Chapter Fifteen #2
Autumn didn’t answer, instead she turned from left to right, looking herself up and down.
Something had shifted. The mood had changed, had sunk even further.
Autumn looked tense. Maddie found Bluebell’s gaze.
Her eyes were wide with concern. “I’ll take it,” Autumn said, suddenly.
The other women, including Moira, gasped.
“What do you mean?” Emma asked, aghast. “There are another nine wedding dresses waiting in there to be tried on.”
Autumn shook her head. “What’s the point? I need a dress, I found a dress. I feel lovely. Trying on a million is a total waste of time.”
“But . . .” Emma tried.
Autumn held up her hand. Emma dutifully stopped pressing. Bluebell and Maddie side-eyed one another once more. It was not at all like Autumn to cut Emma off like that. They sat in silence watching Autumn, who was frozen and staring at the ground.
“I just want to marry Marley,” she said.
“That’s all I care about, honestly. If it weren’t for all of you, I would marry him in a pair of jeans and a baggy jumper at the registry office and be done with it.
I’m sorry for snapping, it’s just that.
.. All of this is lovely, but it isn’t us. Marley and me, I mean...”
She stopped, raising her head to stare at herself in the mirror. She gestured at the dress, then at the shop more generally.
“This is what we would be doing if I was marrying Bowie,” she said.
Emma opened her mouth to speak, but Autumn’s comment had rendered her speechless.
Autumn seized her opportunity to elaborate, speaking quickly, her voice laden with sadness.
“He was the romantic one, wasn’t he? Getting married in the garden, surrounded by candles, loads of people there, a floaty, almost-white wedding dress, those are very Bowie-like things.
If we hadn’t lost him and he and I had lasted, if our conventional, love-at-first-sight fairytale had made it this far, this is the type of wedding he’d have talked me into.
Marley and I, we want to make you all happy, but I’m really scared we’re sleepwalking into a wedding we, as a couple, don’t really want, so that we can give you the day Bowie and I would have given you had things been different.
Getting married in the garden is the only part of this we really want, the rest of it, the fancy altar, the planters, the proper dress, all the people. .. we don’t care about any of it.”
So much became suddenly clear to Maddie.
Autumn’s general lack of interest in the wedding, her calm composure despite having almost nothing organised, the way she shrugged every time Maddie or James asked her a question about the positioning of the altar or where she’d like them to place a wooden planter.
Autumn couldn’t care less. If Maddie had to guess, she’d say that it was in equal parts because she felt bad that she was organising Bowie’s dream wedding with someone who was not Bowie, but also because it wasn’t her vibe — and it wasn’t Marley’s vibe, either.
The two of them had been through so much to get where they were.
Surviving had required knowing wholeheartedly who they were, as individuals and as a couple.
Maddie and Autumn rarely talked about it, but Marley and Autumn had been forced to navigate incredibly difficult conversations over the past few years about how they were feeling and what they were thinking.
They’d sailed the stormy current of their grief together and come through the fog of sadness stronger and united, despite the odds being stacked against them.
They absolutely knew what they wanted and what they didn’t.
But they also loved their family very much — knew that these people were still grieving a man they’d lost and a wedding he would never have — and had tried to find a comfortable medium because of it.
Maddie locked her eyes on Autumn and winced.
The woman before her looked the exact opposite of comfortable.
“Marley will go mad when he finds out I’ve told you this,” she said, her eyes on the three Whittle women. “It’s literally the first time I’ve been alone with you for wedding-related stuff and I’ve just blurted it all out.”
“He doesn’t have to know,” Bluebell said.
“I can’t keep it from him, we don’t have secrets.
” Autumn shook her head, sadly. She turned back to the mirror to look at herself.
Her eyes roamed over her reflection. “It really is a beautiful dress,” she said.
“I think I could get onboard with wearing it. It’s just the rest of it.
An aisle, all those eyes on me, fixed hours, expectations, a day of small talk. I’m dreading it.”
