Chapter 21
If this had been the sort of wedding Mónica had always wanted, they could have saved themselves some heartache and never bothered with the one they had had, Adrián thought to himself later that morning as he tugged at his loose linen shirt. He didn’t know if it was normal for weddings these days to have several events beforehand, but it certainly made their quickie affair at the registry office in Madrid seem inferior – and not only because it hadn’t been blessed by God and the Pope.
They were taking photos – family photos – at the largest labyrinth in Spain. He was tempted to just get lost.
Mónica’s aunts were still giving him the evil eye, which, to be honest, he understood perfectly. Not only was he underdressed – he’d grabbed the collarless linen shirt in a hurry as soon as the shops opened that morning – he was a living reminder of the fact that this was Mónica’s second wedding, even though they all agreed the first one didn’t count. Everyone probably thought he’d dislocated his shoulder on purpose just to ruin the photos with the ugly blue sling.
That was still better than thinking he’d engineered the delays to spend more time with Jo, which he almost wished was actually the case. Then she might believe him when he told her she was beautiful.
She was holding up well – better than he was, he suspected. He might have assumed she’d enjoyed catching up with her former in-laws over breakfast, but he’d heard her vulnerable words on Tuesday morning and he could tell her smile was false. Her real smiles she saved for Elizabeth and Declan, whose full names he’d learned only yesterday. The three of them were so comfortable together, such a unit, it made him look forward to his and Oscar’s future relationship with joy.
They were gathered at the entrance to the labyrinth in a loose semi-circle around a young photographer with too much energy. Mónica wore a cream dress that screamed ‘bride’ without actually being a wedding dress, with a little train to her ankles and sequins and embroidery on the front. Ben looked slightly queasy beside her in a grey chaqueta campera, a Spanish country jacket that was cropped and had buttons up to the collar of his white shirt.
What on earth had happened to the woman who’d met him at the lectern at the registry office wearing a flamenco dress and a smile? Had she changed? Or had he never really known Mónica at all, the way Ben had never understood Jo?
Did it even matter?
He tried to hold onto that peace about his life he’d found at Carles’s party, that moment of clarity: I’m still here. But it had a very different ring to it when he was standing with Mónica’s family, about to participate in a photo shoot that no one wanted him in: I’m still fucking here.
‘You all play in the maze, be natural, smile and enjoy and I’ll take some pictures,’ the photographer repeated herself in English. ‘And after, we do the staged family photos. Just have fun!’
A little hand slid into his and Adrián’s bitter thoughts dimmed immediately. ‘Is there anything… in the maze, Papá?’ Oscar asked in Spanish.
‘I think there’s a dinosaur in the middle – not a real one,’ he assured his son when a flash of alarm lit his eyes.
‘Of course it’s not a real one,’ Oscar said, visibly pulling himself together. ‘But I meant in the maze, not in the middle. There aren’t… people going to scare us or anything?’
‘No, mijo,’ he reassured him as best he could. ‘But let’s stay together, okay?’ When he studied the entrance to the maze, he was filled with a sense of misgiving and searched out Jo without thinking. She met his gaze, as she often did. It meant something, in this crazy situation – on occasion, it meant everything.
With tittering and laughter that sounded forced, the wedding party disappeared into the hedges. At first, they ran into someone around every corner, requiring Adrián to smile politely and Oscar to submit to pinched cheeks or hair stroking, which only put him more on edge. But soon enough they’d discovered a lonely corner, where they walked the pathways, Oscar’s hand brushing the flat, shiny leaves of the tall hedge, the sky distant overhead.
‘Is Liss my sister now?’ Oscar asked all of a sudden, without looking at Adrián.
He glanced up at the merciless blue sky in hesitation. ‘We say “hermanastra”, not “hermana”,’ he explained the Spanish term for stepsister, wondering what Mónica had told him. ‘Not much will change. Ben already lives with you, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes, but Liss only sometimes and she always stays in her room.’
With a deep breath out, Adrián searched for the right thing to say. ‘Whatever you feel about this is okay, Oscar. You can’t force yourself to love someone. Mamá will make sure Liss and Dec are kind to you, but whatever you feel – it’s okay.’ If only that were true for his own feelings – grief, bitterness, resentment. Those were just unhelpful – and that was before he added his infatuation with Ben’s ex-wife.
‘Like you couldn’t force yourself to love Mamá,’ Oscar said solemnly and Adrián nearly choked on his own breath. What was he supposed to say to that? Actually, no, kid, it was your mum who didn’t love me.
‘I loved your mum, mijo,’ he said automatically.
‘Then why aren’t you trying to stop Ben?’
Adrián wasn’t paying any attention to the maze any more and they turned a blind corner so quickly that he collided with someone, shooting a hand out to steady himself and finding the curve of a familiar waist.
