Mother of the Bride

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  ‘I still love him, Jess, I love him so much.’

  ‘I know you do. And I’m sure Dan still loves you, too. It’s just that you have got yourself into a mess.’

  ‘Why didn’t I go away with him?’ Amy sobbed. ‘If only I could turn back time.’

  ‘OK, you should have gone with him,’ Jess agreed, taking Dan’s side. ‘But I’m sure Dan will get over it. Everyone knows he’s mad about you.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Amy whispered in a small scared voice.

  Jess put her arms around her.

  ‘Have you told your mum and dad yet?’

  Amy shook her head slowly.

  ‘What will I say to them? They both love Dan as if he was their son already. They’ll be heartbroken!’

  Jess knew that Paddy and Helen O’Connor were delighted with their future son-in-law and the upcoming wedding, and she could understand Amy’s reluctance to tell them.

  ‘I don’t think you should stay here in the apartment on your own,’ Jess murmured aloud. ‘You are welcome to come and stay with me, or I can drop you back home to your parents’ place.’

  Amy tried to think straight. This apartment was actually Dan’s. He had bought it two years before they had even met, and shared it with one of the guys he was studying accountancy with. She had moved in about a year after they started dating.

  Pre-Daniel she and Jess and two other friends had shared a house in Ranelagh for two years, but once she had moved in with Daniel Jess had decided she’d had enough of renting and sharing. She’d bought a place of her own: a renovated, quaint red-brick cottage near the canal in Harold’s Cross. With its tiny courtyard garden and an open-plan living room and kitchen it wasn’t very big, but Jess did have two bedrooms. Amy couldn’t bear the thought of facing home, and the massive upset of her mum and dad’s bewildered questions and need for an explanation.

  ‘Please, Jess, can I stay with you?’ Amy whispered.

  ‘Sure,’ said Jess, giving her a big comforting hug.

  The two of them flung a few of Amy’s things into her bag, and she grabbed her make-up and shampoos and toiletries from the cabinet in the bathroom. She was trying not to cry as she closed the door of the apartment and followed her best friend to the car.

  The tears came again as she left the apartment behind. Jess said nothing and kept driving, the news on the car radio blaring as Amy tried to compose and calm herself.

  In Harold’s Cross Jess settled her in front of the gas fire with her pyjamas on and a big blanket wrapped around her. She gave Amy a bowl of pasta with chopped-up rashers in it.

  ‘You have to eat!’ she bossed, passing her a glass of red wine.

  Amy’s stomach flipped, and she found herself talking and talking as she sat there with Jess patiently listening.

  ‘Jess, what am I going to do without him?’

  ‘Amy, I’m no expert, but I do know Dan loves you. OK, so you’ve had a massive bust-up and really hurt each other,’ she said, trying to be consoling, ‘but I think in time that you’ll get over it, get back together again.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Honestly, I do. I can’t see you living your lives separately. You both love each other far too much.’

  ‘Oh, Jess. I hope that you are right!’ Amy sniffed. ‘But what am I going to do about the wedding? It’s only a few weeks away!’

  ‘You are going to have to tell someone,’ said Jess pointedly. ‘Because if the wedding is really being called off you will have to start cancelling things.’

  Amy felt overwhelmed at the thought that things could be finally over with Daniel. She burst into hysterics and cried and cried. She blew her nose and tried to get her breath back as Jess passed her a box of tissues.

  ‘You have to tell your mum and dad,’ Jess advised, serious. ‘Phone them tonight. They deserve to know.’

  Amy thought and thought about it, deciding that she’d definitely wait until tomorrow to break the bad news to her parents and family, just in case Daniel changed his mind and phoned her and this nightmare she was caught up in somehow resolved itself.

  ‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ she promised, praying that this was just some weird kind of bad dream, and that in the morning she would wake up and things would be miraculously back to normal again.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The minute Amy stepped through the front door Helen O’Connor knew something was seriously wrong with her daughter. She could see the utter misery written all over her face. Jess, good friend that she was, came in with Amy, holding her hand as if she was six years old, and signalled for Helen and Paddy to sit down on the couch. Then Amy, almost in a whisper, began to tell them the bad news.

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Paddy, straining to hear.

