Chapter 3
Now
The last of the bridesmaids and groomsmen take their places, and Jordan’s face is everything I wanted at Monica’s age.
The glassy smile in his eyes tells me how much he loves my daughter.
How much he wants to be here and be her husband.
That ‘I can’t believe she’s mine’ look on his face.
Sometimes, I worry that Jordan is more into this relationship than Monica.
Not that she doesn’t love him—she does.
Jordan is just always the one making plans for them.
Like the time he was planning their honeymoon.
He came over with honeymoon brochures of the Poconos. Monica didn’t seem impressed, and I could tell Jordan was hurt. I knew the feeling all too well and talked with my daughter.
“Monica, Jordan seems bothered by your lack of interest after he showed you the brochures,”
I told her.
I remember she stood up from the bed where we were both sitting after Jordan left and told me her valid concerns.
“It’s not that, Mom.
The Poconos look beautiful, and I’m happy with wherever Jordan wants to take us on our honeymoon.
It’s just…well, when I saw all those heart-shaped bathtubs and large, walk-in showers, it bothered me.”
I wasn’t catching her drift and approached her concern as motherly as I could, yet not wanting to step on toes or be the intruding mother.
But I wasn’t sure why it bothered her.
“Is that what married people do? Always bathe together? Will I ever have privacy?”
I pressed my lips, forcing the laugh that was about to come out.
But then it hit me.
Monica never remembered Michael and me much being together.
Even at her age, she hadn’t a clue about how married people interacted.
The guilt of Michael and I’s relationship and failed marriage had once again defined our life and how the past still played a role in my daughter and I’s current life. And no matter how much I told myself, ‘We’re okay. We’re a family, just you and I. It was at those moments that I questioned everything. But I never questioned having her.
“No, of course not, Monica,”
I said.
“You will still have privacy.
I don’t think Jordan wants to know all your business.
And…I think he will want his as well.”
Knowing now, she worried about going to the bathroom before him and those special times of the month.
It was not precisely a silly concern.
Even back in the day, I thought I’d die if Michael ever saw me use the toilet—number two or saw my panty liners under the bathroom sink, which was foolish because Michael didn’t care or see anything about me.
The music starts, and we all stand.
What is it about those first few choruses that bring goosebumps and well the eyes? Today is justified.
But I haven’t been able to withstand those feelings at any wedding.
The doors open and…I can’t breathe.
My heart bangs against my chest, and I must take a breath.
Inhaling deeply, I let the air out of my lungs slowly, controlled.
I look back at my daughter walking down the aisle—with Michael.
I’m a complete mess now, and I must dry it up if I intend not to miss a second of this wedding.
Oh, my.
She’s perfect.
The perfect bride and Jordan’s tears are running down his face.
His head moves side to side in an almost disbelief of her beauty. This moment is nothing but celestial. If I die and go to Heaven now, my whole messed up existence with Michael was worth it. How can a feeling this wonderful, this joyful bring such a painful, happy sense in my heart? And to see and know that Michael is here witnessing this moment with me escalates that feeling. I’m not sure how he feels now. After talking with him no more than twenty minutes ago, I noticed something different about him. But I don’t want to ponder it because Michael will always be that ache from the past. I don’t wish to mess up my future. Me and Monica’s future.
Dabbing my eyes, I smile at Monica as she looks at me through her veil, arm in arm with her father.
She looks so happy.
So, perfect.
Then I look at Michael, wanting to give him a, ‘thank you for being here’ glance, and spot that strange look again in his eyes as he looks right at me, right into me.
I swallow a lump down and fix my gaze back to Monica.
A million thoughts are running through me, and I worry the chatter will begin as soon as the music stops.
Who’s that man walking Monica down the aisle? That isn’t Scott.
Didn’t Monica’s dad run off a long time ago?
I look at Scott, whose words were transparent about how he felt about Michael being here, let alone walking her down the aisle.
Six months ago, Scott was going to be walking Monica down the aisle.
It took many talks and begging him that this was Monica’s day, not mine.
But still, he was outraged.
Scott slowly looks at Michael and Monica with tolerance in his eyes.
I mouth, thank you, and he nods.
However, this wedding has only started, and there’s the whole reception thing yet to be done—with alcohol.
The preacher asks who gives this woman to be with this man, and I hold my breath.
“Her mother and I,”
Michael says and looks at me.
I nod with a smile, and he hands Monica to Jordan.
He glances again and sits on the other side of the church.
I catch my breath before sitting down.
Jordan’s family watches as Michael sits beside them and looks at me.
They are wondering why he’s on the groom’s side.
Well, one would have to ask my brother.
