by Terese Ramin
She looked at the walls, and the years melded around her.
Sundays spent in the kitchen fixing pot roasts, chickens, turkeys and potatoes, carrying out a tradition of Sunday dinners only her daughters had seen. Evenings spent alone in front of the television set, sighing over the tube’s bad boy heroes. Sticking her head through the girls’ bedroom door after the evening news to listen to them breathe. Taking only fantasies with her when she headed off to bed.
Daytimes spent at the bookstore answering hesitant, revealing, too poignant questions about the latest How To bestsellers posed by people who seemed to confuse the local bookstore manager with their bartenders or their shrinks. Afternoons spent unloading and shelving books, building a career on the sale of someone else’s adventures, wishing they were her own.
Stirred together as they were, the years became time spent looking forward to, and preparing for, a someday she’d never expected to see; a never-never that was suddenly near. An opportunity that had been here. And gone.
What was it Allyn had so churlishly advised her a few days ago? Ah, Ma, get a life...
Not so simple, Alice thought. Easy to find a life, hard to hold on to it. Harder still to hold on to whoever came with it. Hard to know if the tribulations were worth it until you tried. Faith, she thought, I’ve got to have faith in me and in him.
She chewed her lip fearfully for an instant. All her life she’d wanted something extra. All her life she’d dreamed of something just a little more. Reality was the safety net she’d clung to for years; it had never become what she dreamed. Until Gabriel. She would never, she realized suddenly, have a greater adventure than this past week with Gabriel.
Unless she somehow finagled a future with the man.
What did you do, she thought with a sigh, when your reality suddenly exceeded your dreams?
Take a deep breath, she thought wryly, as her father used to say, and punt. Whatever happened after that, at least you’d taken your best shot at the goal.
*
She dressed carefully, slowly, full of nerves and anticipation. She dressed neither for Grace, nor to impress the thirty-three year old nudge-nudge, wink-wink Skip who was once again slated to accompany her down the aisle. She dressed for herself, as a reminder of Gabriel, to take a stab
at a tiny dream she hoped it wasn’t too petty to have. Just once she’d like to command attention, have all eyes on her—however briefly. Just once she wanted to be knock-’em-dead beautiful, instead of plain old dress-for-propriety-but-not-for-show Alice.
She dressed for Gabriel and an optimistic maybe. Maybe was a word with so many possibilities behind it, such a hopeful, do anything word. Maybe he thought about her once in a while. Maybe he pictured her. Maybe he dreamed about her.
Once in a while.
Wherever he was.
How long had it been? Night before last—a long time ago when you had too many questions to answer on your own and nothing definite to answer them on.
She raised her chin defiantly. Maybe he would come. And maybe he wouldn’t.
It occurred to her that no one could live a sane life squandering all of her thoughts on “maybes”.
She dabbed the foundation brush down her nose. After all, why should Gabriel come to the wedding? What was four days out of an entire life? Nothing, really, except a vague memory, a bittersweet smile to take out on February evenings when the television shows got too boring, and the post-Christmas blues became too much. Certainly, four days was not enough to base an entire future on.
Certainly not.
And yet at the deep end of her heart, against the odds, for no rhyme or reason, Alice hoped.
“Mom?”
Alice turned and caught her breath. Pale and nervous, Rebecca fidgeted in the doorway, gloved hands locked at the waist of the washed silk cream-on-cream two piece suit they’d found for her yesterday. The matching cloche with its tiny half veil perched atop her head. Her hair was brushed to a fine sheen and French braided down her back. She looked sophisticated and sure, beautiful, ready to face the world. A woman, a wife, not Momma’s little girl. Watery-eyed and wordless, Alice opened her arms, and Rebecca threw herself into them.
“Momma, I’m scared.”
“I know, baby. I am, too.”
“This isn’t like eloping was, this is really thinking about it. This is really getting married, Momma.”
“I know.” Alice stroked her hair, her cheek, held her daughter away from her. “You don’t have to do this, Becky. If you want to wait, if you’re not sure, I’ll be here for you whatever you decide.”