  ‘Amy, are you telling us that your wedding to Daniel is off?’ Helen couldn’t control the quaver in her own voice.

  Amy nodded, so upset that she could hardly get a breath, let alone speak.

  Jess, sitting near her, filled them in quickly on how she had phoned Amy and, discovering what had happened, called over and had taken her friend back to her place the previous night.

  ‘Thank you, Jess,’ said Paddy. ‘You’ve always been a good friend to Amy. Helen and I appreciate it, and everything that you have done.’

  ‘We’re friends,’ Jess said, tears welling in her own eyes. ‘But I think I should go, let Amy talk to you alone. I’m around if you need me, OK?’ She hugged Amy before discreetly letting herself out the front door.

  Helen sat holding her breath, not sure what to say.

  ‘Yes, it’s off!’ shuddered Amy, hunched forward on the armchair in the sitting room, her fingers gripping the red cushion as if it was a lifesaver. ‘Daniel says that he doesn’t want to go ahead with the wedding.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to go ahead with the wedding!’ Helen gasped in disbelief, a look of incredulity darting between herself and Paddy as they gazed at their daughter and the state she was in.

  ‘He says we need to consider before taking such a big step, and not rush into things,’ Amy gasped, trying to control her breathing.

  ‘The bloody bastard!’ shouted Paddy angrily.

  ‘He says that we’ve just got so caught up with planning the whole big wedding thing that we’ve lost us. It’s just got too much, the last month or two, and he thinks we should cool things, think about it and slow down and take our time. He said that maybe now is not the right time to get married!’ she wailed.

  Helen stared at the paleness of her daughter’s skin, the red rims of her eyes, sore from crying, the shadows underneath them. She could feel her own heart pounding in disbelief at the utter nightmare that was being laid out before her. One minute she’d been relaxing, doing the crossword in the newspaper in the kitchen, worrying about some stupid anagram clue while Paddy caught up with the Sports News on TV, and the next their whole world had turned upside down.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ sobbed Amy, losing control totally as Helen jumped forward and wrapped her in her arms, letting her cry her eyes out.

  ‘Maybe he’s just got cold feet! You hear about it happening. It’s always in the films!’ Helen murmured, trying to calm the situation down.

  ‘Has he someone else, is that it?’ raged Paddy, looking like he would burst a blood vessel as he stalked up and down the carpet.

  ‘No, Daddy! No.’

  ‘Tell us what happened, pet,’ urged Helen, trying to discover what had led to this calamitous situation between two people who loved each other so much. ‘Is there someone else involved?’

  ‘No!’ shouted Amy angrily. ‘It’s nothing like that. We’ve been fighting . . .’

  Thank God, thought Helen silently. Couples always fought. Paddy and she had endured umpteen battles over the years. Age was ensuring that the skirmishes between them were fewer now, but in the early days of their marriage they had had some massive fall-outs. She remembered one time packing up the kids into their old Toyota and taking them to her mother’s for the n
ight. Another time, before the children had been born, she had locked Paddy out of the house. All couples fought! It was normal.

  In between sobs and hiccups and much nose-blowing, Amy gulped out about not going surfing and the build-up to the whole sorry saga.

  ‘I’ve been such a cow, no wonder Daniel hates me!’ she wailed, in tears again.

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Paddy said, taking her hand and squeezing her fingers. ‘No one hates you.’

  ‘It is! It is,’ she shouted. ‘Dan wouldn’t even talk to me. He went to stay in Liam’s when he came home on Sunday. I just can’t believe it. But it’s his place, so I’ve moved out of the apartment, and I’ve gone to stay in Jess’s until I sort something out.’

  ‘You know that you always have your room here,’ reassured Helen, remembering how Amy had told her about the tiny cottage that Jess had managed to buy and was busy renovating. ‘You are welcome to move back home if you want.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ Amy sniffed, taking some tissues that Paddy offered her.

  ‘And what has Daniel to say about all this?’ enquired Paddy. ‘Maybe I should phone him, talk to him man to man.’

  Helen had to agree with Paddy. She would gladly have got hold of her future son-in-law and throttled him for the upset he was causing and the pain he had inflicted on their daughter.

  ‘Daddy, please don’t do that!’ beseeched Amy. ‘He’s made his decision and you are not going to change his mind.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ urged Helen softly. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘Jess says that I should start to cancel things . . .’

