by Linda Seed
“My Patrick problem?”
“Specifically,” Bianca said, “your how-am-I-going-to-face-a-wedding-without-parents question.”
“Oh.” Sofia sat up straighter. “Well, hit me with your idea. I’m listening.”
“You should have my wedding,” Bianca said, as though it were the obvious solution.
“Your wedding?”
“Exactly. The one I didn’t have.”
Confused, Sofia rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “Not to state the obvious, Bianca, but since you didn’t have it, it’s, you know, not a thing. How can I have a wedding that doesn’t exist?”
“You can have it because it was all planned. By Mom. It’s the wedding Mom would have planned for you—for any of us, really—if she were here.”
Sofia’s jaw fell. “You planned a wedding with Mom? When? And why? You were never engaged.”
Bianca pulled up a wheeled office chair and sat down next to Sofia behind the reception desk. The office wasn’t scheduled to open for another ten minutes.
“You remember when I was in love with Troy Davenport in my junior year?” Bianca said.
“Ugh, Troy Davenport.” Sofia rolled her eyes. “That guy was a stiff. That haircut. Jeez.”
“Yes, well, nonetheless, I was in love with him. And I told Mom I was going to marry him. So we planned the wedding.”
“You were what, sixteen?”
“About that.”
“And you planned a wedding? You only went out with him once before he dumped you for Penny DeLuca.”
“Thank you for bringing back that painful memory,” Bianca said. “Yes. I planned the wedding, and Mom helped me. It was a kind of game, or exercise, or … You know how some girls write out their imaginary married name on their notebook over and over?”
“Sure, but—”
“I didn’t do that. I selected a dress and a cake and a venue, and flowers and the hors d’oeuvres. I think Mom got into it partly because it was a way of bonding with me when I was in the middle of my teen angst phase, and partly because she’d always imagined her girls getting married.” Bianca’s eyes grew shiny, and she blinked a few times to clear the unshed tears.
“Okay, but …” Sofia’s nose crinkled. “You planned this wedding when you were sixteen? Do I have to have the Backstreet Boys at the reception?”
Bianca raised one eyebrow at her sister. “What do you take me for? I had taste even at sixteen.”
It was true. “Okay, but …”
“And it wasn’t just me. Mom and I did it together. It was a bonding thing. It was fun. We really got into it.”
“Huh.” Sofia considered it.
“Let me dig out the notebooks,” Bianca said.
“There are notebooks? Plural?”
Bianca grinned. “You’ll see.”
When they got home that night, Bianca disappeared into her walk-in closet, rummaged around for a while, and emerged with a stack of three-ring binders half as high as she was.
She plunked the pile onto her bed and said triumphantly, “Here you go. Everything you need to plan the wedding Mom always wanted for one of us.”
Martina poked her head into the room to see what they were up to. “Oh, my God. Sofia, you’re engaged?”
“No,” Sofia said.
“Then what …”
“Sofia wants to get engaged, but she has to solve the Mom problem first,” Bianca summarized. She waved toward the binders as though she were Vanna White. “Behold, the solution to the Mom problem.”
“Ooh,” Martina said.
Sofia picked up a binder and opened it. Inside were scrapbook pages filled with magazine clippings, photos, sketches, and notes. Some of the notes were in the round, looping handwriting of a sixteen-year-old Bianca, and some were in their mother’s more sophisticated script.
Each of the binders covered a different subject: dress, decorations, food, beverages, entertainment, flowers, music, ceremony. There was even one for the ring.
The one Sofia was holding was the dress binder. As she leafed through it, she found pictures of dresses cut from magazines along with notes on each one: too flouncy, or too simple, or the skirt on this one is right, but the bodice has the wrong silhouette.
One dress at the front of the book had been circled in red with the notation, This is the one!!! It was exactly the dress Sofia would have picked for herself: ivory color, off-the-shoulder boat neck, half-length lace sleeves, voluminous organza skirt. Pretty, feminine, and elegant.
“Oh, boy.” Sofia ran her fingers over the photo. She looked at Bianca. “But this was supposed to be your wedding.”
“Are you kidding? It was supposed to be me planning it, but this is mostly Mom. When the time came, I wasn’t sure how to tell her that I didn’t want it. If it suits you, Sof, it’s yours.”
Sofia looked through one binder after another, feeling her mother in each page. Her mother’s handwriting, crisp and clear; her mother’s taste in every choice; her mother’s desire to create the perfect day for her daughter. It was almost as though Carmela was speaking to her through the pictures and the notes.
A lot of the selections were just what Sofia would have chosen, but even those that weren’t were so thoroughly Carmela that she could feel her mother’s presence as she looked at them.
“Are you sure?” Sofia asked Bianca.
“Absolutely.” She gestured toward the books. “This was never me, and it was never really meant to be—it was just a fun thing I did with Mom. If this helps you break through your Patrick block, you’re welcome to it.”
My Patrick block. Sofia hadn’t thought of it that way, but she supposed that was apt enough—like writer’s block, but with romance.
