Not Another Family Wedding

by Jackie Lau

  “Don’t worry so much, Mom.” Rebecca looked around the yard. “Where’s Dad?”

  Judy sighed. “He’s in the basement, putting the finishing touches on your present. Despite my protests, he didn’t start it until last week.”

  “He’s making my wedding present?”

  “You didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Ooh, I wonder what it is!”

  Another car pulled up and parked beside the house. An elderly Chinese woman hobbled out, one hand on her cane, the other holding a smartphone up in the air. Seth and Simon hurried over to help her.

  “Ngin Ngin,” Seth said. “I hear you insisted on coming.”

  “What else would I do tonight? Sit in the room alone?”

  A young woman got out of the driver’s seat and rushed around the car. Presumably, this was Iris. “Give me back my phone.”

  Ngin Ngin handed it over. “Now you won’t pay attention to me. Will stare at screen instead.”

  “You have lots of people to pay attention to you here.”

  Ngin Ngin looked around, and her gaze landed on Connor. “Who’s this?”

  “That’s Connor,” Seth said. “Natalie’s date.”

  Ngin Ngin broke into a grin. She was missing a few teeth. “Natalie, I gave up on you long time ago. But now you have a boyfriend?”

  “He’s even a doctor,” Simon said.

  “Doctor and cute? Very nice. Big strong man. Look after you.”

  “I don’t need anyone to look after me,” Natalie protested, “and Connor is not my boyfriend. I just brought him to the wedding as my date.”

  “Hmph. Silly girl.”

  Connor knew that Natalie’s father’s parents hadn’t gone to his wedding, but Ngin Ngin seemed to have no problem with her granddaughters dating white men.

  Well, it had been close to forty years, hadn’t it? Things changed.

  Natalie’s paternal grandfather had passed away when they were in university. Connor remembered Natalie going to the funeral in third year, but she hadn’t seemed too distraught by the news.

  “You could get pregnant before you get married.” Ngin Ngin used her hand to show a pregnant belly. “It’s okay, Natalie. You’re old. Not much time left.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend!”

  For some reason, Connor was a touch bothered by the vehemence with which she said that, though he understood her frustration.

  Ngin Ngin grinned. “I know. I tease. You must visit me sometime in Toronto. I’m learning to make Italian food! Risotto, tortellini, tiramisu, and...other things I forget. Am friends with an Italian lady. She is teaching me.” She turned to Judy. “Where’s my son?”

  “Howard is in the basement,” Judy replied.

  “You should get him,” Rebecca said, looking at her watch. “It’s time to head to the church, and if he’s putting the finishing touches on my wedding present, I can’t get him myself.”

  Judy nodded and went back inside. She seemed rather subdued compared to everyone else, even though she was the mother of the bride. Natalie followed her inside with her suitcase, saying she needed to get dressed for the rehearsal.

  Fifteen minutes later, they all climbed into their cars and headed across town to the United Church.

  “What do you think of my family?” Natalie asked.

  Connor turned left onto Main Street. “Two of them said I was cute, so I approve.”

  She laughed. “Thanks for doing this for me. It’s nice to have someone here who isn’t related to me.”

  He didn’t feel like he was doing much of anything for her, to be honest.

  “No problem,” he said.

  When he glanced over, there was a faint smile on her lips.

  And damn, she was gorgeous in that fuchsia dress.

  He found himself raising his hand to touch her shoulder, then quickly returned it to the steering wheel, confused by his reaction.

  * * *

  After the rehearsal dinner, Connor headed to the bed and breakfast, and Natalie returned to her childhood home with her parents and Rebecca. There were five rooms at the bed and breakfast, each named for one of the Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Connor was in the Ontario room.

  The Superior room was, naturally, the nicest room, with a Jacuzzi and a king-sized bed—that was where Elliot was staying. He and Rebecca were sleeping apart the night before their wedding, which struck Connor as old-fashioned. He and Sharon certainly hadn’t done that.

