The Accidental Family

by Rowan Coleman

  Sophie held her breath, hoping for something, a beam of sunlight cutting through the gray sky, a sudden cessation of the wind— some sign that Carrie was happy, but of course there was none. There was never going to be anything so concrete. Sophie had known that before she’d come to the cliff top. Still, even in the midst of the building storm, Sophie felt better and calmer. She didn’t feel alone.

  Which wasn’t all that surprising because at exactly that second, a small but fast creature decked out from head to foot in a red waterproof suit careered into her legs and hugged her hard around her hips.

  “Izzy! What are you doing here?” Sophie exclaimed; she wouldn’t have put it past the often adventurous child to have somehow come up here on her own, so when she glanced over her shoulder and saw Louis hanging back as Bella ran toward her, Sophie was relieved and touched.

  “What are you all doing out here in this weather?” Sophie laughed, pleased to see them.

  “Daddy said he thought he knew where you’d gone,” Bella explained, her face clenched against the rain. “He said he thought you wanted to come and tell Mummy about the wedding and he was worried for you on your own. And he asked us if we’d like to come, because it’s our wedding too and our news as well. And we wanted to come.”

  “Yes, because we are bridesmaids,” Izzy said. “And Mummy would be awfully interested in that.”

  “She would be,” Sophie agreed, crouching down so that her body shielded their smaller ones from the worst of the elements. “Your mummy loved to dress up and put flowers in her hair and find something sparkly in her ballerina jewelry box to put on.”

  “We are bridesmaids, Mummy!” Izzy ducked under Sophie’s arms and hollered into the wind and rain. “It’s ex-ter-reem-ly exciting!”

  Her sister, looking briefly into Sophie’s eyes, gave her a small smile and then followed, leaving Sophie to watch, her heart in her mouth, as Carrie’s daughters spoke to their mother across the sea.

  “And we are going to wear wings!” Bella shouted at the top of her voice.

  “And there will be ponies, I expect!” Izzy added. “And cake, chocolate, hopefully.”

  “And, Mummy, we are very happy,” Bella yelled. “Me and Izzy and Daddy are very, very happy, so you don’t have to worry, because Sophie loves us and she’ll take care of us.”

  “Although she doesn’t like to tidy up much,” Izzy added. “Or cook. But we still love her.”

  “Also,” Bella called out, “could you please make it so it doesn’t rain? I’m not sure what day it will be, but I can confirm at a later date.”

  “And we love you, Mummy,” Izzy said.

  Bella put her hand in Izzy’s and they glanced at each other before shouting as loudly as their young voices would allow, “We love you—always, forever, whatever!”

  Finally they turned back to Sophie and ran into her outstretched arms, knocking her backward so that she tumbled with a full thud into the cold wet grass.

  “There,” Bella said, kissing Sophie on the cheek. “Mummy knows properly now.”

  “Can we have toasted tea cakes?” Izzy said thoughtfully. “I’m starving.”

  Sophie put her hand on Louis’s chilled cheek as they reached him, his hands thrust deep in his pockets as he waited.

  “Thank you,” she said, placing her lips next to his ear. “You never stop amazing me with how well you know me.”

  “It’s only because you’re not that mysterious,” Louis teased her gently. “No, that’s not true. You are quite often unfathomable. But I knew you’d never let anything this big happen without wanting to tell your best friend, and the girls felt the same way. It was a brilliant idea, Sophie.”

  “Shall we go home and have some toasted tea cakes?” Sophie asked him. “I am cutting down, but I thought that as it’s the weekend, I might as well wait till Monday …”

  “I’ll catch up,” Louis said, looking at the cliff top. “I’ve got one or two things to say myself.”

  Sophie looked into his eyes. She wanted to ask him what he was going to say, but she knew that whatever it was, it was just between him and his memory of Carrie.

  “We’ll be waiting for you.” She kissed him lightly on the lips.

  “And knowing that is what makes me the happiest man on earth,” Louis told her.

