After Forever Ends

I shook my head. “I used to always hear her say she thought for sure we’d broken up.”

“Wishful thinking on her part! But not to worry! It’ll tell her you and Oliver are still happily together,” Laurie laughed wickedly, “And that you have lovely children, too, little ones, and you weren’t pregnant at school. She’ll die! She had a fit when I told her that Lucy was marrying Alexander. She said, ‘What is it with those Cotton girls getting everything they want?’ She’s still not married. She lives in Merryside with a cat!”

“Now that is sad,” I agreed, “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to go have a peek at my little sister.”

“Not at all! It’s her day!”

Lucy looked like an angel with her strawberry hair swept up into sparkling pins. She wore our mother’s wedding dress. It was very ornately embroidered and detailed with pearls, a white silk gown that swept the ground as she moved. On her wrist dangled a bracelet and around her neck she wore a thin gold chain with a simple teardrop pendant. “How do I look?” She asked, turning from the mirror.

“Perfect,” I told her honestly.

“Is it time?” She drew a deep breath. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

“If you’re ready.”

“I am,” She nodded. Dad took her arm and led her to the aisle.

Alexander was waiting at the altar. When he saw my sister his eyes positively lit up. He gri

“So do you,” She replied She squirmed happily in her shoes, “Wow!”

Neither Lucy nor Alexander stopped smiling at each other, not even once, not for one second, the whole time they were being married. Alexander looked astonishingly like Oliver as he took his vows, “Lucy, I’m not good with words. I usually choose the wrong ones, but I can’t do that right now, because I’m standing here and I’m looking into your beautiful face and I can’t remember what I pla

“You weren’t supposed to kiss her,” The priest whispered.

“Oh! Sorry!” Alexander whispered back.

A ripple of laughter spread throughout the church.

Ana dabbed her eyes. Whether she was crying over the joy that her son had found true love after a failed marriage or out of relief that she finally got to go to a wedding, or that no one was pregnant, I do not know, but I was sincerely happy for her. I was happy for everyone.

“Alexander,” My sister twisted in her shoes again like a little child, “I’m gobsmacked! I had this whole thing I wrote memorized, but it wouldn’t be nearly as special as what you just said to me. So here I go without it. I’ve loved you since I was eleven years old. I loved you all those years ago when I was just a little girl and you loving me back would have landed you in prison,” They both laughed, “I loved you when you were in love with someone else. I loved you when I hadn’t talked to you in ages. I loved you when I decided you were a bumpot and I didn’t want you. But there I went and loved you again when I got off that train and I thought you were Oliver standing with Silvia. But I love you right now more than I did any of those times and I have this feeling that I’ll love you even more tomorrow. And you’re right. Spending the rest of my life with Alex Dickinson is unexpected and it is odd and mad and, Alex, I love you straight back. You and our two little muffins. With all my heart, I do. You’re my whole life and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but with you, either. Not ever.”

Our father sat in his pew with an odd look on his face and stared at Lucy. I had never realised it as a child, but considering him as an adult sees her father, I knew he must have loved Mum very much. He was glad for Lucy, but watching that dress move about in living colour brought back memories I don’t think he was prepared to deal with even after all the years mum had been gone. For a second, I wished I’d known her so that I could comfort him, but the truth was that he had held our mother hostage in his own heart and never allowed us to love her, too. She was a vague recollection to me and someone Lucy had been too young to even miss, but that day I realised that she was still my father’s mistress, a ghost he was either too weak or too unwilling to set free. It was no wonder he could not handle being too close to his daughters. We haunted him with memories of our mother.

I could not wait for him to leave and go back to Scotland where he could be far enough away that I might forget that realization and not see him as pathetic ever again.

Oliver stood beside his brother and me beside my sister as they exchanged their rings. He never lifted his eyes from mine, nor did he fail somehow to get me smiling. I knew he was remembering our own wedding, the one that had lasted all of about three and a half minutes. The constable had rattled off the ceremony as if he was going to be late to lunch and sent us packing straight away.

My goodness, I thought, I’d been in a yellow sundress and he was wearing tan trousers and a white shirt and black tie from Be

“I love you, Sil,” Oliver mouthed at me as Alex slipped the band on to Lucy’s finger.

“I love you, too,” I mouthed back as Lucy did the same to Alex.

“Marry me?” He raised his eyebrows and gri

“We’re next!” I gri

The priest said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride…again!”

Alexander lifted Lucy straight off the ground and suspended her in his arms. My sister draped her arms around his neck as she met him for a kiss that lasted for ages.

Everyone stood and clapped.

When the wedding was through and everyone had left the church and was heading to their cars, Oliver and I dashed back inside like a couple of school children at play and stood together at the altar.

Oliver took my hands in his, “Just Silvia, blah blah blah. Kiss me.”

He pulled me into his arms and kissed me madly on the altar of that church, “I love you, Sil,” He said when he finally stopped, "Thank you for marrying me.”

“I’ll do it every single day, Sweetheart.”

We were at it again when someone interrupted us.

“You two have not changed one bit!” It was Merlyn Pierce who came back into the church. He was smiling, “This is the House of God, you know! Come on now, everyone’s waiting for you! Your son just puked on my wife, by the way!”

I hurried out to do damage control. Gryffin had been born with an amazing capacity for projectile vomiting. He got it from his dad and Uncle Alex.

My dad had made reservations for a nice di

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes, have a wonderful time with your friends!”

I thanked her profusely and returned to the table where the Boys from Be