Chapter 33
“Are you all packed for your trip?” Lydia asked from the front seat of her car.
The other women had all graciously agreed to move up the date of their dress fitting to accommodate Simeon and Abigail’s trip to Ecuador.
Abigail’s stomach flipped. She still wasn’t sure if she’d been crazy to say yes to Simeon’s proposal that they go—and yet there was a part of her that really wanted to see this mysterious place where she’d fallen in love with him.
“Not quite yet,” Abigail answered from the backseat—she, Ireland, and Mia had let Ava take the front seat since her morning sickness also gave her car sickness. “It’s still five days away, so there are a lot of things I can’t pack yet.”
“Cómo van tus lecciones de espa?ol?” Mia asked.
Abigail scrunched her nose, thinking. Cómo meant how. And espa?ol meant Spanish, so . . .
“Pretty good?” When she’d asked Simeon if she spoke Spanish, he’d said she had picked some up on their first trip to Ecuador—but apparently she hadn’t known it well enough to retain it in her procedural memory because she didn’t remember a lick of it.
Simeon, on the other hand, was fairly fluent. He’d been teaching her useful phrases like, Dónde está el ba?o? And Cuánto cuesta? Plus, he’d downloaded an app on her phone that she’d been using to practice. But her favorite way to study was the Spanish movies they’d been watching together. Not because of the content—she had no idea what was going on most of the time—but because it gave her an excuse to snuggle close to Simeon. To enjoy the feel of his arms around her.
To convince herself a little more each day that there was no way they had been getting divorced before the accident.
She didn’t know what Wendy might have against her, but Abigail wasn’t going to let the other woman come between her and Simeon.
Anyway, if Simeon were interested in Wendy, he could have easily run off with her—and Abigail would have been none the wiser. Instead, he’d stayed by her side—even when she’d tried to push him away.
“Yoohoo, Abigail.” Ireland waved a hand in front of her face. “We’re here.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Abigail unbuckled her seatbelt and jumped out of the car.
“It’s okay.” Lydia gave her a squeeze as they made their way to the boutique’s door. “We’ve all gotten lost in thoughts of our men before.”
“Ew, stop. Your man is my dad,” Mia protested.
The women were still laughing as they entered the store.
“That’s what I like to see.” Gloria, the cheerful shop owner, scurried toward them. “A group of ladies loving life. Come on, I have your dresses all ready.”
As Abigail trailed behind the other women, she turned Gloria’s words over in her head. Loving life.
Yes, she supposed that was a fair assessment of how she felt right now. She still had no idea what her life had been before, but it seemed to matter less and less each day. Whatever her life had been, she was loving this life, right now.
Gloria escorted them into the dressing rooms, and there was shuffling and rustling as they all changed.
Abigail emerged first, examining herself in the oversized mirrors. The dress fit perfectly, emphasizing her curves in a way that was flattering. Ava came out next, looking slightly pale from the drive but still glowing with the way the dress’s soft green tones set off her red hair. She rarely wore makeup to cover the scars on her face that Abigail had learned were from a fire, but they didn’t detract from her natural beauty at all.
Ireland stepped out of her dressing room, running a hand over the spot where the dress pulled taut over her growing baby bump. “I think mine is going to need to be let out some more,” she said with a chuckle.
“Lydia, are you coming out?” Ava called. “We’re dying to see the dress.”
“Almost ready,” Lydia responded, and a second later, her dressing room door opened. Gloria emerged first with a wide smile. “It’s perfect.”
When Lydia stepped out, they all gasped, then hurried toward her, echoing Gloria’s sentiments.
Tears streamed down Lydia’s face, and she brushed them away with a laugh. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
“Because you’re happy.” Ava wiped at her own wet cheeks. “I blame the baby for my tears.”
“Oh, come on.” Ireland nudged Ava. “You cried so much at your own wedding, and there was no baby to blame it on then.”
Ava sniffed with a laugh. “That’s true. I don’t know how you stayed so calm and collected for yours. I think I cried more than you did, and I was just the photographer.”
A pang went through Abigail. She’d been at those weddings too. But she had no memory of them. She couldn’t even remember her own wedding.
“And you.” Ava pointed at Abigail. “Joseph told me you drove his mama nuts because you were so calm about the wedding day and all the planning. You told her you didn’t really care about all the hoopla.” Ava laughed. “I always thought that was very brave of you because she definitely did care about the hoopla.”
“I just wanted to marry Simeon,” Abigail said simply.
The other women froze, staring at her.
“Is that—” Lydia lifted up the floofy skirt of her dress and bustled closer. “Do you remember that?”
“I—” Abigail stammered. She hadn’t really thought about it before she’d said it. Somehow she’d just known it was true. She’d felt it. But did that make it a memory?
She searched her brain for even the slightest detail from her wedding day. But there was nothing.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered.
“It’s a memory of your heart,” Ava said, and the others nodded.
Abigail forced herself to nod along, even though she wasn’t sure there was such a thing as a memory of the heart.
Still, she couldn’t help but hope there was.