  And look how their marriage had turned out.

  For various reasons, Connor couldn’t imagine getting married again, and he didn’t have any interest in a serious relationship. He’d dated casually since his divorce, but no woman had captured his interest at all; usually, he felt bored on dates.

  However, he wasn’t a bitter divorced man who was totally against marriage. He could be genuinely happy at other people’s weddings, and Rebecca and Elliot did seem well matched. In fact, seeing them together—as well as Seth and Simon—had caused him a slight pang of longing for something he doubted he’d ever have.

  Seth and Simon were in the Michigan room, Iris and Ngin Ngin were in Huron, and Iris’s parents, whom he had yet to meet, were staying in Erie. Elliot’s family was at the bed and breakfast a few streets over, which was the only other place to stay in Mosquito Bay.

  After looking around his room, Connor made himself some tea and headed up to the rooftop patio, figuring he’d be the only one there. It was after ten o’clock.

  But Simon was sitting on one of the two chairs, a cup of tea in hand. Apparently, Connor wasn’t the only one with this idea.

  “Hey.” Simon nodded at him. “Come join me. I promise I don’t bite.”

  Connor sat down on the other chair. “Where’s Seth?”

  “He’s asleep. I don’t know how, seeing as it’s only seven o’clock in Vancouver right now. I’m wide awake.”

  “Same here.” Even though it had been a long day, he wasn’t ready to sleep.

  “Just reminiscing about my wedding. We were so young, even younger than Rebecca.” Simon propped his feet up on the low railing surrounding the rooftop patio. “I smile when I think of that day—that’s what I hope for Rebecca, too. Though it took a few years before I could laugh about my mishap with the cake.”

  “My wedding was nearly perfect.” The words were out of Connor’s mouth before he realized what he was doing.

  Simon’s gaze snapped toward him. “Your wedding?”

  “I’m divorced.”

  “Right,” Simon said slowly. “So I guess you don’t like reminiscing about it?”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “Any children?”

  Connor clenched his fingers around the handle of his mug. “No children.”

  They were quiet for a minute, and then Simon stood up. “I’m going back inside. Don’t get drunk on tea.” He gave Connor a mock salute before heading down the stairs.

  Leaving Connor alone to remember his own wedding, and the day, four years later, when Sharon had taken a pregnancy test because she was finally, finally late, after nearly a year of trying.

  Chapter 4

  Back in her old bedroom, Natalie unpacked her suitcase. Little remained of her early life here. A few books and stuffed animals on the bookcase, but she’d cleaned out the room after she finished undergrad, before moving out to Vancouver to do her PhD. Still, she continued to sleep here whenever she came for a visit.

  She sat at her old wooden desk and pulled out her laptop, figuring she’d start reading her student’s draft of his master’s thesis.

  Ten minutes later, she was forced to admit that she couldn’t concentrate at all. She kept thinking about the wedding. The rehearsal and dinner had gone reasonably well, and she felt like they were ready for tomorrow. Except in the Chin-Williams family, it was inevitable that something would go wrong, though there was no telling what it would be.

  She got up and knocked on Rebecca’s door.

  “Come in,”
Rebecca said.

  Her little sister was lying on her stomach on top of her bedspread, which was purple with bright yellow and blue flowers. When Rebecca was ten, she’d thought it was the height of coolness. A plastic storage container was open in front of her, and she had a stack of paint chips in her hand.

  “I thought you were writing your speech,” Natalie said.

  “I got stuck.” Rebecca nodded at the sheets of lined paper beside her.

  Natalie picked them up and looked at what she’d written. “Love conquers all” and various other clichés.

  Rebecca had never had a way with words. Her talents lay in math and physics.

  For example, if Sarah had 50 strawberries and Billy had 40 watermelons, and they were cycling across the country at 20 km/h, and the slope of the hill was 10°, and the coefficient of friction was 0.5, and everybody’s eyes glazed over...

