Mother of God, you’re heavy, though!”

“You are!” Oliver laughed, “I see your love of pastry has caught up to you! Your head’s big as a bloody globe!”

Merlyn rubbed his belly and laughed. “Yes, it has!” He put his hand over his eyes to block the sun, “Is that Silvia?”

“Why, yes, it is!” I walked toward him, “Merlyn Pierce! You devil!”

Merlyn swept me off my feet and spun me around, “Silvia Cotton! How on God’s earth are you?” He set me down and turned, “Oh, forgive me, Darling! Oliver, Silvia, this is my beautiful wife, Penny!”

We said hello and stood out in the road for a while longer chatting until Oliver insisted that we go inside and find Alex.

Merlyn was so fat I thought he’d never fit into the church, but he managed to squeeze through. His wife was twice as big as he was, too. They both looked absolutely wonderful and they were obviously happy together.

Lance had been the only one out of us who’d seen Merlyn regularly since graduation. He ran to the back to get Alex and we all met in the sanctuary. All of us were talking and shouting, poking and pulling on each other. We could have been back at Bennington for all the laughing and swearing that was going on, in a church even, but it didn’t seem to matter since three of the four children were running wild and making more noise than we were.

“Are they yours?” Merlyn asked Oliver, “Obviously, the red head is!”

“Yes, that’s Carolena. This chap’s mine, too,” Oliver motioned to the car seat on the end of the pew where Gryffin was sleeping peacefully, “The other two are Alex’s. Cute, huh?”

Merlyn and Penny drew out photos of a lovely, chubby little nine year old daughter, Mindy, that they’d left back home in France.

“Wow!” I said honestly, “Oliver, look at this little muffin! She’s absolutely precious!”

Oliver took the photo, “Blimey, Merlyn! I haven’t seen her since she was about five! She’s a daisy! She looks like your wife!”

“Thank you,” He replied, swollen with pride. “Your children are gorgeous, Oliver! And yours, too, Alex! Who would have ever thought we’d be old dads one day?”

“I figured we’d be playing snooker in the pubs,” Alex answered honestly, “None of it was ever in my plans.”

Merlyn put his arm around his wife’s neck, “The very best things are the ones no one plans, yeah?”

“Absolutely,” The twins answered in tandem.

If we had ever mentioned children when we were students at Bennington it was more or less as a criticism of our parents for sending us off in the first place. Oliver and Alexander were there for dual reasons. The first was that it was a fine preparatory college and their parents wanted only the best for them. The second was simply that the combination of the two of them and their mischief was more than the poor pair could manage and they wanted to keep their sons out of trouble. Lucy and I went because our father lacked the ability to parent us. Lance’s father had died when he was ten and his mother felt boarding school was the most stable environment for him to be in until she could collect herself and bring him home. He had ended up loving it so much she kept him in. Merlyn, different from us, was only there because his parents were older when he was born and, having already raised three girls, they were too busy with their careers and social agendas to want to bring him up. He was tossed away, privileged style.

“Are you sending her off to school?” Alexander asked seriously.

“Oh, bloody hell no!” Merlyn shook his head, “She’s staying with me! I’ll raise my own daughter, thank you!”

“Yeah,” Oliver agreed, “Yeah, so will we. I don’t know how my parents did it. I can’t stand the idea of not seeing them through school.”

“I don’t think I could send mine off. Not Natalie anyway,” Alex had a faraway look on his face, “I couldn’t tolerate it. Although some days I consider it with Nigel. I think it might be better for him, more structure and discipline, if he doesn’t straighten up when he’s older, anyway.”

“Nigel’s a good boy,” I told him. “He’s going to be fine.”

“I hope,” Alexander agreed, “He’s just a little hot headed.”

That evoked a laugh. “Nothing like his father, I assume?” Lance, who had no children, finally found his way into the conversation.

“No, he’s much better than I ever was.”

“Isn’t that the truth, Boyo?” Oliver nodded in agreement.

