“Alright,” Mike said, immediately changing his plans. “We’ll change there.”
“You still want to go and see your dad first?”
“Yeah. You, uh. You want to come?”
Stephen had only been once, way back when they’d started dating. Mike went every few weeks, and for the big occasions like Christmas and birthdays. But Stephen steered clear, not really one for that kind of remembrance.
“Do you want me to?”
Mike shrugged. “Don’t mind.”
“How about I wait in the car?”
“Yeah, okay.”
They stopped by the supermarket for some flowers—some yellow carnations that Mike thought were hideous but were his dad’s favourites for some reason—and then headed up to the church. It was an old stone creature, brooding on the side of the main road through Attercliffe, where Mike’s dad had been brought up. There were Parrys scattered throughout the graveyard, and Mike’s dad had a prime spot, raised on a little hillock and sheltered by a great yew tree. Perfectly tended. Never, as the words insisted on the stone, forgotten.
Stephen parked up and waited, turning the engine off and getting his latest book out of the glovebox. Mike kissed him on the cheek, always feeling a bit oddly fragile here, and got out with the flowers.
It just seemed…right, really.
He worked in silence for the first ten minutes, clearing off the old flowers, trimming the stalks on the new ones to fit, polishing any grime and muck off the headstone until the words gleamed. Someone else had been recently, a wreath of lilies laid on the foot. Mike moved it to the head, propping it up under the golden RIP, and sat back on his haunches to admire his handiwork.
Then swallowed.
“Morning, old man.”
Mike wasn’t the religious type. Dead was dead. His old man couldn’t hear him, wasn’t watching over him, didn’t exist. His bones were in the ground, and the tree had probably been fertilised by his rotting body for a good few months after the funeral.
But there was no denying that it had helped, when he was younger, to come to the graveside and vent at the empty air. Nobody could hear him, but then nobody needed to be listening in order for Mike to talk and feel better. He didn’t have to worry about being judged. He didn’t have to concern himself with appearances. He could say whatever he wanted, have a bit of a cry if he needed, and feel better about it.
It had been somewhere to unload the grief, and ever since, it had been somewhere to remember.
Death, after all, wasn’t tough on the dead. It hit the living hardest.
“It’s Mam’s big day,” Mike said. “She’s finally marrying Leonard. So reckoned I ought to pop up and say hi before we head down there.”
He could have said a number of things. How the wedding didn’t make Leonard his dad. How he’d never replaced Dad. How Dad couldn’t be replaced. He could have talked about how things were still hard without him, how as much as he liked Leonard and Vikki, he would have traded them in a heartbeat not to have lost his dad.
But why?
He was heading towards forty, and time had formed a scar over the wound. Still there, but without the pain. Still there, but unchanging all these years.
He knew it. And his father wasn’t here to need to know it.
“Miss you,” he said finally, and got to his feet. “Love you.”
They were both unchanging, too.
He took his time winding his way back to the car, though. The Parrys hadn’t really stayed in touch with him and his mam after his father had died. He had a few great-aunts scattered here and there amongst the tombstones. His nana’s grave was crumbling and forgotten. He found a child grave he’d never noticed before, little Edith Parry, from nearly a hundred years ago. Maybe he ought to make like Stephen, and figure out his family history. Maybe there was a preacher man somewhere way back when.
Or maybe, he thought as he got back into the car, he should only look forward.
“Okay?” Stephen asked.
“Yeah. C’mon. Let’s get cracking.”
Stephen reached over to squeeze his hand before putting the car into gear.
“You know,” he said quietly as they peeled out of the awkwardly-angled gate and into the road. “I would have liked to have met him.”
Mike chuckled. “Don’t think he’d have been too keen on you.”
“No?”
“Nah. Bit conservative.”
“But you like me. So…”
“So he’d have begrudgingly tolerated you,” Mike said, and smirked. “You’re Scottish, after all. Foreign muck.”
“Oi!”
Mike patted a bony knee at a set of traffic lights. “He’d have gotten used to you. Just…he was the type of bloke who still thought chips and curry sauce was fancy foreign food. Gays were alright on the telly, but that was about it. You’d have been a bit much, I reckon.”
“I suppose it’s only fair, seeing as how my father hates you.”
“I’m quite proud of that,” Mike said thoughtfully. “I think it’s a badge of honour, your fart of an old man not liking someone.”
“Followed through fart, or…?”
“Oh, definitely followed through. See, this is why,” Mike added as he warmed to his theme, “I made a great choice asking you out. Don’t have to bother with making a good impression on the in-laws.”
Stephen laughed.
“And you make a good impression on yours because you’ll eat anything that doesn’t run away fast enough.”
“Don’t die when I’m hungry, that’s my recommendation,” Stephen agreed.
The mood improved steadily all the way out to the house, and by the time Stephen pulled up outside, parking in a manner demanding everyone else move as opposed to Mike’s conciliatory eighty-three-point-turns, Mike was ready to face the mayhem of his mother’s wedding.
Only…it wasn’t mayhem.
