Chapter Twenty
The morning of the wedding dawned clear and bright.
Maddie awoke just before the sun rose. She fully expected to be alone in the kitchen, but found Autumn sitting at the table nursing a coffee.
She must have driven over early, Maddie concluded.
Perhaps she had been unable to sleep? She didn’t have the energy to ask.
“Morning!” Autumn sang, in a manner that was exceptionally cheery, even for a bride.
“Good morning, Mrs Whittle,” Maddie teased. Autumn rolled her eyes, dutifully pouring Maddie a coffee.
“You know full well I’m not changing my name,” she said.
“Marley said you were thinking about double-barrelling them,” Maddie said, sitting down and sipping gratefully from her mug.
Autumn nodded. “We were thinking about that, mainly because Benjamin is Whittle-Black and we wouldn’t mind all being the same. But, truthfully, I couldn’t care less — I just want to marry him.”
Maddie feigned surprise. “If the old Autumn could see you now,” she said.
Autumn laughed. “I reckon she’d be flabbergasted, but only because she never thought she’d love a man this much.”
Maddie beamed, and the two women fell into comfortable silence.
Maddie stared deep into her coffee cup, lost in thought.
She wasn’t thinking about anything deep — the timeline for today, how cute Benjamin would look in his suit, how excited she was to wear her bridesmaid’s dress — a floor-length, black-satin, halter-neck gown she’d bought on a whim a few years ago from a vintage shop but never had a reason to wear.
She finished her coffee and reached again for the cafetière, noticing only then that Autumn looked teary.
“Hey!” Maddie stood and went around the table, putting her arms around her friend. “Are you OK? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Autumn said, laughing a little. “Oh, nothing, Maddie, I’m being so silly. It doesn’t even make any sense.”
Maddie let go of Autumn and sat beside her, pouring her another coffee.
She knew Autumn was trying to drop this conversation only because she felt silly about whatever was on her mind, not because she didn’t want to talk about it.
Maddie pushed the mug towards her and watched her take a sip.
She felt suddenly flooded with love for her friend, who looked so happy and yet so sad all at once.
She nudged Autumn with her elbow. Autumn smiled.
“I get so tired of wittering on about the same thing,” she said.
“But on days like today, Bowie’s absence is even more startling than usual.
Not just for me, for Marley, too. He’s generally OK these days, but whenever there’s a celebration, Bowie is on his mind all day.
That feels strange today, given the irony of the situation.
Today wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for his absence, and yet almost every single person in attendance will be wishing he was here, including Marley and me.
It’s so confusing. There’s no blueprint, and I find that so frustrating. ”
“I understand,” Maddie said, because she did.
The tumultuousness of the past few weeks had made her miss her brother more than ever.
She longed for his wise words, his steady support, his hugs.
His face swam into her mind unbidden — that dopey, sympathetic smile he’d reserved for the many conversations they’d had about being introverted and shy, and how it had held them both back.
Her heart ached, but only because she felt so lucky to have had him.
She too wished he was here, not least because her situation would be so much easier to navigate if he was here to help her sort through the way she felt.
She cleared her throat, forcing herself to continue.
“He was a massive presence in our lives. We loved him so very much. It’s only natural we all default to thinking about him when important things happen. He doesn’t deserve any less.”
Autumn nodded a little frantically. “Oh, God, I know. I’ll never forget him, or how wise he was, how kind, how sweet and funny. It just makes me sad, I guess.”
“That all makes sense,” Maddie reassured her.
“And it’s not silly, Autumn. Like you said, there’s no blueprint for any of this.
You and Marley found yourselves in such an extraordinary situation, of course you have no idea how to feel.
As time goes on, I’m finding the best way for me to deal with my feelings about losing Bowie — is just to sit with them.
If I’m sad, then I let myself be sad. If I miss him, then I let myself miss him.
Sometimes I say the words aloud, as though he can hear them.
I still tell him I love him every single day. ”
Autumn smiled sadly. “Me too.” She wiped her tears away and sat up straighter, drawing in a deep breath and sighing hard. “I just really wish he was here.”