The other Bennington guests were friends of Lucy, two I didn’t even know and one I only vaguely recalled. Laurie McGhee remembered me, though. “Silvia Cotton! You look wonderful!” She kissed my cheek like we’d been lifelong friends, “It’s good to see you again!”

“You, too, Laurie. How have you been?”

“I’ve been good! Oh, I have to tell my sister Margaret how wonderful you look! Actually, let’s get a photo!”

“Why a photo?” I asked.

She giggled, “I just want to put it to her is all. She was always so jealous of you! Oh, my, she started so many rumours!”

“Wait…Margaret McGhee? Peggy McGhee is your sister? Oh, yes! I do remember you! You shared a room with Lucy her second year! Laurie! Oh, my, you’ve changed! Yes, your sister hated me! She started all those rumours?”

“A fair amount of them! Oh, she was so in love with Oliver! She had a picture of him, yeah? She kept it in her room. She was convinced that she’d have him that year, but you came and stole him away! It wouldn’t have ever happened! He never liked her! ”

I shook my head. “I used to always hear her say she thought for sure we’d broken up.”

“Wishful thinking on her part! But not to worry! It’ll tell her you and Oliver are still happily together,” Laurie laughed wickedly, “And that you have lovely children, too, little ones, and you weren’t pregnant at school. She’ll die! She had a fit when I told her that Lucy was marrying Alexander. She said, ‘What is it with those Cotton girls getting everything they want?’ She’s still not married. She lives in Merryside with a cat!”

“Now that is sad,” I agreed, “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to go have a peek at my little sister.”

“Not at all! It’s her day!”

Lucy looked like an angel with her strawberry hair swept up into sparkling pins. She wore our mother’s wedding dress. It was very ornately embroidered and detailed with pearls, a white silk gown that swept the ground as she moved. On her wrist dangled a bracelet and around her neck she wore a thin gold chain with a simple teardrop pendant. “How do I look?” She asked, turning from the mirror.

“Perfect,” I told her honestly.

“Is it time?” She drew a deep breath. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

“If you’re ready.”

“I am,” She nodded. Dad took her arm and led her to the aisle.

Alexander was waiting at the altar. When he saw my sister his eyes positively lit up. He grinned like a boy with a brand new bicycle. “You look amazing,” I heard him tell her as she took his hand.

“So do you,” She replied She squirmed happily in her shoes, “Wow!”

Neither Lucy nor Alexander stopped smiling at each other, not even once, not for one second, the whole time they were being married. Alexander looked astonishingly like Oliver as he took his vows, “Lucy, I’m not good with words. I usually choose the wrong ones, but I can’t do that right now, because I’m standing here and I’m looking into your beautiful face and I can’t remember what I planned to say. You came along and you set everything that was wrong in my life right. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with Lucy Cotton and that’s odd and unexpected and, mind, it’s completely mad to think that it would have ever happened. But it’s so right, yeah?” He started to laugh, “I don’t even know what to say! I love you so much!” He leaned over and kissed her quickly, “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but right with you.”

“You weren’t supposed to kiss her,” The priest whispered.

“Oh! Sorry!” Alexander whispered back.

A ripple of laughter spread throughout the church.

Ana dabbed her eyes. Whether she was crying over the joy that her son had found true love after a failed marriage or out of relief that she finally got to go to a wedding, or that no one was pregnant, I do not know, but I was sincerely happy for her. I was happy for everyone.

“Alexander,” My sister twisted in her shoes again like a little child, “I’m gobsmacked! I had this whole thing I wrote memorized, but it wouldn’t be nearly as special as what you just said to me. So here I go without it. I’ve loved you since I was eleven years old. I loved you all those years ago when I was just a little girl and you loving me back would have landed you in prison,” They both laughed, “I loved you when you were in love with someone else. I loved you when I hadn’t talked to you in ages. I loved you when I decided you were a bumpot and I didn’t want you. But there I went and loved you again when I got off that train and I thought you were Oliver standing with Silvia. But I love you right now more than I did any of those times and I have this feeling that I’ll love you even more tomorrow. And you’re right. Spending the rest of my life with Alex Dickinson is unexpected and it is odd and mad and, Alex, I love you straight back. You and our two little muffins. With all my heart, I do. You’re my whole life and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but with you, either. Not ever.”