‘Jo!’ he blurted out.
‘Liss!’ Oscar said, his face brightening. Adrián blinked as his son let go of his hand and ran to Jo’s daughter.
‘Hey, squirt,’ she said tolerantly, giving him a poke that seemed affectionate and sending Adrián floating in uncertainty again. Mere mortals shouldn’t have to be parents. ‘We found the middle already. Want to see?’ Liss asked Oscar, dragging him around a corner.
Adrián glanced at Jo to find her blinking, just as astounded at what they’d just witnessed as he was. They were a few heartbeats too slow and by the time they turned the corner after their kids, there was no one in sight.
‘I’m sure it was this way,’ Jo said with a frown, leading him off to the right, but they hit a dead end. A few more turns later, they had to admit they’d lost the kids.
‘They’ll be all right,’ Adrián said, more to convince himself. ‘If they find their way out, they’ll wait for us and…’
‘If they’re lost, they’re at least contained in the maze?’ Her lips twitched.
‘Since we’re lost…’ He’d meant to say something like, ‘There’s nothing more we can do,’ but her expression brightened a touch at his words and suddenly he was thinking of a hundred other things they could do now they were conveniently lost. She glanced at the dead end they’d just emerged from and grasped his hand to tug him in there after her. The hedge rose above their heads on three sides and he could have believed they were alone in the labyrinth.
‘How was your ice cream date yesterday?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Perfect,’ she said with a smile. ‘No Ben, sea views, ice cream waffles with cream and marshmallows. How was the park?’
‘Exhausting. I should have just bought him ice cream and dealt with the consequences later.’
‘I earned my right to peaceful ice cream parlour visits with many, many hours at the playground when the kids were younger,’ Jo pointed out with a pout that drew Adrián a step closer without him realising it.
‘At least Oscar wants me here, unlike the rest of the wedding party,’ he muttered.
Her gaze flew to his face. ‘I can’t believe Mónica’s dad said that to you this morning.’ She stroked her hand down his good arm.
‘?Ay! it didn’t surprise me that he was happier about the arrival of the guitar.’
‘Still, he shouldn’t have been so rude.’
‘What about your in-laws? It’s like you never left!’
‘Urgh, sometimes I think I’d prefer open hostility to pretending that everything’s all right. How’s your arm?’ Her fingers ventured a little higher up his good arm.
‘Okay,’ he assured her. ‘It doesn’t hurt – until it does,’ he admitted with a wince. ‘What about you? No ill effects of the heat exhaustion? Did you sleep okay?’
‘Without you?’ she said laughing, biting her lip. ‘Yeah, I’m okay. I think my… freak-out helped.’
He brushed a finger under her jaw when she stared down at her toes, bringing her gaze back to his. ‘I think my freak-out is just beginning,’ he admitted. ‘Mónica and I got married in a crummy civil registry office in Madrid. What does all this absurd… hype mean for us?’
‘Adrián,’ she said firmly and just her voice was enough to distract him from his pathetic thoughts. When she grasped his forearms, all of his attention focused on her. ‘It’s not about us – it’s about them.’
‘Yes, but—’ He sighed heavily. ‘You’re right. I thought you were the bitter one.’
‘Ha,’ she responded to his teasing with a dry look. ‘And I thought you’d had an epiphany on the Costa Brava. Grief isn’t linear. There are good days and bad days.’
‘Today is a bad day,’ he said emphatically.
‘Yes,’ she agreed with an exaggerated nod. ‘In-laws and family photos.’
‘Why on earth are we even in these pictures?’ he grumbled. ‘It’s like those awkward shots you have with your ex-boyfriend from secondary school at family gatherings, except it’s awkward now, when we’re taking them, and not just years later when you look at them!’
‘How did you know I had awkward photos with my ex-boyfriend?’
He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, but the little smile on her lips made all the difference to his mood. ‘I’m curious to see them – to see if you have a type.’
‘Of man?’ she asked, shuffling closer and lifting her face. His mouth went dry. ‘I don’t think I want to be judged on my taste in men right now.’
‘Good point. Ben’s Spanish suit is definitely questionable, although he is quite good-looking.’
‘This is a nice shirt,’ she said, her palm touching down on his chest. Yes. ‘I’m a little disappointed you managed to get it on all by yourself.’
‘It’s loose,’ he explained inanely, but his thoughts were tangling the closer she came. ‘Have you found something to wear to the wedding, since your dress went on a pilgrimage without you?’
‘No, the frock shop pilgrimage awaits me tomorrow morning,’ she said, scrunching up her nose. ‘Although at least Liss wants to come with me.’
‘I like this dress, but it doesn’t show your tattoo,’ he said, hoping he didn’t sound overeager. His hand settled on her shoulder and then drifted to stroke the back of her neck.