  ‘She’s right, of course,’ agreed Helen, stroking Amy’s light brown hair, and wishing for all the world that things could be different. ‘There’s the castle, and the caterers you’ve hired, and the photographer.’

  ‘And the band and the car and the flowers and a hundred other things . . .’ Amy cried hysterically, giving into the utter dejection she felt.

  Helen watched uselessly as Amy broke down and curled up on the couch.

  ‘We’ll make a list tomorrow,’ she soothed. ‘It will all be taken care of. Don’t worry, love.’

  ‘What about work?’ Paddy asked, concerned.

  ‘Jess phoned and told them that I had the flu and wouldn’t be in for a few days,’ Amy sniffed. ‘I don’t know how I am ever going to face going into work again—’

  ‘Let’s not think about that tonight,’ interrupted Helen.

  ‘I’ve made a mess of everything. You must all be mad at me,’ Amy whispered.

  ‘We’re not mad at you,’ Paddy hushed. ‘Obviously we’re disappointed about the wedding, but it’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘It is the end of mine,’ she said vehemently.

  ‘I know you’ll think I’m an old fuddy-duddy,’ said Helen gently, ‘but time generally works things out. You and Daniel just need time to think and get your heads straight. You are both so young.’

  ‘Mum, I’m thirty years of age,’ Amy said. ‘I’m not young, and Dan is thirty-three. You and Dad were married years at this stage and already had the three of us.’

  ‘Things were different then,’ Helen tried to explain. ‘Very different.’

  Paddy smiled at her, and Helen knew she wouldn’t have changed a thing about jumping into marriage so young and having her family so quickly.

  Amy was sipping a cup of coffee when Helen heard Ciara coming through the front door, junking her jacket in the hall and flinging her backpack on the floor.

  ‘Hey!’ she called, coming into the kitchen. ‘What’s for dinner? What’s everyone doing?’

  ‘The wedding has been cancelled,’ Amy spat out fiercely, glancing up at the look of utter confusion in her young sister’s face.

  ‘Cancelled! What are you talking about?’

  ‘Amy and Dan have had a fight, a disagreement over a few issues,’ Helen tried to explain. ‘But I’m sure that it will all blow over.’

  ‘UUUEEE!’ Ciara whistled, unbelieving. ‘You and Dan aren’t getting married?’

  ‘No,’ said Amy forlorn, closing her eyes.

  ‘I don’t believe it! You’re spoofing me.’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ said Paddy, in a serious voice. ‘Your mother and sister will have to phone and start cancelling everything tomorrow.’

  ‘Amy, I’m so sorry.’ Ciara ran over and squeezed on to the chair beside Amy. ‘What did Dan do? Men can be such stupid assholes.’

  ‘Dan did nothing. This is all my fault for being such a stupid self-centred cow.’

  ‘There’s not going to be a wedding?’ Ciara asked, hesitant.

  ‘Ciara, I suppose you must be delighted not to be my bridesmaid,’ Amy cried out angrily. ‘You and Carmel Quinn must be jumping for joy that the wedding has been called off.’

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say,’ responded Ciara, hurt. ‘Just because I don’t want to dress up like a dork doesn’t mean I don’t want you and Dan to get married.’

  ‘Honestly, Amy, how could you think such a thing about your sister?’ objected Helen. ‘And I’m sure the Quinns are equally upset about what’s happened!’

  ‘Sure,’ said Amy sarcastically.

  Helen got up and went into the kitchen to check on the spinach lasagne that she had put in the oven almost an hour and a half ago. With all the fuss, she had totally forgotten it. The topping was burned, the cheese black, and the creamy white sauce all dried out. She turned off the oven and left the dish on the draining board.

  ‘The dinner’s destroyed,’ she said, rejoining the others.

  ‘I’m not hungry anyway,’ said Amy.

  ‘I’ll make us something,’ offered Ciara, disappearing into the kitchen.

  Helen didn’t understand it. Some days Ciara wouldn’t as much as look at the plate in front of her, and here she was offering to cook. God knows what she’d make.

  Helen listened as Amy went back over all that had happened again and again, not knowing what to say or do to ease the pain she was in.

