Chapter one hundred seventeen
Reid
Carrie
Once Reid has left the apartment, Cat and Mia show up and bring gifts, dinner, and support. We chat for two hours, and then I’m alone. When I finish my pre-wedding mask and a hot bath, I snuggle into the empty bed that is only empty until Kesha and Nikki join me. My cellphone rings, and with a glance at the caller ID, I see it’s Reid calling, so I pick-up.
“Who wrote these traditions?” he demands. “Because the groom being miserable in a bed that isn’t his own sucks.”
I laugh. “Like you haven’t stayed in a million hotels over your career.”
“And wished for my own bed every time and that was before you were in it.”
“This is good luck. Play the game.”
“There are plenty of games we can play that don’t involve us in different beds.”
I laugh. “And we have the rest of our lives to play them. Go to bed, Reid. You need your beauty sleep.”
“What are you saying? I look like shit or something?”
“Stop,” I laugh again. “Go to bed, my future husband. I need my beauty sleep.”
“You’re beautiful already, baby,” he says. “Let me come home.”
“No. I love you. Goodnight. I’m hanging up.” And I do. I hang up.
My phone buzzes with a text: I love you, too, and I cannot wait to call you my wife.
I text back: I cannot wait to call you my husband.
I wake on the morning of my wedding to another call from Reid. “I miss you and home.”
“We miss you, too,” I say as Nikki pants in my face.
“I’ll see you soon. I love you,” His voice is a low, raspy tone.
“Yes,” I say softly, my heart squeezing with the love I have for the man. “I’ll see you soon and I love you, too.”
We disconnect and my nerves are all over the place. I try to control them with a run that Nikki comes along for. It doesn’t work. I’m a mess. Cat and Mia are back at my apartment not long after I arrive and we are off to the spa. My father picks me up there and we have coffee and it’s good. It’s really good.
“Where are you going for your honeymoon?” he asks.
“Honeymoon? I don’t know. I guess we aren’t. This happened so fast I never even thought about it. As it is, we ended up with forty guests, cake, flowers, and a dress all in ten days.”
“Well, if Reid is worth the salt he now seems to be, I suspect he has a plan.”
I relax into that statement. He’s right. Reid will have a plan and that my father of all people knows this makes this moment all the better.
I arrive at Rockefeller Center with Cat in a hired car. The venue has a private room set-up for us, and my seamstress and Mia, as well as a make-up artist, are all waiting for me. “Are you ready?!” Mia exclaims when she sees me like she hasn’t spent the better part of the past twenty-four hours with me and this is her first chance to see how I’m feeling.
“I’m so ridiculously nervous,” I say, rubbing my cold hands together, and letting someone, I have no idea who, take my coat. “Why am I so nervous?”
Cat laughs. “Wedding jitters are normal.” Mia hands me a glass of champagne. “Drink. This will calm your nerves.”
“Or make me fall into the room.”
“You have time.”
“Before I fall?” I tease.
“We won’t let you fall,” Cat promises, pointing at a chair next to the make-up artist, where I sit down and she hands me the champagne. “I’m about to get married to the biggest asshole and the best man I’ve ever known.”
Cat giggles. “That’s quite the way to describe him.”
“The love of my life,” I say, tipping my glass up.
There’s a knock on the door and Cat rushes in that direction. “Oh yes!” she exclaims to whoever she greets. “Thank you!” She turns to face me with a white box in hand. “Your bouquet.” She hurries forward and sets it in my lap. I open it to find the lily and white rose mixture I chose and it’s perfection. Just the way everything should be the day you marry the love of your life.
Cat kneels in front of me. “I’m going to give him this.” She reaches into the pocket of the jacket she’s wearing and holds up an envelope that reads, “To my son, Reid. To be read on the day you get married.”
I have no fucking clue how I make it through the day. I’m a nervous wreck and I don’t get nervous. I pace the small room they have set-up for me, and Gabe pours me a shot of whiskey. “The good stuff. I brought it to calm you the fuck down.”
I take the glass and down it when there’s a knock on the door. I’m so damn anxious that I pretty much bolt in that direction and open it to find my sister. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course, it’s okay. I have something for you.” She motions me inside and I back up.
She walks in the door, shuts it, and holds up an envelope with script in my mother’s handwriting scrawled across it. My throat thickens. I can’t breathe. I take it from Cat and walk to the window overlooking the rink and the tree. “What the hell is it?” Gabe asks.
“A letter from mom to Reid, for the day he gets married,” Cat says.
I don’t turn around. I stare at the script and stare some more. The idea of opening it tears at my heart. “I’ll open it tonight,” I say turning to face Cat and Gabe.
“It’s meant for before you say your vows,” Cat insists.
“I need to wait,” I say. “If I read this now—” My voice cracks, when my voice never fucking cracks. I stuff the letter inside my jacket. “I’ll read it tonight.”
“Read it now,” Gabe insists. “If that’s what Cat believes mom wanted. Read it now.”
“It is what she wanted. She left me a letter that gave those instructions.”
I inhale a hard-earned breath again and let it out. I pull the letter from my pocket and turn away from both of them again. Somehow I get the envelope seal lifted and I pull the piece of paper out of the envelope to read:
My dearest son Reid,
You were the first child I brought onto this earth, and then you became my world. In you I saw the possibilities, the purpose, the reason I was on this earth myself. You, my son, shifted something inside my soul. As I watched you grow, I saw the future. Life hardened you, though, somewhere along the way and I fear I failed you, that I didn’t nurture you enough. That I didn’t love you well enough or good enough.
My greatest wish for you today is that you have found that love in a wife you will cherish. That she is your best friend. That she is your partner in life. That friendship you share is a gift. Protect it, nurture it. Never take it for granted and remain loyal and faithful.
If you are reading this, then I’m not with you on this very special day, but know that I wanted to be, that it would have been, and is through this letter, my greatest pleasure to be here with you, if not in body, in spirit. I’m here. I love you. I’m officially welcoming a new daughter into our family.
I’m cheering from heaven with the joy of you finding love. It’s all that I have wanted for you.
Love,
Mom