‘I never show off my tattoo when Ben’s family is around,’ she explained, but her voice wasn’t quite steady as he brushed his fingertips over her skin. Much better.
‘Jo?’ he asked with his last coherent thoughts. ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to be doing this?’
‘We aren’t,’ she agreed softly, but then she stretched up and brushed her lips over his and nothing else mattered.
‘Okay,’ he murmured before returning the kiss – trying for light, but too keen to manage it. He cupped her cheek and soaked her in, his thoughts fuzzy as though it were thirty-seven degrees again.
‘?Dios mío! Aren’t we at the middle yet? I haven’t even seen the photographer.’
Adrián jerked back so quickly he was worried the sound would travel to where one of the aunts was talking in Spanish on the other side of the hedge, their footsteps shuffling.
‘Maybe she’s got one of those drones and is taking photos from above,’ came the response, also in Spanish.
He glanced at the sky in sudden alarm, but they would have to be very unlucky to be caught making out by a photographer’s drone – if she even had one. Rustling at the end of the hedge near their dead end made him push Jo back a respectable distance and then the two women came around the corner, catching sight of them. A cartoon scowl crossed one face, the other was lit up with curiosity, which was even worse.
‘Adrián? What are you doing hiding in a dead end? Who’s that? Jo? The ex-wife?’ She knew very well who Jo was and also how to correctly pronounce her name, but she still used a guttural Spanish ‘j’ that sounded more like ‘Ho’.
‘Ehm, we’re looking for our kids. They seem to have disappeared.’
‘You lost the children! That poor boy will be clinging to his mother again!’
Adrián took a breath in through his nose, trying not to think of all the times he’d been chided for being a mother hen when he should be a tough father figure and leave the clinging to Mónica. ‘Hmm, is that the photographer?’ he said, cocking his head as though listening. ‘That way, perhaps?’ The two women rushed off as quickly as they could – which wasn’t speedy, given one walked with a crutch – and he gave an almighty sigh, his chest heaving enough to hurt his shoulder. ‘I hate this maze,’ he muttered in English to Jo.
‘I liked it up until a minute ago,’ she said, squeezing his arm. ‘But we should find the kids. That was… a close call.’
He followed her out of their bubble, taking the hint that they should have stuck to the original ‘no kissing’ plan. ‘We’re lucky it was María Dolores who found us. María Rosa would have subjected us to the Spanish Inquisition,’ he said lightly.
‘That’s a terrible joke,’ Jo replied without looking at him. Her eyes scanned the hedges as though she could see through them. Pausing, she glanced at him and asked, ‘Would she really have grilled us?’
‘No,’ he reassured her. ‘I’m not even sure that was María Dolores.’
She spluttered an inarticulate response. ‘I’m seriously questioning my taste in men right now.’
‘Just my luck,’ he said, winking at her.
The urge to take her hand was so strong he had to have a firm word with himself to resist, but when they turned a corner and emerged abruptly into an open square, he was relieved he hadn’t risked it. An enormous – and rather poorly rendered – brontosaurus stood in the centre, vines growing up its legs. The three kids stood together, pondering the statue.
‘It looks like a pantomime dinosaur,’ he heard Liss say. ‘I keep thinking someone’s going to leap out or it will open its mouth and yell, “It’s behind you!”’ Adrián smiled, thinking about where Liss had inherited her sense of humour from.
‘I think he’s smiling,’ Oscar said solemnly.
‘Unless it’s a she,’ Dec added. ‘I don’t see a—’ Liss whacked him on the arm.
‘They’re not going to sculpt a penis onto a pantomime brontosaurus in the middle of a maze!’
Oscar clapped a hand over his mouth. ‘You said penis!’ he mumbled through his fingers.
‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ she said, her tone peeved. ‘It’s the anatomical term.’
‘All right, kids,’ Jo said while Adrián was still feeling rather dumbfounded. ‘We’ve found the middle. Are we ready to get out of here and find the bar?’
‘I’m not really sure drinking will help, Mum,’ Liss said with half a smile that suggested she might be genuinely worried.
‘She meant ice cream,’ Adrián defended her.
‘Oh, I’ve found the children!’ They all turned to see the photographer sweeping into the middle of the maze. ‘Two little brothers now!’ she said with exaggerated sympathy for Liss as she snapped away. It was not the way to make Liss smile, but if Mónica wanted candid shots to immortalise this happy day, this was what she would get.
She turned to Jo and Adrián and he froze in panic, wondering if they were standing too close or she could see in his expression that he’d been making out with Jo in a maze two days before Mónica’s wedding while their kids bickered a few metres away.
Then the photographer made everything worse. ‘Isn’t this cute couple going to smile for the camera?’