In fact, Leonard was long gone, having been evicted from his own home for his future wife to get ready. Vikki, Mike’s stepsister, had yielded to wearing a dress without a fight, even if it was bright purple with matching lipstick and showed more leg than Mike’s mam usually approved of at weddings. Mike’s ten-year-old twin cousins, Freda and Ruth, were glued to the TV watching a film, already in their dresses and hair done. And Mike found his mam upstairs, hair perfectly coiffed, and staring at two dresses hanging on the wardrobe doors.
Two.
“Er,” Mike said. “Isn’t it tradition to just wear one dress?”
She jumped, turning to look at him over her shoulder. She was frowning.
“I don’t know which one.”
Mike closed the door with a snap. “This feels like something you ought to work out before the big day, Mam.”
“I know,” she said softly, going back to staring at them. “I thought I had. I bought it, didn’t I?”
“It?”
She sighed and sat down on the bed.
“That one is the one I wore when I married your father.”
Mike froze.
Oh.
He wasn’t a wedding dress expert. They looked identical to him, and he couldn’t place which one was from the old wedding photo in his wallet. Hell, his mam hardly looked like the same woman in that photo. Mike only had it because of how happy they both looked, and it was how he liked to remember his old man, before the cancer. Fat and grinning, just like Mike had been at his own.
Sighing, he sat down on the bed beside her.
“Mam.”
“I just got it out to look,” she said quietly. “I never intended there to be another dress.”
“You want to do this, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” she said simply.
“So put the old dress back.”
She bit her lip.
“It’s not like last time,” Mike said. “It’s a whole new thing. Leonard’s not like Dad. He isn’t Dad. And Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to be hanging on to this.”
She twirled a curl around he
r fingers, then stood up resolutely.
“I know,” she said. “I’m being silly.”
“Plus the new dress suits you better.”
“Oh, like you’d know,” she said scornfully, but then softened and offered him a smile. “Thank you, love.”
Mike shrugged.
“Come here.”
He submitted to the tight hug, though he had to pay for it by letting his mam inspect him once he’d changed and rearrange his tie, and then being corralled into helping zip up the back of her dress, complaining all the while it was bridesmaids’ work.
“Oh, like your sister knows the first thing about dresses!” his mam tutted. “I mean it, though: thank you.”
“Er.”
“I landed lucky with you for a son,” she clarified, and Mike grunted awkwardly. “Most boys wouldn’t have accepted a new stepfather and a sister.”
“Yeah, well. Welcome.”
“Daft boy,” she tutted, starting to do her make-up. “You’re going to make a wonderful father some day, you know.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Where is Stephen anyway?”
“Talking to Vikki. Probably wants a sneak peek at her speech.”
“Ooh, I dread to think…”
Despite her dress and make-up, it wasn’t a traditional stuffy affair. Mike had no doubt Leonard would be wearing his old dress uniform and medals, but Mike had been allowed to bring his favourite eye-bleedingly awful tie that he usually reserved for parents’ evening and exam invigilator duties, and when he went downstairs after having changed, he found Vikki’s fiancée Suze had arrived in a bright pink Chinese dress, complete with fan and strappy clogs.
“How do you walk in those shoes?” he marvelled, and she smacked him with the closed fan.
“About as well as you do in those daft pointy things.”
“You asked for that,” Vikki drawled.
“What is that lipstick?” Suze demanded, and Mike escaped into the kitchen to find Stephen.
“Oh, holy hell.”
Stephen looked up from the tea he was making.
“What?”
“What the hell is that?”
Stephen looked down. “Uh. My kilt?”
“You’re wearing your kilt.”
“Yes?”
“You,” Mike repeated sternly, “are wearing. Your. Kilt.”
An amused smirk twisted Stephen’s mouth.
“Very observant of you.”
“You never bloody wear it!”
“Don’t usually feel like it.”
“Why the hell are you wearing it now?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Stephen said, “but it’s already thirty degrees out there. I’m not wearing sodding trousers, that’s for sure.”
In fact, he was literally wearing the kilt, a white T-shirt, and a waistcoat. Okay, he had the traditional hockey socks on, too, and some very nice shoes, but it still left several miles of bare skin on show.
And—well. Kilt.
“Are you being traditional about that?”
Stephen rolled his eyes, turning back to the tea. “I’m Scottish and I’m in a kilt and you’re asking if I’m being traditional?”
“I meant, what do I find if I put my hand up there?”
“You know exactly what’s up there. You’ve been up there often enough.”
Mike snorted, and backed Stephen into the counter, bunching up handfuls of the rough material in his fists.
“Last chance.”
Stephen grinned, right in his face, and said, “For what?”
“Right.”
A hand went searching. Stephen yelped, then laughed at Mike’s groan. That absolute bastard. He’d gone full bloody Scottish, bare arse and all, and Mike was going to have to suffer through a whole wedding of something he bloody loved but was never allowed to have. Stephen hated that kilt! He’d refused to wear it to Beth’s do, he’d undoubtedly refuse to wear it to Jane’s, and Mike had no hope in hell of getting him to wear it at home, even for a bit of a quick one on the sofa. And now he was going to have to stand through a whole wedding within ten feet of it?
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t!” Stephen said, and wriggled free with the brew. “Come on, Romeo. If you’re really good, I’ll let you play with it in our hotel room tonight.”
