‘Sorry,’ I said again. It didn’t seem enough. It wasn’t enough.
At last we said goodbye and I stood, slowly smoothing down the crinkled fabric of my gown. Catching sight of my reflection, my sad eyes staring back at me, and I turned away from them, heading downstairs to break the news to Nell and Mum.
‘Hey!’ Nell glanced up from her laptop screen. She and Mum were trying to recreate the wedding crown made of flowers that had looked so easy on YouTube. I’d wanted the complete boho-beach-babe look. A nod to where we’d fallen in love. My dress was cream, the colour of ocean spray, loose and floaty. Instead of heels I wore sandals, my toenails painted as golden as sand.
‘Christ, Anna. This is impossible,’ Nell said. ‘There’s only two hours until we have to be at the church. Are you sure you don’t want me to nip to Claire’s Accessories and pick you up a tiara?’
I didn’t answer.
‘Anna? Are you okay?’ Mum asked.
‘It… it’s Adam. His parents didn’t make their flight yesterday – they won’t be at the wedding.’
‘That’s such a shame.’ Mum slipped her arm around me. ‘They must be so upset.’
‘Adam thinks they never intended to come. He’s in bits. He hasn’t seen them in years and they promised they’d be here. Their son is getting married! How could they miss it?’
It was hard to understand why they were choosing not to come. My dad would have given anything to be here today. All week I’d been feeling progressively worse that Dad wouldn’t – couldn’t – be the one to give me away. I’d shed many tears when Adam wasn’t around; I hadn’t wanted to take the shine off the big day build-up, but now this. It felt we were cursed. Only one parent out of four.
‘We can’t know they never intended on coming and I’m sure they have their reasons,’ Mum said.
‘But Mum, Adam is so upset. I don’t know how to make it better for him.’ I felt bereft. My inadequate sorrys and, ‘I’m your family now,’ just hadn’t seemed enough.
‘You can’t always make it better for him. Nell, are you okay if I take Anna upstairs and show her something?’
‘Yes.’
‘Forget the crown, Nell,’ I said miserably. It didn’t seem important anymore.
‘Absolutely not.’ Nell was on a mission now. ‘I’m not going to be beaten. Look, if I just tape the roses to the halo and twist in strands of jasmine, and entwine cream ribbon through it all, it’ll be done. It should be easy. Fuck.’ A thorn tore through her skin, and she sucked her index finger.
‘You’re going to bleed all over your dress. Honestly—’
‘Anna.’ Nell’s eyes met mine. ‘I’ve got this.’ She plucked another dusty pink flower from the diminishing pile. ‘Right, you little bastard. If you don’t behave, I’ll chop your head off. I’ve secateurs here. Don’t think that I won’t.’
I knew she’d pull it off.
Upstairs, I sat on Mum’s bed while she lifted something out of the bottom of her jewellery box. She pressed it into my hand.
‘A coin?’ I didn’t understand.
‘Not just any coin, but the coin Grandad Harry fed into the jukebox to play Elvis the day he met Nan.’
‘Really?’ I turned it over in my hand, feeling all of the history contained in its cold, hard metal.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Grandad said he asked the owner to fish it out so he could keep it as a reminder of the minute he fell in love. Whether that is the actual coin or not we’ll never know, but the point is what it symbolizes.’
I still wasn’t quite getting it.
‘I’ve never told you this, Anna, but Nan’s parents disowned her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she fell pregnant with me before she was married.’
Instinctively I placed my hand over my stomach, remembering the time I had convinced myself that I was pregnant a few months ago.
‘It was a different era, Anna. A real scandal. Nan was devastated. Grandad tried to talk to her parents but they never came around. She told me she cried and cried until Grandad gave her this coin, telling her it was from the jukebox. “I can’t say anything to take your pain away,” he had said, “but carry this coin with you and whenever you’re feeling lost or lonely, give it a rub and know that I’m thinking of you. Always.”’ Mum smoothed my hair from my face and cupped my cheeks with her hands. ‘We can’t always fix things for those we love, Anna, and they can’t always fix things for us, but sometimes just knowing – remembering – that we have that special person who loves us, listens to us, is enough.’
‘I felt I’d let Adam down on the phone. I didn’t know what to say.’
‘Sometimes you don’t need to say anything. When Grandad was laid off from the brewery, he came home and sat on the back doorstep, his head in his hands. Do you know what Nan did?’
‘No.’
‘She gave him the coin and sat. Just sat with him, holding his hand. Throughout the years, that coin passed back and forth between them and when… when your dad died, Nan gave it to me.’
My eyes filled with tears.
‘And now, Anna, I’m giving it to you.’ She closed my fingers around it.
‘But—’
‘Hush. Sometimes we don’t have to say anything.’
And we sat there silently on the bed she’d shared with Dad, my head resting on her shoulder, until Nell burst into the room triumphantly brandishing the finished crown.
It was all going to be okay.
The second I saw Adam at the altar, the world disappeared. My arm linked through Mum’s as we made the slow walk down the aisle. My heart was both light and heavy, missing Dad but grateful for Mum. Excited to become Adam’s wife. His eyes didn’t let go of mine until I reached him. Whispering an ‘I’ll explain later’ in his ear, I pressed the coin into his hand.
We promised for better or for worse and I don’t think either of us registered who was there and who wasn’t. It was him and me.
It would always be him and me.
At the reception flamenco music played while we ate the wedding breakfast: paella, and Limoncello and plum tart of course. During the speeches I drank too much sangria, expecting Josh’s to be raucous and rude but it was short and heartfelt. Mum stood and spoke.
‘In the short time I’ve known him, I’ve grown to love Adam. Before he proposed to Anna, he asked me for her hand in marriage; not a lot of young men would do that nowadays and I appreciated the gesture. Anna’s dad would greatly have appreciated the gesture too and I know that he’d be just as fond of Adam.’ I nodded. ‘But the most important thing of all is that they love each other, and any fool can see that they do.’
‘Even me.’ Josh raised his glass.
‘A toast. To Mr and Mrs Curtis.’
Mrs Curtis.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
It was time for the first dance. We had told Josh and Nell what our song would be and why, but I’d wanted it to be a surprise for Mum and Nan. We’d chosen ‘Love Me Tender’. Adam took me in his arms and we swayed along, intermittently kissing. After the first few bars I watched as Josh strode purposefully towards Nell. Even if it hadn’t been tradition for the best man to dance with the chief bridesmaid, he would have wanted to. Nan was sitting on the edge of the dance floor, wearing such a wistful expression that Josh hesitated as he passed her. With one last, lingering glance at Nell, he offered Nan his hand. Her face lit up as Josh led her onto the dance floor.