Chapter 11
‘Any of these the one?’ Lily asked. I stared at Evie’s pudgy fingers, which were each decorated with a different gold or silver ring.
I hadn’t meant for our Saturday afternoon catch-up at Stella’s house to be all about the wedding.
But Lily was making our wedding bands, and between work and Arlo’s nap schedule we’d struggled to find time to meet in person to make a final decision.
‘Umm...’ My eyes flicked from one band of metal to another.
‘I cried when Nick showed me the ring he’d picked,’ Stella said as she burped Alice.
‘Of course you did,’ Lily replied as I laughed. Nick could have given her the ring from a can of Diet Coke, and she would have been in floods.
‘If there’s something you’ve seen that you like, I can make a version of it,’ Lily prompted.
Matt had asked for a simple gold band, and I’d assumed that I’d want the same.
I looked at the array of rings in front of me.
I was going to wear this ring for the rest of my life.
Did I want gold or platinum? Thin or thick?
Encrusted with diamonds, or some kind of symbolic stone, or plain?
Normally I knew exactly what I wanted, but I was confused.
I felt like I was trying to get somewhere without Google Maps.
‘This is the one I made with you in mind.’ Lily pointed at a thin band, which Evie was trying to shove on her doll’s wrist. ‘It looks like it’s one solid band but it’s actually three thin pieces of metal, each a different type of gold, woven around each other.’
Her tone was nonchalant, but I knew how much skill, how much work, how many stolen hours had gone into making that ring. Lily’s custom pieces, particularly ones like this, weren’t just jewellery – they were art.
‘It’s called a trinity ring,’ Lily said. ‘The three pieces of metal represent the past, present and future.’
I felt my throat tighten. The notion of the past and present intertwining felt too real this afternoon.
‘Do you like it?’ Lily asked.
‘I do!’ I said, and swallowed. ‘You’re an absolute genius, Lil.’
Lily snorted. Stella and I glanced at each other. Lily was many things, but derisive of her talents wasn’t one of them.
Stella plucked the ring off Evie’s doll’s arm and handed it to me. ‘Wear it for a bit this afternoon and see how it feels,’ she suggested.
I slipped it onto my finger, where it sat snug against my engagement ring.
It was strange that in a few weeks I’d be a wife and Matt would be my husband and because of a band of metal, everyone in the world would know it.
Nick had chosen not to wear a wedding ring (‘I’d just have to take it on and off to scrub in!
’) and Lily wasn’t married to Aaron (she thought it would be funny to call him her ‘current boyfriend’ when they were in their seventies), but for Matt it hadn’t been a question – he couldn’t wait to wear a ring.
‘Seriously, why don’t you go have a nap?’ I suggested to Stella as she tried to cover a yawn. Nick was on call all weekend, so she had no backup.
‘No, it’s okay,’ Stella protested.
‘Please go!’ I said and reached out my arms for my niece. With only one backwards glance at her baby, Stella stumbled towards her bedroom.
‘Do you think Alex is one of Matt’s groomsmen yet?’ Lily asked with a cheeky smile, as she started to pack up the rejected rings. In an emergency phone call, I’d told Lily about the Matt-and-Alex-together-this-afternoon situation.
‘Oh god, don’t,’ I said. Matt’s portion of the bridal party was already coming in at six to my two (though Holly and Ivy, his twin sisters, were going to stand next to me for symmetry purposes). What was a scarier notion: Matt having seven groomspeople or Matt and Alex becoming friends?
‘What are they even talking about?’ I asked.
‘Matt can talk to anyone about anything, you know that,’ Lily said.
‘Yeah, I know.’ I had to leave buffers of time wherever we went because he invariably ended up chatting with every barista, retail assistant and dog owner we encountered.
‘Anyway, it’s happening, so try not to freak out,’ Lily added.
We were interrupted by a knock on the door. I jogged down the hallway, jiggling Alice, to answer it before Stella was disturbed.
‘Darling!’
‘Dad!’ I rushed into his arms.
‘Group hug!’ Evie, who’d followed me down the hallway, flung her short arms around the trunks of our legs.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, once we’d all disentangled.
‘I thought I’d drop in on my way home from the hospital,’ he said.
‘Oh, great,’ I said. I felt a sting of irritation – I knew the feeling well after two recent encounters with Alex.
I’d asked Dad ages ago if he’d be free to help pick out the watch I wanted to give Matt as a wedding present, but he’d told me he had plans all weekend.
Except the scheduling conflict had been work.
Dad squatted down in front of Evie. ‘I brought something for you!’