  Rebecca could figure out the answer faster than anyone else. She’d studied engineering in university.

  She was also fairly artistic. Natalie peeked in the storage container—it was full of art supplies from when Rebecca was a kid, as well as paint chips.

  Rebecca handed her a paint chip. “Don’t you think the lemon cream is pretty?”

  “Mm. It is.” But Natalie had never been obsessed with colors the way her sister was.

  Natalie remembered when Rebecca had discovered paint chips. Rebecca had been eight or nine, and Natalie had been home from university for the summer. Rebecca had burst through the front door after a trip to the hardware store with their parents.

  “Did you know they give these away for free at the hardware store?” she’d asked Natalie, holding up the paint chips. “Mom said I could only take three. Will you drive me back tomorrow?”

  Rebecca would stare at the paint chips, fascinated by the myriad of colors and the creative names. Peach jam. Pink magnolia. Autumn maple. Foggy morning. And since they were, apparently, Canadian paint chips: Halifax blue, Toronto thunderstorm, Algonquin green. Natalie had wondered whose job it was to come up with the names. Some didn’t describe the color at all. Why was childhood innocence a warm, pale pink, and luxury a deep purple?

  “Look at this one,” Rebecca said now, handing another paint chip to Natalie as she sat down on the bed. “The second color matches my wedding dress, don’t you think? Lavender mist. I love the sound of that.”

  Since Rebecca had always loved color, she hadn’t liked the idea of getting married in white. “Plus I’m hardly pure,” she’d said.

  Well, Rebecca might not think of herself that way, but she was Natalie’s little sister, and that wouldn’t change.

  There was a knock on the door, and their mother stepped into the room. “I thought we should have a talk about what happens on your wedding night. When a man and a woman—”

  “Mom!” Rebecca covered her ears. “Shut up!”

  Mom laughed. She’d probably said that just to get a reaction out of her youngest daughter.

  “Any other sage advice on marriage?” Rebecca asked.

  “Don’t go to bed angry,” Mom said.

  “That’s a bit of a cliché,” Natalie said, “as is everything else Rebecca has written down for her speech tomorrow. Perhaps she inherited her love of clichés from you.”

  Mom turned to Rebecca. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

  She left the room, and Natalie picked up the sheets of paper again. “What do you want to talk about in your speech?” she asked her sister.

  “I want to thank everyone for celebrating with us, thank the wedding party and our parents...mention the great example of love and marriage they set for me...”

  “So just say it like that. Don’t make it too complicated. Short and simple is best for wedding speeches. You don’t want to go on and on.”

  “You’re right.” Rebecca smiled at her. “That’s what I’ll do. I won’t try to write any fancy words.”

  “Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Natalie asked.

  Rebecca looked up from a green paint chip. “There’s a chance of rain, so I’m a little worried about that, plus you know what weddings are like in our family. But I’m completely sure I want to marry Elliot. Even though we’ve only been together nine months, I’m sure. I know you think we’re rushing it—”

  “I just want you to be happy.” Natalie had always looked out for Rebecca, particularly when their parents weren’t able—or couldn’t be bothered—to do so.

  “We will be.”

  “I’ll leave you alone to work on your speech now. Let me know if you want me to read it over later, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  Natalie hesitated. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Rebecca smiled, then turned back to her paint chips.

  * * *

  Twenty-five years ago...

  Natalie’s little sister was tiny and funny looking and wailing at the top of her lungs, but Natalie loved her anyway. She had always wanted a sister.

  “Can I hold her, Mom?”

  Her mother had been in the hospital for three days. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked like she was about to pass out.

  “Okay, honey.” Mom’s voice sounded flat. “Make sure you support her neck.”

  Natalie took the baby and held her the way Mom showed her. The baby kept crying.

  “Shh,” Natalie whispered. “It’s okay. It’s me! I’m your big sister.” She turned to her mother. “Is she hungry?”