“Scott, please behave and don’t make Monica feel guilty,”
I said one day when he visited me at work.
“He has no business being here or at my niece’s wedding.”
“He’s her father, Scott.”
“How can you even call him that? I’ve been more of a father to Monica than…him,”
he said disgustingly, not wanting to mention Michael’s name.
I didn’t blame him.
He had been there for Monica.
Dad and doughnut day at school.
Field trips I couldn’t make. Her first father-daughter dance in Girl Scouts.
All in all, he’d always been the one picking up the pieces.
Pieces that Monica and I would still stumble over from time to time.
How could I not understand his feelings for this? I did, but I had to make him know it wasn’t about us, he and I.
Or even Michael.
It was about Monica and her day. Despite how we both felt. And to be honest…I felt differently. Shocked and…happy, Michael was doing this for his daughter. And that also made me feel guilty. No matter how far Michael was from our lives, his ghost was always around the corner, lurking in those unexpected moments. And this was one of them.
“I’m telling you, Jill, I don’t think I can be there with that piece of shit in the same building as me.
I don’t think Mom and Dad will be there either.”
“Did Mom and Dad say that?”
“Jill, I haven’t told them yet because I don’t want to be the one to bring bad news.
But, yes.
I’m sure that, once they find out, they won’t be going to Monica’s wedding either.”
Dad had just suffered a heart attack two months earlier, and Monica thought we should postpone the wedding until after Dad’s rehab.
My father had also been a surrogate father to Monica for the times Scott couldn’t commit.
And once again, Michael was becoming that thorn in my family’s side.
But no matter what he’d done or how they felt, Michael was still part of Monica’s family.
“You know, it would have been better for you if…he would have died.”
“Scott,”
I protested.
“You can’t mean that?”
“Jill, what he did to you and Monica is unforgivable.
He deserved to die.”
Those truthful words coming out of Scott’s mouth were no different than when I thought it.
But I never said it out loud.
Because it was true, and death probably would have given me closure.
With Michael, my heart was a revolving door, swinging round and round.
Though his heart was shut to me, I could never accept it. And now, he was back. But not for me, and I had to get a grip on my emotions. I hoped no one could see that hope in my eyes once again. And I was lying to myself. The day Monica told me she’d reached out and found her father on Facebook, I was seventeen again.
“Look, Jill,”
he said remorsefully, “I’m sorry it had to come out that way.
It’s just that I’m afraid it will be another one of his no-shows.
And then what?”
“No, Scott, you’re right.
But Monica has her heart set on this.”
“That’s my point, Jill.
I watched you go through hell many times.
I want to spare my niece the pain you went through.”
He was right.
The hell Michael put me through ate me alive, and the only way I survived it was to forgive him for something he was never sorry for.
I didn’t know which was worse.
And now, I was going to ask Scott to do the same.
“That’s because I put it behind me.
Behind me,”
I said, throwing my arms over my head.
“Can you do it just for one day, Scott? For Monica? I’ll do my best to keep Michael away from you.”
He rested his hands on his hips and bowed his head in defeat.
I knew the feeling.
He took a deep breath and said, “Okay, but he doesn’t sit on our family’s side.”
He left that day, and I hoped it was settled; Michael would walk his daughter down the aisle.
I went into the bathroom, locked myself inside the stall, and cried.
All I ever wanted was to love and be loved, and in the process, I was destroyed for wanting that.
I never understood how it was such a bad thing.
Indeed, there were worse things one could do to someone, and bad things had been done to me. But, I had learned that wanting passion and romance was distasteful and a waste. The worst thing you could ask of another. ‘Let me love you.’
Shaking my head, I return to the present.
This wedding forced back the pain of the last two decades.
No, I haven’t let it go, according to the trembling of my body and the ache in my heart.
But to hurt Monica or to tell her that her father was not welcome would ten-fold that.
And I have done my best to protect her from my pain.
“We are gathered here to bring together this man and this woman in holy matrimony,”
the preacher says, asking for a word of prayer.
Before I bow my head like an idiot, I look again at Michael.
He hasn’t bowed his head yet either and stares at me.
I don’t want to watch, but I do, and try as I may, read what’s in his eyes.
Are the last two decades running through his head? What has life been like for him? I’m sure it’s been nothing but ski vacations in Aspen. Sunsets on the beach in Aruba. European sabbaticals when he can’t cope with life. But then I realized those are all romantic things, and Michael was anything but. And I’m sure there’s a line of women who thought of romance when the Handsome Michael Danforth took them away to someplace exotic. All their dreams went down the toilet the minute he dumped them at the airport once the vacation was over. At least I got a wonderful daughter out of it.
Yes, I smile at Michael and bow my head.