“I know, Ma, but I’m sure.” Rebecca used a gloved finger to brush the moisture carefully from the corner of her eye. “I get confused about me, sometimes, but I’m sure about Mike. He fills me up and he makes me whole and he sets me free. Running away with him made me feel funny, like I was doing something wrong that hurt everybody, but this...” She drew a tremulous breath, smiling. “This is right, Ma.”
How can she know what I’ve only begun to learn at twice her age? Alice wondered. Rebecca was so young to know, so positive. But at eighteen, that’s what the future was: bright, positive, optimistic. There for the taking. Optimism as a revolutionary concept. Doubt grew with age. Doubt deterred love. Doubt was the thing Alice most wanted to do away with. And soon.
With sudden decision, she headed for the phone to try to find Gabriel.
*
The church vestibule was crowded with relatives who preferred to talk rather than find their places. Chaos ruled.
“No, Aunt Bethany,” Julia Brannigan soothed her mother’s sister in front of the double doors at the interior entrance to the church. “I think you look beautiful. How could anyone know you’d buy the same dress as Phil’s mother? Twink—” she caught daughter number six’s arm “—tell us honestly, dear, what do you think? With the hat and her corsage, do you think anybody’s going to notice—”
“No, no,” Grace moaned, blocking the stairway to the church’s vestibule. “I knew I shouldn’t let anybody talk me into this. I can’t walk in these heels and everybody’s going to see I have brown bobby pins with a white veil. I’m going to fall fiat on my face in the middle of the aisle and Phil’s parents will have heart attacks and you guys’ll all laugh and—”
“Shh, Grace, shh.” Meg patted her arm. “You’ll get through it. You won’t fall. Alice is bringing the white bobby pins. You’ll be beautiful.”
At the steps on the other side of the vestibule, Helen supervised the delivery of three mammoth bags of birdseed.
“Yes, I know birdseed isn’t traditional, Aunt Kate, but it’s better for the ecosystem. We don’t want the little birds that come down to clean up the church steps after the wedding to start dropping out of the sky dead because the rice we tossed swelled in their stomachs and— No!” She turned hastily and poked a commanding finger at Mamie’s boys who were chasing Edith’s children up and down the steps to the choir loft. “Don’t run through there, the birdseed bags
are—”
There was a thud and a hundred pounds of birdseed spilled across the crowded vestibule.
“—open.” Helen rubbed two fingers across her eyes, took a deep breath and hollered, “Broom!”
Julia Brannigan looked at her feet, watching the seed drift in around her shoes. She shook a vehement finger at Alice and Helen. “You two,” she said, “promise me. If you ever get married, you’ll call me five minutes before the ceremony. I’ll come, bring a friend, we’ll stand as your witnesses, but you’ll elope.”
Headed toward the bride’s stairs, Alice danced out of the birdseed’s path and swallowed a chuckle at the familiar scene and the things her mother didn’t know. It was amazing that anyone in her family survived their weddings and willingly attended the next one. Well, she amended, Grace wasn’t exactly willing, but who was counting?
While Edith and Meg helped Grace skewer on her veil, Alice pushed open the church’s side door a crack to review the stragglers still on
their way into the wedding.
“Do you see him?” Sam asked at her shoulder.
“No.” Alice swallowed and shook her head, hating herself for allowing herself to be at the mercy of a single absent man she hadn’t even known last Sunday. When she’d finally decided that the best person to call about Gabriel would be the local FBI director, it had already been late. When she’d gotten through to the office, they’d told her the director was unavailable on Saturdays. They’d also politely informed her that they’d never heard of Gabriel Lucas Book and were not in the habit, in any case, of giving out information on agents. “No,” she said again. “I don’t see him.”
Sam rubbed Alice’s back above the scoop neck of her dress. “Don’t worry,” she said positively. “He’ll be here. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d break a promise. ‘Specially not to you.”
“I know,” Alice said, and she did know. “Unless it’s something beyond his control—”
“He’ll be here,” Sam-the-pregnant-volunteer-fireman said firmly.