  As Sophie walked back down the cliff-top path with the girls just in front of her, she turned a few times to look at Louis as he stood, gazing out to sea, talking to the wife he’d left and lost and probably had barely ever known. She paused for a second to watch his solitary figure, feeling the icy wind rip through the insulation of her coat, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the weather raised goose bumps that ran down her back. She felt as if, as Carrie’s mother was fond of saying, someone had just walked over her grave. And all at once Sophie was overwhelmed by the impulse that she had to marry Louis, and soon, before something or someone took him away from her for good, just as Carrie had been taken so suddenly from all of them.

  Six

  What Sophie had not been prepared for when she accepted Louis’s proposal was just how keen she would be to end her engagement to him and become his wife. Within twenty-four hours she realized that rather than having agreed to a vague if beautiful declaration of love, she had committed to an actual event that she urgently wanted to make happen at the earliest possible convenience.

  As Sophie began to think of all the things that needed to be done in order to bring the wedding to fruition, she felt a little as if she were having an out-of-body experience, as if she were floating just above the top of her own head watching this other woman, this alien, excited, joyous being who spent in excess of twenty pounds on bridal magazines and hours trawling the Internet for wedding locations, while she, the old Sophie, the Sophie who did not commit and wasn’t especially fond of feelings, kept well out of it. But that was only now and then, when she’d catch sight of her flushed face in a mirror or realize she’d spent twenty minutes reading an article on the best tear-proof mascara. She’d laugh and be amazed by how unlike her old self she’d become since she’d allowed herself to love Louis and how wonderful it was to feel so alive. For the most part though, she was there in the moment, fretting over panda eyes on her big day even though she did not yet own a dress, have a venue, or had even set a date.

  On Sunday evening after the girls had gone to bed, she had been kissing Louis in the doorway of the living room. This often happened; she’d be going somewhere in the house, from the kitchen to the living room or from the living room out into the garden, their paths would cross, and suddenly Sophie would find herself pinned against a wall, a kitchen counter, or, as in this case, the doorway, Louis firmly gripping the tops of her arms as he pushed her back against whatever surface happened to be available and kissed her.

  Sophie had been breathless and expectant when he broke the kiss and looked at her.

  “I still can’t believe it’s you,” he said softly.

  “Why, who are you expecting?” Sophie asked with the hint of a smile.

  “I mean I still can’t believe that’s it you,” Louis whispered, scanning her face with his eyes. “I still can’t believe that you are here with me, that you are going to marry me.”

  “I’m fine with that, check away,” Sophie told him happily. She closed her eyes for a second, breathing in Louis’s proximity. “Sometimes I can’t believe it’s me either, or that you are you or that we go so well together—but we do, don’t we?”

  She opened her eyes and searched his for affirmation.

  “I seriously suspect that we are the two most compatible people in human history,” Louis told her seriously. He glanced up the stairs that were partially lit by the landing light he left on for Izzy, who maintained that, after dark, monsters lived in every shadow, despite Bella assuring her quite firmly that they did not, they lived under beds and in wardrobes.

  “I was thinking.” Louis spoke slowly, lowering his lids. “Now that you and I are officially engaged, you could
stay over for the night? Because although being with you on the floor or the sofa or your single bed at the B and B or the kitchen or anywhere is amazing, it would be great to go out-and-out kinky and make love to you in a full-size adult double bed. I might even wake up without a sex-related back injury or friction burns for once.”

  Sophie laughed, but when he pulled her hand to follow him, she hesitated.

  “They’re asleep up there,” she said.

  “I know, it’s great—they’re flat out, come on,” Louis urged her.

  “But what if they wake up, what if they hear us? What if—god forbid—they walk in on us?” Louis stood perfectly still, looking at her for what seemed like a long time.

  “Well, other couples with children must do it,” he reasoned eventually. “Otherwise the world would be full of only children.”

  “Look, I know, and I want to stay over too, but if I have anything to do with it, we’ll be married really soon and I just think it will be easier for them to understand.”

  Louis thought for a moment and then nodded.