If she had this in front of her—this detailed plan laid out by her mother, a plan created out of Carmela’s love for her daughters—then maybe she would have some clear vision to hold onto when she thought of her wedding instead of the empty void she’d had before.
Maybe this could work.
Sofia and Patrick were sleeping in the same bed almost every night now—about half the time at his place, and half the time at hers. But she wasn’t ready to tell him about the binders yet. She was turning all of it over in her mind, processing it.
One night when he was out at a university event with Ramon, Sofia spread the binders over the coffee table in the living room of her house. She and her sisters had just finished dinner—Bianca had made pasta, garlic bread, and a big salad—and they were sitting around by the big stone fireplace as rain pattered on the roof.
Sofia, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, her hair up in a ponytail, sat cross-legged on the sofa with one of the binders in her lap.
“How come I never knew about these?” she asked the others. “Did everyone else know but me?”
Benny was sitting on the rug with her back propped against the sofa. “I didn’t know about them, but I’m not surprised. Mom was crazy about weddings.”
That was true, but Sofia hadn’t realized she was so crazy about them that she’d planned one for someone who wasn’t even getting married.
“Well … how come she only planned Bianca’s?” Sofia asked. “Where’s my wedding plan?”
“She tried to do mine,” Martina put in. The three of them stared at her.
“She did?” Benny asked.
“Yeah, but …” Martina shrugged. “She didn’t exactly have the same taste as I do. We fought over the very first item. The cake.” She shuddered. “She wanted this giant five-tiered monstrosity with gold and white flowers and these gold curlicue things at the bottom. It was what you’d get if Liberace competed on Cake Wars.”
Sofia leaned over and sorted through the binders, then pulled one out and flipped through the pages.
“This one?” She held up a picture for Martina to see.
Martina peered at the page from across the room. “Oh, God. That’s the one. You don’t have to have that one if you do Mom’s wedding, do you?”
“No, thank goodness. Looks l
ike that one didn’t make the cut.”
“Oh, she tried to sell me on that one,” Bianca said. “I put my foot down. I might have been sixteen, but I knew if I didn’t assert myself early I’d be wearing Princess Diana’s dress and standing at the altar with ten bridesmaids.”
It didn’t take a lot of imagination to know why Carmela had not attempted to plan a wedding for Benny. Even now, Benny was wearing a Mr. Spock T-shirt with a tattoo peeking out from beneath one sleeve. Ripped jeans and a pair of Doc Martens boots completed the look. Her eyeliner was thick and dark.
When Benny one day got married, Sofia imagined it would be in front of a guy dressed as Elvis at a drive-through chapel in Vegas. If Benny and Carmela had talked weddings, one of them would have been screaming and the other would have been throwing things—and there was no telling which would be doing which.
Sofia was glad Bianca had been so accommodating and that their mother had been able to plan at least one daughter’s future nuptials. But at the same time, a voice nagged at her. Why hadn’t Sofia’s mother done this with her? Why hadn’t they had that time together? Why had she chosen Bianca and Martina instead?
A couple of months ago, Sofia would have kept the question locked inside herself, letting it simmer. But she’d come a long way.
“Why you two?” Sofia asked. “Why not me?”
“Dad made her stop,” Martina said.
This was news to all of the other three, so they turned to focus on her.
“What? Why?” Bianca asked.
“It was the fight about the cake. She and I really got into it. Mom sent me to my room, then Dad told her that the wedding planning had to stop until somebody actually got engaged.”
“How do you know what they talked about if you were in your room?” Benny wanted to know.
“I said she sent me to my room. I didn’t say I actually went.”
That made sense, and hearing the story made Sofia relax a little.
“You’re actually talking about Mom,” Martina said to Sofia. “I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about her this much since she died.”
Sofia clutched a binder to her chest. “Well … it was time.”
“It was,” Bianca agreed. “I’m proud of you.”
Sofia could feel her face reddening. “Shut up.”
38
Patrick was happy with how things were going with Sofia, except for one thing: he had an itch regarding her, a persistent, nagging need that wouldn’t seem to let him go no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.
The itch was specific in nature. He wanted—no, needed—to get down on one knee, present her with the ring she’d thought she was getting on Christmas morning, and declare his desire to spend the rest of his life with her, forever, until death did they part.
He’d said he would back off until she was ready. But wasn’t it possible that she was ready now? She’d certainly come a long way—he’d seen some major breakthroughs in her emotionally. She was talking openly to him now about her feelings, and she really did seem to be dealing with her grief over her parents.
Wasn’t it conceivable that all of that progress had prepared her to make a real commitment to him?
He knew he should be patient. He knew he should wait. But things felt so good with her that he wanted it to last forever. Wanted to declare in front of a room full of people—before God, even—that he would do whatever it took to make it last.
And he wanted to hear those same words from her.
“I think I’m going to do it,” he told Fiona on the phone on a morning in early spring, a clear, blue-skied day with birds singing in the trees and a soft wind blowing in off the ocean. “I think it’s time. I’m going to propose.”
