One Summer Between Friends
Page 30
And, as it turned out, Beth had worn that wedding gown once, to the church where she and Joe were to be married. She’d been determined to wear the dress by then, although she’d dispensed with the veil and added a black sash around her expanding waist.
It wouldn’t have been right to have worn a veil to a funeral.
She blinked away the scratchiness in her eyes, never more grateful that Dan and Lucy had decided to get married here, in the orchard, rather than the little church on the top of the hill where generations of locals had been christened and married and, ultimately, farewelled.
Where Joe had been farewelled.
The celebrant’s words washed over her, words of love and union and what it meant to be married, words that once would have been spoken for her.
A movement right in front distracted her—Siena, tugging at the side seam of her bodice. She smiled softly at her daughter, whose dark-brown eyes would never let her forget Joe, even though Siena would never know him, and not for the first time, she thought how unfair it was. Siena should have a father. She and Joe should be bringing her up together. Instead, Siena was stuck with just her, and both Joe and their daughter had missed out on so much.
Too much.
‘I do,’ said Dan, and Beth blinked dewy eyes to attention, as it was Lucy’s turn next to answer the big question.
‘I do,’ the bride repeated a few moments later, as a puff of breeze sent another flurry of petals scattering over them all.
God, so very beautiful, and the lump in Beth’s throat grew so large it squeezed tears from her eyes. Bittersweet tears, both happy and sad, for the things that were and for the things that could have been.
Siena pulled at her bodice again, where the seam bit into her waist, and Beth cursed herself that she wasn’t half the dressmaker her mum was. Siena was growing up so fast, she should have known to allow an extra centimetre each side.
A neatly manicured hand flashed out, fingers applying a firm rap against the girl’s shoulder, and her daughter stilled and turned rigid. Beth stiffened with it. Bloody Hannah! Beth peered beyond an oblivious Sophie, who looked like she was in some kind of pain, to her older-by-ten-minutes sister, who was now smiling smugly, her focus one hundred per cent on the words of the vows being exchanged.
Oh yeah, Beth thought, Hannah would be hearing some more words later, too. She just hoped she might pay them the same attention.
ISBN: 9781489257666
TITLE: ONE SUMMER BETWEEN FRIENDS
First Australian Publication 2020
Copyright © 2020 Trish Morey
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