  “Okay—you’re probably right and I love you for caring about them so much, but promise me this—once we’re married you must promise to come to bed with me every night in our bed and not worry about anything except that you won’t be getting very much sleep. I love you, Sophie, but I’m going to have to put my foot down about having sex in the bedroom once I’ve got that wedding ring on your finger.”

  “It will be different when we’re married,” Sophie assured him, on a sharp intake of breath as he pressed the weight of his hips into hers against the doorway. “I can’t wait to be married to you.”

  “I have a question for you,” Louis said as he kissed her neck. “Sofa or rug?”

  “Rug,” Sophie said, lifting her chin as he nuzzled her jawline. “But first I have a question for you.”

  “How about we get married on New Year’s Eve?”

  Sophie couldn’t wait to invite Carmen to go to a wedding show with her. Well, the word “invited” wasn’t exactly accurate— “pressganged,” “co-opted,” or “drafted” would all have been more appropriate. After dropping the girls off at school the following morning, Sophie swanned into Ye Olde Tea Shoppe on the pretext of fancying an éclair for breakfast and showing off her ring. But the very second Carmen turned her back to froth a cappuccino, Sophie whipped out her pile of wedding magazines and fanned them out on the counter.

  “We’re getting married on New Year’s Eve!” she exclaimed as Carmen turned back, nearly sloshing a jug of hot milk over herself when she saw the literature Sophie had brought to accompany breakfast.

  “New Year’s Eve—that’s like practically next week!” Carmen said.

  “I know!” Sophie said. “Well, less than three months anyway. There’s loads to do between now and then, so we’ve got to get started. I’ve bought us these mags to go through to get some ideas and I printed out all this …” She slapped a ream of printer paper down on top of the magazines that represented at least half a small Amazonian rain forest. “It’s information on venues I found on the Net. First I just went Cornwall wide, and then I thought, no, let’s go crazy, so I did Devon too. There’s traditional churchy type stuff, manor houses, modern venues, hotels, and even one parachuting wedding, because I mean Louis is a surfer, isn’t he? He might like an extreme wedding, mightn’t he? What do you think?”

  “I’m thinking I should make this coffee a decaf,” Carmen said, pressing her lips together. “Slow down, darling, you’ve only had the ring on your finger for five minutes. Last time I saw you, you were all ‘oh no I can’t possibly marry him.’ And now it’s ‘I’ve got to get him down the aisle quick before he changes his mind!’ What’s changed? Are you pregnant?”

  “No, I am not pregnant; why does everybody think I’m pregnant!” Sophie said loudly enough to make two hikers look up at her from their full English breakfasts. “Which reminds me, thanks very much for feeding me a false line about Louis and the bloody surfing holiday.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Carmen apologized. “It’s just that you looked nervous and I wanted to help calm you down, get you to the restaurant so the poor bloke could ask you at least. I had no idea you’d be so …”

  “So what?” Sophie asked.

  “Enthusiastic.” Carmen shrugged, crossing her arms. “I was fully expecting you to say no.”

  “Me too,” Sophie said. “I really did right up until the moment he asked me. I was thinking, oh please, god, don’t ask me, and then he did and then I said yes and then …”

  “What?” Carmen asked her on bated breath.

  “Then I realized how I’d feel if I ever lost him, and worrying and waiting and wondering didn’t seem important anymore. Carmen, I’m getting married, of course I’m enthusiastic! Enthusiastic is the watchword of brides everywhere. Do you want to see my engagement ring?”

  Sophie thrust her hand under Carmen’s nose and wiggled her fingers.

  “Of course I want to see the ring!” Carmen took Sophie’s fingers in hers and peered at them.

  “Babe, it’s perfect. Not huge, mind you, but who wants a huge one anyway? They’re simply vulgar. My husband bought me a massive rock when we got engaged and it didn’t make us any happier. Plus, it’s very you. Louis really thought about it. You can tell.” She met Sophie’s eyes as she smiled and then, without warning, she flung open the hatch that divided her from her public and engulfed Sophie in an icing-sugar–scented hug, sending the weighty, glossy wedding magazines slipping and slapping onto the floor in slow motion.