  “I hope not. I just fed her. Maybe I should change her diaper soon.”

  Natalie walked around with her baby sister and rocked her back and forth. Eventually, her sister’s screams quieted to the occasional sob.

  Seth ran up to her and wrinkled his nose. “Why does she cry so much? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with her,” Mom said. “It’s just the way babies are.”

  In the next few weeks, however, it became apparent that something wasn’t quite right.

  As far as Natalie knew, her sister was healthy, although she did seem to make an awful lot of dirty diapers and cry at the most inconvenient times. But something was off with how her parents behaved with the baby.

  Natalie didn’t know a lot about babies, but she’d seen mothers and their new babies before. The mothers might look tired, they might look frustrated, but they would still snuggle their babies and coo over them and stuff like that.

  Her baby sister didn’t get any of that from Mom and Dad.

  Didn’t babies need love and affection? Wasn’t that important, in addition to being fed and having their diapers changed?

  Natalie had a sinking feeling that she was the only one who loved her baby sister. Had her parents been like this with her and Seth? She couldn’t remember, but she didn’t think so.

  Since nobody else played with the baby, Natalie started showing her stuffed animals and reading her books and taking her for short walks in the stroller. She’d hurry home after school each day to spend time with her little sister. Mom always seemed happy to hand her over, and she showed Natalie how to change diapers. Dad more or less ignored her.

  Three weeks after the baby had come home from the hospital, Natalie finally asked her mother a question that had been bugging her for a while.

  “Why doesn’t the baby have a name?”

  Mom, who was sitting at the kitchen table, sighed as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. “I don’t know, honey.” Her voice still sounded horribly flat and un-Mom-like. “I guess I just haven’t given it much thought.”

  “Doesn’t she need a name so you can put it on the birth certificate?”

  “The birth certificate.” Mom shut her eyes for a moment. “Another thing I have to do.” She paused. “Why don’t you name her?”

  “Okay.” Natalie nodded decisively. “I will.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “You want me to have a name already? I need to do research first.”

  Mom
laughed, but it didn’t sound like a normal laugh. “Okay, you do your research. There’s a book of baby names on my bookshelf.”

  Natalie dutifully read every page of the baby name book. Under each name, its meaning was listed along with its origins and sometimes one or two famous people who shared the name. Two nights later, Natalie had a list of twenty-two names she thought were acceptable. Then she carefully went through each name and crossed out any that didn’t seem to suit her sister, or that were the same as the names of her classmates or neighbors. She was left with three options.

  Although Mom had told Natalie that she could name the baby, Natalie wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea. It wasn’t her baby—shouldn’t Mom or Dad choose the name? She figured Mom could pick from her short list of three names.

  Natalie took the list to her mother, who was watching TV in the living room. Her sister was asleep in the baby swing.

  “Here are the names I thought of,” Natalie said.

  Mom read them out loud. “Lindsay, Alexandra, and Rebecca.”

  “What do you think? Which one is your favorite?”

  Mom shook her head and sighed. “Not Alexandra. How about...Rebecca?”

  Natalie knelt on the floor beside the swing. “Hello, Baby Rebecca.”

  Mom smiled—as much as she smiled these days, anyway. It barely counted as a smile.

  “Will Dad be okay with it?” Natalie asked.

  “He won’t care.”

  Natalie hesitated before asking her next question. “Mom, are you okay?”

  Mom’s pregnancy had been rough, and she’d had horrible morning sickness—not restricted to the mornings—for most of it. It had been enough to make Natalie resolve that she’d never get pregnant, though Mom had insisted she’d change her mind when she was older.

  Natalie had thought her mother would be better once the baby was born, but Mom still wasn’t herself.

  Mom sighed once more. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m just tired because I was up all night with the baby—with Rebecca, I mean.”

  “Why doesn’t she sleep more than an hour or two at once?”

  “She’ll get better soon. It won’t be like this forever.”