  Forty minutes later Ciara produced a dish of stuffed peppers with rice and a side salad.

  ‘That’s not bad,’ Paddy said, tucking in.

  Amy sat at the table, disinterested, playing with the food on her plate.

  Helen tried to remain calm as she passed around the salad, unable to disguise the fact that she too was distraught about the wedding that she had looked forward to so much not going ahead. Poor Amy! She and Dan were meant for each other, anyone who knew them could see that. How had they managed to lose track of what was important to them?

  Marriage was a constant give and take; all couples knew that, and were prepared for it. It was how marriages – well, the good ones – worked, and here were Amy and Dan falling at the first hurdle. Vows and the legally binding marriage contract that a couple signed all seemed to act as a safety net when things got ropey and seemed to fall apart, but it was love that kept a couple together. Love. She had thought that the love between Amy and Dan was strong enough to withstand the stresses and strains of their upcoming marriage, but maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe they were not the couple she and Paddy had thought they were.

  They all sat at the table silent and gloomy, not knowing what to say.

  ‘I have to study.’ Ciara, having wolfed down her meal, jumped up and put her plate in the dishwasher, something she rarely did.

  Helen couldn’t blame her for wanting to escape.

  After dinner Helen cleared up, glad of the peace and quiet of the kitchen as Amy and Paddy retreated to the sitting room. She was at a total loss as to what to say or do. It was like having a bereavement in the family, with all their expected happiness suddenly wiped out. She put on a small saucepan of milk and made a big mug of creamy hot chocolate, dropping a marshmallow into it, and carried it into the sitting room with a few spare marshmallows for Amy.

  Paddy had her lying up on the couch wrapped in the rug like an invalid; it reminded Helen of the time when Amy was young
er and had had pneumonia.

  ‘Here you go, pet,’ Helen urged.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ Tears welled up again in Amy’s eyes.

  ‘It’s OK, love,’ Helen said, sitting down near her. ‘Your dad and I are here. It will all get sorted out, promise. You are not to worry. Maybe you should stay here just for a night or two until you are feeling a bit better . . .’

  ‘Is that OK with you?’

  ‘Course it is,’ mumbled Paddy, trying to control his emotions.

  ‘What about Castle Gregory? And the church?’ Amy said, panic creeping into her voice.

  ‘We’ll sort things out tomorrow, pet, promise we will,’ soothed Helen as she desperately tried to conceal her own sense of panic. ‘We’ll sit down and go through it all in the morning, but you need a good night’s sleep tonight.’

  It was eleven before they finally persuaded Amy to go up to bed. She looked absolutely wrecked, and Helen prayed that somehow she would sleep.

  Looking in the bathroom mirror as she cleansed her face and applied her expensive night cream, Helen felt ancient. There was no escaping the sound of Amy sobbing heartbrokenly in the room near theirs.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked Paddy as she climbed into bed beside him.

  ‘I suppose you and Amy should start cancelling things, but first of all let me phone that fellow my lad, and hear his side of the story. I’ll give Eddie Quinn a ring, too. He struck me as a decent type of man, not the sort to let his son treat a girl like this.’

  ‘Paddy, you can’t force Dan to marry her! Amy wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ Paddy said stubbornly. ‘But I want to find out what the hell is going on. Daniel is a decent type of guy and I just want to talk to him.’

  Helen sighed as she rolled down in the bed and wrapped herself in the quilt. Paddy began to snore slightly beside her. How could he sleep? Her mind was racing, worried about Amy, worried about cancelling the arrangements, and worried about what exactly she should tell people!

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Ciara lay wide awake in bed listening to Amy cry. Hour after hour it went on. The house was silent except for her sister’s shuddering sobbing. Ciara stared at the bedroom ceiling listening to the true sound of heartbreak. It was unbearable. She thought when she had caught Jay with another girl that she had experienced pain, but now she knew that it had been nothing compared to what Amy was going through. Jay had been a shit, a bastard of a boyfriend, and probably she had known that all along; facing it had been the thing that had hurt, the thing that had pained her and wounded her. But Dan was good and kind and funny. OK, he wasn’t her type, but he was Amy’s, and Amy loved him. How in hell was Amy ever going to get over losing someone like him? She wasn’t strong enough.