Our father sat in his pew with an odd look on his face and stared at Lucy. I had never realised it as a child, but considering him as an adult sees her father, I knew he must have loved Mum very much. He was glad for Lucy, but watching that dress move about in living colour brought back memories I don’t think he was prepared to deal with even after all the years mum had been gone. For a second, I wished I’d known her so that I could comfort him, but the truth was that he had held our mother hostage in his own heart and never allowed us to love her, too. She was a vague recollection to me and someone Lucy had been too young to even miss, but that day I realised that she was still my father’s mistress, a ghost he was either too weak or too unwilling to set free. It was no wonder he could not handle being too close to his daughters. We haunted him with memories of our mother.

I could not wait for him to leave and go back to Scotland where he could be far enough away that I might forget that realization and not see him as pathetic ever again.

Oliver stood beside his brother and me beside my sister as they exchanged their rings. He never lifted his eyes from mine, nor did he fail somehow to get me smiling. I knew he was remembering our own wedding, the one that had lasted all of about three and a half minutes. The constable had rattled off the ceremony as if he was going to be late to lunch and sent us packing straight away.

My goodness, I thought, I’d been in a yellow sundress and he was wearing tan trousers and a white shirt and black tie from Bennington! It was the best we’d had to wear in our rush to the altar. I was so glad we hadn’t waited to marry. Marrying him was the best thing I ever did, even if Lucy and Alex looked much smarter than we did doing it.

“I love you, Sil,” Oliver mouthed at me as Alex slipped the band on to Lucy’s finger.

“I love you, too,” I mouthed back as Lucy did the same to Alex.

“Marry me?” He raised his eyebrows and grinned wickedly.

“We’re next!” I grinned back.

The priest said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride…again!”

Alexander lifted Lucy straight off the ground and suspended her in his arms. My sister draped her arms around his neck as she met him for a kiss that lasted for ages.

Everyone stood and clapped.

When the wedding was through and everyone had left the church and was heading to their cars, Oliver and I dashed back inside like a couple of school children at play and stood together at the altar.

Oliver took my hands in his, “Just Silvia, blah blah blah. Kiss me.”

He pulled me into his arms and kissed me madly on the altar of that church, “I love you, Sil,” He said when he finally stopped, "Thank you for marrying me.”

“I’ll do it every single day, Sweetheart.”

We were at it again when someone interrupted us.

“You two have not changed one bit!” It was Merlyn Pierce who came back into the church. He was smiling, “This is the House of God, you know! Come on now, everyone’s waiting for you! Your son just puked on my wife, by the way!”

I hurried out to do damage control. Gryffin had been born with an amazing capacity for projectile vomiting. He got it from his dad and Uncle Alex.

My dad had made reservations for a nice dinner for the entire wedding party at an upscale pub in town. Dad had a quick dinner and a celebratory pint and then left off for the airport straight away. After making sure all the children had a bite, I let them go home with Oliver’s parents. I told Ana that we’d pick them up, but she shook me off, “Nonsense! How often do I get them all at once? You and Oliver have a nice night alone!”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes, have a wonderful time with your friends!”

I thanked her profusely and returned to the table where the Boys from Bennington had decided that we should all change clothes and meet up at another local pub that the twins had haunted since before they were legal. “Oh, this place is great!” Lance raved to his girlfriend. He had obviously been there before, “It’s out of control!”

The place was out of control. It was no understatement. Ollie, Alex and I used to go there when we were young and the night always ended up in some sort of trouble. Alexander and Merlyn were standing on a table leading a crowd in a rendition of a Welsh drinking song when Oliver and I entered. The place was already smoky and crowded and the dance floor was filled even without a DJ.