  “I’m so happy that you’re so happy …you two, you’re just perfect together.”

  Sophie was touched and a little surprised to see tears in Carmen’s eyes.

  “And so are you and James,” Sophie reminded her. “You and James are one of the loveliest, happiest couples I know.”

  “I know …,” Carmen said, tears beading on her waterproof mascara. It seemed as if she might be about to add a “but” but none came. “And you and Louis will be too—which is why your wedding needs to be perfect.”

  “It will be,” Sophie said confidently, bending to scoop up an armful of magazines. “We just need to get some venue ideas; maybe we’ll find one when we go to the wedding fair.”

  “A wedding fair?” Carmen asked, as if Sophie had just suggested they hop on a bus to the moon.

  “Yes, it’s in Plymouth all this week—how lucky is that?” Sophie told her. “The West Country Wedding Fair. We’re going tomorrow, I’ve just bought the tickets. Louis is on a half-day assignment taking photos for a local produce magazine, so he can pick the girls up from school, plus they give away champagne by the truckload at those places, so we’ll be laughing.”

  Carmen shook her head and smiled. “You really want this, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” Sophie answered. “Which is lucky because we are getting married in three …months’ …time.” She spoke the last words slowly because she found that she was enjoying the fear coursing through her body at the very idea. “Just think, in less than ninety days from today, I could officially be married at my own wedding!”

  “Well, why wait?” Carmen said as she sat down at the table with Sophie and leafed through a magazine. “Where did waiting ever get anyone? If you’re sure, you’re sure, and let’s face it, if you’ve said yes, then you ought to be sure. Besides, the quicker it is the better it will be for those girls. If you wait much longer, for one thing they will explode from excitement, and for another they won’t be quite as cute anymore—no offense, they are lovely kids—I’m just saying, for the photos, younger is cuter …ooooh, look at that dress! We’re going to try on wedding dresses, I bloody love that.”

  “We?”

  “You, I mean you,” Carmen said quickly. “Just think, Sophie, and remember this moment, because this is it—this is the beginning of the rest of your life.”

  Sophie tried really hard to stop everything, even the beat of her heart, so that she could
think with a clear head. One second of total clarity was all she craved, one moment of stillness so that she might advance confidently into a million moments of mayhem from this point on, this moment where she finally left her old life behind for good.

  “Give me a cake,” Sophie said, pointing at a particularly fat éclair that glistened plumply in the fresh-cream chiller.

  “A cake?” Carmen quizzed her, obliging nonetheless and putting the éclair on a plate in front of Sophie. “What’s a cake got to do with it?”

  “Well, if I’m getting married in ninety days, then I’ve definitely got to give up cakes and I want that one to be my very last.”

  Carmen gave her a side of clotted cream for luck.

  “So you’re getting married?” Grace Tregowan asked Sophie as she waited, skittish as a young colt on a spring morning, for Carmen to come and pick her up in her shiny black BMW SUV. “It’s a lovely thing, marriage, I should know, I’ve done it four times.”

  “Four times, Grace?” Sophie said, dropping the net curtains and perching on the edge of the sofa in the B & B’s sitting room as Grace awaited the paternity-test results on one of the characters in the television show she was watching. “Four husbands, that’s an impressive tally!”

  “Well, some women would call me greedy,” Grace said, shrugging her frail shoulders.

  “Tell me,” Sophie asked her. “Did you love them all, or were three of them mistakes while you were waiting for the fourth one?”

  “I loved them all, in different ways,” Grace said, drawing her arms around her middle as if she’d just felt the chill of the past. “Take my Vincent, my first husband. I met him in France during the war. Special Ops got hold of me after I got back from Paris, and they sent me back out there because I could speak the lingo like a Frenchy. Three months’ training, then they drop you in a field in the middle of bloody nowhere and tell you to remember that your name is Claudette. I was a wireless operator, sending messages back home. Vincent was running the local resistance, he was only twenty-two. These days that’s nothing, you all still act like kids well into your forties, moaning about responsibility and mortgages …”