“Oh, jeez.” Fiona’s voice filled with dread. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I know she made a bad impression at Christmas, but she was dealing with a lot of things, and—”
“That’s not what I meant. Patrick, it’s not that I disapprove of her. I don’t know her well enough to disapprove. It’s just that I worry you’re going to get hurt again. The last time she got the smallest inkling that you were going to propose—even though you weren’t—she flew all the way across the country to get away from you.”
“Okay, fair point. But things have changed.” He was sitting in a patio chair on his front porch, the sun slanting brightly through the branches of a big oak tree in the yard. About twenty yards away, a tabby cat was stalking a squirrel. Patrick stepped down into the yard, snatched up a pinecone, and threw it in the squirrel’s direction to warn it.
“It’s great that things are going well,” Fiona said, “but isn’t that even more reason to be patient and let things be? You’re happy. Maybe you should just … you know … sit there and be happy.”
“But if we can be even happier, why not do that?” The argument seemed reasonable enough to him.
“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, I guess,” Fiona said. “Just … go easy, okay?”
“Sure.” He went back onto the porch and sat down again. “What about Mom?”
“What about her?”
“Is she going to be okay, you think? With an engagement, if it happens. When it happens. Because after what happened at Christmas …”
“Mom will be fine. You know her. Whatever’s going to get her more grandkids is all right by her. She’s pretty much given up on Sean ever adopting, and I’m done having kids, so that leaves you.”
The idea of having kids with Sofia—plump little toddlers with her dark hair and espresso-brown eyes—had occurred to him more than once, but now he was almost overwhelmed by the image. He wanted it. He wanted it all.
“Do you really think it’s a mistake?” he asked.
“I don’t know. And, hell, what do I know about it, anyway? You’re the one who’s there in the relationship every day. You’re the one who’s got to make the call.”
“Right.” A surge of nerves shot through him.
“Whatever you decide to do, good luck,” Fiona told him. “I hope it works out the way you want it to.”
And if it didn’t? He pushed the thought out of his mind.
It just had to.
“Which one? We should have brought Lucy.” Patrick and Ramon were browsing the engagement rings in a jewelry store in San Luis Obispo, perusing the diamond solitaires and, as an alternative, the colorful gemstones.
They’d come here instead of looking at a jewelry store in Cambria because it was near work, and because Cambria was such a small town that if he’d shopped there, word would have gotten to Sofia within a day. Not only would that have ruined the surprise, in the worst case scenario, it also might have sent her into some kind of self-styled witness protection program complete with a fake name and forged documents.
That wouldn’t do. When he presented her with the ring, he had to be ready to do instant damage control if it turned out he’d read the situation wrong and she really wasn’t ready.
“You can never go wrong with simple and elegant.” The employee behind the counter, an impeccably groomed middle-aged woman who smelled lightly of lilacs, pulled a one-carat diamond solitaire out of a case and handed it to Patrick.
He turned it this way and that, and the overhead lights sparkled in the facets.
“Lucy would tell you to get that one,” Ramon remarked.
“You think so?” Patrick stared at the ring.
“Let’s find out.” Ramon pulled out his phone, snapped a picture of the ring, and sent it to Lucy with a text message asking whether she thought Sofia would like it.
The answer came back almost immediately:
She’d be crazy not to!!!
Patrick asked the price, and he nearly flinched when he heard it. An associate professor’s salary at a state university wasn’t nearly as much as people thought it was. He had money saved, but this would take a big chunk of it.
And it wasn’t just the money. The idea that he was really doing this—putting himself out t
here completely, whatever might come—made him feel a little shaky and weak-kneed.
“Let me think about it.” He handed the ring back to the saleswoman.
By the following day, he’d just about decided to go back and buy the ring when he received a package from FedEx that required his signature. He didn’t know what it could be; he wasn’t expecting anything.
He opened the package and found a small box enclosed along with a note from his mother.
Fiona told me what you were planning to do, and I thought you might want this. It belonged to your grandmother. Good luck, sweetheart.
He opened the box and found a gold ring with an emerald cut diamond in the center. Surrounding it was a delicate design of tiny diamonds framing the larger one. The band was studded with more miniscule diamonds in two side-by-side rows.
Had he ever seen this ring on his grandmother’s hand? He supposed he must have. It seemed very much like her, and he was struck by a flood of memories.
But what struck him even more was the fact that his mother had sent the ring to him. He’d worried that she would disapprove, after everything that had happened at Christmas. He didn’t need his mother’s approval—he would marry Sofia, if she would have him, with or without it—but he was nearly overwhelmed by gratitude that she had given him her blessing.
Giving Sofia this ring felt so much more right than giving her some generic solitaire from a jewelry store.
He had everything he needed now. All he had to do was gather his courage and ask the question.
Patrick held onto the ring for a while as he worked on a plan for asking Sofia to marry him. Should he take her to a nice restaurant and do it there? Ask her quietly in private, maybe at his place? Maybe a flash mob on Main Street?
After much consideration, he decided that doing it at her house, with her sisters there, was the best plan. Sofia was inseparable from her sisters, and he thought it might be special for her to have them present if she said yes. And if she didn’t say yes—if she had some hard emotions like she’d had at Christmas—it would be good to have them there to support her.