“Then don’t do it,” Emma said.
Autumn snapped to attention, her eyes full of hope. “But everyone...”
“Naff everyone,” Emma hissed, waving her hand theatrically. “My love, I can absolutely promise you that none of us want to do this if you and Marley don’t want to do it. Yes, we love a party. Yes, we’d like a big wedding. But only if it’s what you want.”
Emma stood up and stepped towards Autumn, holding out her hands for her to take.
“Thank goodness you’ve told us. My God, if you’d gone through with this and I’d found out afterwards that you’d hated every second of it, I’d be devastated, and so would everyone else.”
Maddie and Bluebell nodded their agreement.
“I know we can be a lot,” Emma said. Bluebell shuffled pointedly.
Emma rolled her eyes, sighed, and continued.
“I, specifically, can be a lot. I know it’s taken you a really long time to get used to that.
But Autumn, I love you. I only ever want you to be happy.
I’m so sorry you’ve felt like you have to go along with this.
I never meant to make you feel that way.
I know where I’ve gone wrong, and I should have stopped when I felt a hint of resistance. Will you accept my apology?”
Autumn had already softened. “Of course, Emma. I don’t want you to feel bad. This thing we’re planning, it’s what most people want. It’s just...”
“Not you,” Emma interrupted, nodding her head.
“I get it. And it’s your day, yours and Marley’s, so every inch of it should be you.
Marley will twist when we tell him we know, only because he doesn’t want to disappoint us, but we’ll explain everything and he’ll understand it’s for the best. If he gives you any stick, you send him to me. I’ll straighten his face for him.”
Autumn laughed a little and the atmosphere in the bridal boutique thawed.
Maddie’s shoulders, which had at some point risen towards her ears, dropped to their usual position.
She unclenched her jaw and unballed her fists, relieved on Autumn’s behalf.
Bluebell hurled herself out of the sofa and cast herself into Autumn’s arms, mumbling supportive statements and squeezing her tight.
Emma caught Maddie’s eye, and the two women smiled, resigned.
Maddie felt sad. She didn’t care what Autumn and Marley did, but Emma was very obviously disappointed.
Maddie was proud of her mother for shunting her own feelings to one side to put Marley and Autumn first. Not all parents were capable of such maturity.
“So,” Moira said, shattering the moment.
She had slowly backed away from the group and was perched on a stool as far away from the troop as she could get.
Maddie knew she’d be incredibly confused, though she doubted this was the weirdest thing that had ever happened in her shop, hence the pointed retreating. “Are you buying the dress?” she asked.
Autumn stepped away from Bluebell and turned back to the mirror, admiring herself once more. “It really is beautiful,” she said.
“It is,” Maddie concurred.
“Buy it, Autumn!” Emma said, correcting her tone immediately. “If you want to, I mean.”
“There’s no rule that says you can’t wear a big, beautiful dress to a small wedding,” Bluebell agreed.
“There isn’t, is there?” Autumn asked. The Whittle women shook their heads. Maddie was sure Autumn was about to say yes, but she sighed and turned away from her reflection. “No, I’m not going to buy it,” she said. “Help me out of it, will you?”
Moira did a great job of pretending she wasn’t annoyed by how colossally they had wasted her time, but Maddie could still tell she was.
She waited until the shop owner had helped Autumn out of her dress and left her alone behind the curtain to put her clothes back on, then approached her to apologise quietly.
Moira straightened her face and threw Maddie a smile, sighing thoughtfully.
“Do you know how many women have passed through these doors who I can tell don’t want to get married, or don’t want a particular dress, or aren’t happy with the venue or the wedding more generally, but they’re pressured into going ahead with it anyway?
I wish Autumn’s answer had been different, of course I do — I’m here to sell dresses — but I found that entire conversation very refreshing, to be honest with you. ”
Maddie wasn’t entirely sure she believed her, but nodded appreciatively anyway.
* * *