Torn between fuming at Gabriel for not being able to tell her how she could get in touch with him and worrying that he might be lying somewhere swathed in bandages or worse and unable to contact her, Alice tried to believe Sam.
The chaos in the vestibule sorted itself out slowly, but finally even the brides’ and grooms’ parents were seated and only the ushers, Becky, Alice and her sisters remained in the entryway, listening while the guitarist and the flutist played wedding preludes, and the singer tested her mike.
“Look,” Edith whispered, peeking around the doorway. “There’s Phil and Mike, don’t they look great?”
“Phil sure looks nervous,” Twink observed, poking Becky, “but Mike looks like somebody just gave him a canary. Did you feed him—”
“Shut up.” Meg slapped her sister’s arm. “Quit making tacky jokes in church. That’s what the reception’s for.”
“Oh, God,” Grace wailed suddenly, “my veil’s gone and I think my heel’s just ripped out the hem of my train.”
“No, no, here’s your veil,” Alice assured her, plucking it off her back. “And here—” she bent over to straighten Grace’s train “—lift your foot.”
There was a buzz at the back of the church.
“They’re ready for us,” Helen whispered. “Everybody set?”
“Hold on a sec.” Still silently cursing Gabriel for being absent and pleading with him to be all right, Alice reached to help Edith re-secure Grace’s veil and froze, eyes locked on the open outside church door.
Looking sleepy-eyed, self-conscious and slightly rumpled, Gabriel dashed up the outside steps and paused, blinking in the sudden dimness. Alice caught her breath and looked him up and down, from his yet unfocused brown eyes to the slightly off-kilter set of his tie, to the spit-and-
polish shine on his shoes. Her heart swelled with her lungs. He looked incredibly wonderful.
His eyes found Alice finally. Inhaling, he straightened, telling her what he saw when he looked at her by the quick half-quirk of his mouth, the awed satisfaction in his face, by his inability to look at anyone but her. He took a step toward her.
“Gabriel, there you are!” Helen bustled forward, grabbing the last boutonnière off the table at the side of the foyer. “Here, let me just pin this on and—”
Alice slipped forward and gently traded Grace’s veil for Gabriel’s flower. “This one’s mine,” she said firmly. “I’ll do that.”
“Yours?” Gabriel queried softly, looking down at her with laughing eyes and an expression that said just checking.
Alice stabbed the flower pin into his lapel with decision, nodding. “Absolutely mine,” she affirmed, shoving his chin out of the way so she could adjust his tie. Then she lifted her eyes to him anxiously. “I mean if that’s all right with you?”
Gabriel brushed her lips with a finger and went to get in line with the rest of the groomsmen. “I think,” he said thoughtfully, looking back at her and grinning, “that maybe for the next seventy-five years or so I could just about handle that.”
Epilogue
Sunlight filtered through the funnel of maple trees, spread in lacy shadows over the ground. A summer breeze drove the scent of charbroiling hamburgers and hot dogs into neighboring yards, lifted the dangling curtain of blue oilcloth that was spread over the long picnic table, sending
paper napkins and plates flying. Alice’s mother, sisters and daughters reached hastily for them, collided laughing, then weighted the flyaway utensils with pickle jars and mustard pots before turning their attentions back to the babies—Grace’s six-month-old daughter and Becky’s six-week-old son—tented in mosquito netting, sleeping in the shade.
Deeper in the yard, young voices rose and fell, shrieking, laughing, bickering; the swing chains and trapeze rings on the play structure clanked to the rush of children through them.
“Look what I did! Bet you can’t do it.”
“Bet I can.”
“No, you can’t. You’re too little.”
“Can!”
“Dare ya! Dare ya, dare ya, dare ya!”
“Mom!” The word was a singsong aimed at Twink. “Sarah’s teasing me. Make her stop.”
“Sarah,” Edith admonished her eleven year old youngest, “quit teasing your cousins. Act your age.”
“Oh, that’s good, Edie.” Meg swatted her sister playfully. “You never could figure out what that meant when Ma said it to us, and now you’re saying it to your kids?”