She rushed the words out, as though she absolutely needed to say them, but wanted to do it as quickly as she possibly could. Maddie smiled reassuringly, squeezing her hand. There was nothing she could say to that.
A flutter of wings by the window caught Maddie’s attention, drawing her from her thoughts.
A robin had landed on the windowsill. It was staring out across the garden, as though it was waiting for something.
The weather was turning, the sunrise was rippling through its feathers, and it was puffed up, seemingly proud.
Maddie smiled and shook her head, trying desperately to rid her mind of celestial conclusions, but she couldn’t help herself, it was too comforting.
Autumn followed her gaze. She caught sight of the robin and smiled. “Ah, that robin. It appears everywhere. Here, in our garden at home. Marley insists it’s the same one. I keep trying to tell him it’s not, but he says it’s Bowie, that he follows us everywhere.”
“Do you think that’s daft?” Maddie asked, hoping Autumn would say yes. She felt silly for connecting frequent visits from robins to Bowie’s lingering presence and she’d appreciate being shamed out of it, though she had to admit it did give her comfort.
Autumn thought about that. “Bowie would think it was ridiculous,” she said, grinning.
Maddie laughed. Autumn was right, her brother had been incensed by any such silliness for most of his life, convinced that death was the end of everything.
He had insisted several times before he’d died that he would not come back to visit them, so they should not look for any sign he was trying to communicate with them from the afterlife.
But Maddie knew that if he could, he would.
He had loved them too much. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.
The robin turned and peered through the window.
Autumn tittered, amused. “I don’t know what I think,” she admitted, watching the little bird dance back and forth.
“But I know it gives me comfort to think he might be here.”
Maddie smiled at that. She wholeheartedly agreed that it was a nice thing to think, even if it did sound absurd when you said it out loud. She squeezed Autumn’s hand again, her eyes still on the robin, and whispered, “We love you, Bowie.”
Right on cue, the bird tapped the window with its beak, fluffed up its feathers, skipped to the edge of the windowsill and flew away, singing heartily to the morning sunshine. Autumn and Maddie stared at each other, their eyes wide with wonder, then laughed.
* * *
Because Autumn and Marley wanted a fuss-free, relaxed wedding morning, their official civil ceremony — technically their proper wedding —was booked for the following Monday morning at Hertford Registry Office, with only Ben, Emma, Katherine and Benjamin in attendance as witnesses.
Their wedding in the garden, which was happening at four o’clock, was technically a non-legal blessing, though Marley and Autumn had made it clear they viewed saying their vows in front of the people they loved most in their world and in their favourite place on the planet as the most important part, whether it was licenced or not.
Autumn’s mother, sister and baby niece had set off early that morning and were due to arrive at lunchtime.
Autumn insisted she wanted to do nothing that morning except sit in her pyjamas and drink champagne with Maddie and Bluebell, a plan Maddie could get behind.
They put on a pop playlist and, despite the fact they were in no rush, started lazily applying make-up and styling their hair.
Autumn and Bluebell spent most of the morning chatting idly about their hopes for the future.
Autumn wanted more of the steady predictability of her life at the moment.
She was really enjoying having Marley at home.
It had given them more time together, revived their friendship and invigorated their relationship.
Bluebell, by contrast, longed for adventure.
She yearned to dance with strangers, for isolated beaches and sunsets so beautiful they took her breath away.
“What about you, Mads?” Bluebell prompted her.
Maddie thought hard about that. “Obviously I want the business to be successful,” she said. “But I’m not measuring that in monetary terms. I just really want to help as many people as possible.”
Bluebell nodded, her eyes flitting to Autumn. “How are you feeling about James going away?” she asked.
“Bluebell,” Autumn warned, passing her an eyeshadow and gesturing to her eyelids. “We all know how she feels about it. Today is not the day.”
Maddie was grateful for her ‘almost’ sister-in-law, the only member of the family besides her father who had not tried to persuade her to ask James to stay.
Maddie knew that was not because Autumn didn’t care, but because she trusted Maddie to make her own decisions.
She’d made it clear she was there if Maddie wanted to talk, then left it at that.
“Fine,” Bluebell muttered, opening the eyeshadow pallet. “Do you want glitter?”