He pulled an ice cream in a lurid wrapper from behind his back.
Evie squealed with delight. I felt a tug of discomfort.
Stella was pretty careful when it came to what Evie ate – I didn’t want her to regret having some downtime when she returned to find her high-energy preschooler jacked up on sugar.
But Dad didn’t respond well to feedback.
And what was I meant to do – yank the rainbow Paddle Pop out of the tight fist of a thrilled child?
I decided I’d cut up some carrots to counteract its effect.
‘Hi, John,’ Lily said when he reached the kitchen.
‘Lily! What a nice surprise,’ he replied. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and then lowered himself onto a couch. ‘Business booming? Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life! What are you girls up to?’
‘Trying on wedding rings,’ I said, holding up my finger.
‘Oh, that reminds me, I have some bad news,’ Dad said.
I braced.
‘My colleague who was going to lend us his Bentley now needs it that day.’
I exhaled. This I could troubleshoot. I’d thought for a moment that Dad was about to tell me that he’d been given the keynote at some important international conference on our wedding date and wouldn’t be able to make it.
‘That’s okay. We can... Uber or something,’ I said quickly, adding ‘wedding car’ back onto the to-do list, with a sub-item not to mention to Mum that the one task Dad had taken on had fallen through.
‘The curse strikes again!’ Lily said with a wry smile.
‘What curse?’ Dad asked, turning towards her, an eyebrow raised.
Lily helpfully filled him in. ‘The one where every woman in Helena’s family gets engaged to a man before the person they marry.’ I shook my head at her behind Dad, but she missed it. ‘Because Becs is marrying her first fiancé, Helena thinks the whole wedding is doomed.’
A rare belly laugh exploded from Dad.
‘Sometimes I miss her dramatic flair,’ he said, wiping his eyes. ‘She was never going to marry... I can’t even remember his name. He had less personality than Hamish does.’
‘Dad,’ I said, jerking my head towards Evie. Brown and pink ice cream was dripping down her face onto the dove-grey couch, and she was was looking more interested in our conversation than she normally did watching Gabby’s Dollhouse . I ran to the bench to grab a roll of paper towel.
‘It happened to Grandma Evelyn too,’ I said as I dabbed at the pale fabric.
‘Evelyn probably forgot she said yes to two men,’ he said. He’d always loved Grandma and had been grateful for how much time she’d spent with me as a kid, but he’d always treated her like a child he found adorable but occasionally exasperating.
‘Maybe,’ I said, but Dad’s attention was already on Evie who was campaigning heavily for access to his phone.
A few minutes later I retreated to the bathroom, Alice strapped to me in her carrier.
I stared at myself in the mirror and smiled.
The reflection was reassuring. A thirty-something face and a baby on my chest. This is who I wanted to be.
I was no longer a confused teenager or a girl in her early twenties, unsure of everything.
Now I knew exactly what I wanted. I held my left hand up next to my face.
Matt and I had a plan. I just needed to get through the next month. I just needed to get through today.
In a few hours, Matt would come home, and we would order something fried and watch a movie. I’d apologise for throwing him in the deep end and thank him for being so welcoming and explain what I’d been trying to achieve.
I heard a car crunching across the gravel driveway – it was probably Nick, home after being called in to see a patient. I looked out the window and was surprised to see the car was Matt’s. We’d planned to meet back at home.
I quickly washed the residue of Evie’s ice cream off my hands and raced out to greet him. I was dying to know how the afternoon had gone, to make sure that everything was okay, preferably away from my dad, best friends and assorted children.
But I stopped in my tracks as I reached the front step.
Not only were Dad, Lily, Evie and Arlo already in the front garden, but Alex was standing next to Matt looking relaxed in a faded T-shirt and a new Australian Open cap.
Matt was wearing a matching one. How did the same cap look entirely different on each of them?
Alex, in his oversized sunglasses looked like a hipster celebrity trying to hide from the paparazzi, whereas Matt, whose white linen shirt matched the hat, looked like the dad you’d love to have a gentle flirt with at a school fundraiser.
But hats weren’t the important thing right then. How had the afternoon gone?
‘Who’s this?’ Alex waved at Arlo.
‘This is my son, Arlo. He’s one next weekend,’ Lily said, greeting Alex with open arms.
‘Matt said that you’d be here, so I thought I’d say a quick hello on the way home,’ Alex explained. Was Alex that desperate for company in a new city? Or had Matt encouraged him to come along?
My spiralling thoughts were interrupted by a clinking sound. I looked down. The wedding band had fallen off my still slightly soapy hand and straight through a metal grate, into a drain.