“Just wait.” Edith said slyly and patted Meg’s burgeoning belly. “You’ll learn. Sometimes it just comes out. I get lost trying to think of new things to say all the time.”
“Sure.” Helen grinned. “That’s what they all say.” She turned to her own mother beside her. “Right, Great-gram?”
Julia Block Brannigan, mother of seven, grandmother of ten, great-grandmother of one and, at age sixty-one, two weeks away from beginning a twenty-four month stint as a teacher in the Peace Corps, folded her hands in front of her and smiled serenely. ‘‘I’m just glad they’re yours,” she said, and her daughters laughed.
Above them in the bedroom window overlooking the backyard, Alice smiled, gaze pausing briefly on each sister in turn. A lot had happened to all of them in the past two years; a lot more was about to happen. Meg was pregnant for the first time and nervous as hell about it. Helen...
Alice grinned, watching her high-handed, gung-ho sister tickle her grand-nephew when she thought no one was watching. Poor Skip had swallowed his sense of propriety, stopped wearing three-piece suits and hung around the family for weeks hoping the major would relent and come back to him. Helen, of course, had been unsympathetic to his plight despite the phone calls from her sisters urging her to have a little heart and at least reconsider the man. She had, however, invited a pretty petite, sassy-mouthed Southern Army Captain home with her for Thanksgiving, winked at her sisters and introduced the captain to Skip.
Skip had gotten the last laugh on that one, though. By the end of the holiday weekend he had, much to Helen’s supreme consternation, requested an immediate transfer to his company’s Seattle office and married the captain on Valentine’s Day ten weeks later.
As for Helen herself, Alice suspected she was finally about to receive her own comeuppance in spades from the Navy photographer who’d recently thrown the major for a full loop. Sad to say, the rest of the Brannigan girls were having a field day at the newly discombobulated major’s
expense. On the other hand, Alice decided, it was about time Helen succumbed to the hearts and flowers she’d once tried to bury her sisters under.
With a final mental thumbs up to the course of justice, Alice’s awareness moved on.
Edith had gone back to school and become a visiting nurse practitioner. Twink still managed the same law office but now had another son. Sam was unendingly Sam, authority’s tester. She was also now the first female Fire Chief in the area. And Grace...
Again Alice smiled.
Quiet, crowd-hating Grace strapped her toddler in the stroller, her infant in the backpack, picked up her walking stick and hollered for the dog, then spent her days walking the wooded back roads of the Upper Peninsula for Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources, studying the physical drift of the land.
So much to celebrate, Alice thought gladly. Each of her sisters were still marked individuals whom love had tempered but stolen nothing from.
Her attention shifted proudly to Allyn and Rebecca, sitting close together on one side of the picnic table, still not quite comfortable at being included among the adult women. They’d grown, too; changing, shaping themselves to fit their own futures. Becky and Michael still had differences to outlast, but they seemed to be learning to sort out those differences on their own instead of running home to Alice with them all the time. Their son, Alice’s first grandchild, had
been baptized today.
Allyn, the formerly frightened and defiant wanderer who couldn’t decide who she was, had suddenly discovered an untapped determination in herself, collected her nerve and signed up for a six-month stint as part of the galley crew aboard a marine study vessel in the Pacific. Her doggedness at winning the post for which she’d had almost no concrete qualifications still amazed Alice, who’d never known about her daughter’s passion for marine biology. Now Allyn was well on her way to getting her Bachelor of Science degree in aquatic studies with honors, had chosen to pursue her master’s degree through the coast guard, and was already putting out feelers that could take her to Woodshole or Pensacola to work on her doctorate.
And Gabriel.
Alice took a deep breath trying to quiet the giddy beat her heart still took on every time she thought about him. He’d gone straight to New Jersey from Jack Scully’s office after Markum’s arrest to get his great-great grandmother’s wedding ring out of storage, and it had taken him exactly three minutes after Grace’s and Becky’s wedding to find out that he wouldn’t have to get it sized for Alice. It already fit.