“Best behaviour,” Mike said instantly, following.
“What?” Vikki asked suspiciously as they joined her on the sofa.
“Mike wants to get his hand up my kilt,” Stephen said.
“Your skirt?” Suze asked.
Stephen gave her an acidic look.
“Sorr-ee.”
“I can’t blame him,” Vikki said shortly. “I would, too, if you were a bird. Or if you shaved ‘em.”
“My legs or my—”
“Both.”
“Not into the bald and prickly look,” Mike said. “Got to have something to hang onto when you’re down there.”
“More than I ever wanted to know,” Suze said coolly, then glanced upwards. “Oh my God, Stella!”
Stella floated down the stairs, in a floatier dress, and a little red-eyed. She did a twirl, the puffy skirts drifting out around her like a fifty-year-old princess, then dropped her hands to her sides, and smiled.
“I think I’m ready,” she said.
And Mike knew full well there were going to be tears.
* * * *
He was right.
The ceremony had been in the same church his parents had been married in. His mam had started crying just with Mike walking her down the aisle, and had to mumble through her vows. Even Leonard had gone a bit misty-eyed, the tough old soldier’s facade dropping in the face of his own wedding. Half the church had been sniffling, too, and when the vicar had finally said, “I now pronounce you man and wife,” there had been a standing ovation like they were at a rock concert.
And alright, Mike was never going to admit it, but the sheer happiness on his mam’s face had nearly made him start bawling, too. Only keeping a firm hand on Stephen’s bare knee throughout had staved off tears.
Bouquet-throwing, photos, squeezing everyone into the cars to get to the hotel for the reception, it had all been a blurry riot. He’d managed to score a great professional shot of him and Stephen in that glorious kilt, much to Stephen’s disgust, and mentally had it framed and up on the wall in the hall before they even sat down to dinner. The happiness of the occasion, which had been delayed for so long when life kept getting in the way, was infectious. Even the usually standoffish Stephen had ended up giggling like a girl when Mike had gone for a love bite in the middle of the photographs, instead of getting snappish like usual. It couldn’t have been further from Beth’s wedding if it had tried.
Mike was surrounded by family, real family, on a hot summer’s day, and he was loving it.
Dinner was proper fare, pies and mushy peas, and sat on the family table with bride and groom, Mike felt like he’d dressed up just for a meal at home. Suze was dainty and refined, but Stephen and Vikki got into a slanging match about the Scottish Premier League—with, ironically, the Scot decrying it as a load of bollocks—and Mike’s mam was busy making sure everybody else ate ridiculously large portions instead of focusing on the day at hand.
So when it was time for Mike’s speech, he unashamedly loosened his belt a notch, and heaved himself to his feet with visible effort.
And stared.
Stared out at the sea of faces. Faces he knew, and who knew him. Faces who’d been proud of him over the years, who’d asked after him when he’d been at Edinburgh, who’d wanted copies of his graduation photos, who’d scolded him for getting married on the sly, who had their fingers crossed for him and Stephen and their clinic appointments.
His family.
Blood and otherwise.
He cleared his throat, fumbling for his cue cards, and had suddenly never felt more shy.
“Ladies and gentlemen.”
No, no. Too
sombre. There was about to be enough of that.
He cleared his throat, and began again. “Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family, people that had to be invited so nothing would be awkward. Figure out which categories apply to you, because I really don’t care.”
He felt, more than saw, Stephen smirk at his side.
“Before I continue to rip into my dear mother and the poor bastard who has been mad enough not only to stay with her for the last fifteen years, but go so far as to marry her, I would like to say a few words about absent friends.”
A silence fell. Mike’s throat swelled up in his neck.
“When I was nine years old, we lost my dad.”
John Parry. Mike could still remember the smell of his aftershave, and the scrape of his stubble against Mike’s ear for the last hug before Dad walked out the door to go to work every morning.
“Sometimes knowing something is coming doesn’t make it any easier.”
He could remember the papery texture of his hand, that last day in hospital. The soft wheeze of his lungs, and the gentle silence that—eventually—hadn’t stopped.
Stephen’s hand touched the back of his knee, soft and barely-there through his trousers. Mike took a breath, and ploughed on.
“And for a while, it didn’t seem like anything was going to get better. It wasn’t easy on me, and it wasn’t easy on my mam. She tried her best, but we all knew she wasn’t the same. So for a long time, I thought I’d lost part of my mam, as well as my dad.”
Her hand reached out. Mike gripped it briefly, squeezing tight, before soldiering on.
“But then along came this guy sitting on her right,” he said, “and Mam started baking again. That I was grateful for. She started singing again—I wasn’t so happy about that.”
Nervous laughter started up.
“Now I never pretended to be the smartest teenager, but even I could put two and two together. Mam starts up her screeching to Spice Girls in the kitchen, and there’s a third plate at Sunday lunch? Even I could do the maths. And I was fourteen. I wanted my mam to be happy—but I didn’t want someone swanning into my house and telling me to forget my dad, because I had a new one.”
He looked to his stepfather—the man that really, Mike had known longer than his actual father.
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