Chapter 11 #2
“If you get a good nanny, you can still work,” she reassured her.
“I did. But I wanted all of you so I spent time with you. I’m not sure it’s fair to bring a child into the world that its mother doesn’t want.
It probably won’t be as awful and disruptive as you think, but it’s a big change,” she admitted, “and you have to be willing to make sacrifices for children. They have to come first.” Felicity knew that she and her siblings had come first for her mother and never for her father.
She’d only heard from Andrew once since she got engaged, and that was to tell her he was bringing a date to the wedding, the current love of his life who was ten years younger than Felicity, and a model.
Felicity had asked her brother to walk her down the aisle.
Her father would only be there as one of the wedding guests, which he didn’t mind.
He had no interest whatsoever in his children and never had.
He acted like they were someone else’s. He’d been neglected and grown up in boarding schools, and only cared about himself.
It had taken Dominique three children and five years to realize that Andrew was a complete narcissist, incapable of loving anyone but himself.
“I don’t want to be like Dad because I’m not ready to be a mother,” Felicity said unhappily to Dominique.
“You won’t be like him. He’s fairly unique.” Dominique tried not to badmouth Andrew to their children.
“No, he’s not. I know of lots of bad fathers. And bad mothers. I don’t think Taylor is ready to be a father either, he’s very immature. I’ve been seeing it more and more ever since we got engaged. It becomes a major crisis if he doesn’t get his way.”
“Nobody ever feels ready for children. It’s a daunting business and it’s hard, but it’s worth it.” Dominique smiled and hugged Felicity. “It’s the one thing I’ve never regretted. I didn’t think I wanted children either. You might like being a mother more than you can imagine now.”
“I don’t think so,” Felicity said sadly. “And I hate Taylor’s parents, they’re awful, pretentious and stuck-up and nasty, and they don’t like me or approve of us. They like Dad because he comes from a fancy WASP family, but they don’t like the rest of us.”
“They’re very small-minded,” Dominique said dismissively.
“They’re worried that the pregnancy will show in my dress, and the baby will be born four and a half months later. Not exactly premature.”
“You and Taylor will be married when the baby is born, and even if you aren’t, so what?
My parents were never married, and it has never changed anything in my life.
It embarrassed me occasionally as a child, but as an adult, I couldn’t care less.
And nobody gets married to have kids these days.
Most of your friends have had babies out of wedlock, and I see it among my friends all the time.
So what flat rock does Elizabeth live under? ”
“They’re totally old-school, and now I’m discovering so is Taylor.
He’s much less liberal and open-minded than he pretended to be before we got engaged.
” Her mother looked at her long and hard then, and asked her the same question she’d asked her son before he married, and who at one time had had second thoughts.
“Do you want to marry him, Felicity?” Dominique asked her directly.
“I think so. Yes,” but it hadn’t rolled easily off her tongue.
“I want to be clear with you. I don’t care how much I spent on the wedding, or how much money I’ll lose, or how many people are coming to the wedding, or how important they are.
Right up until the moment you say ‘I do,’ if you don’t want to marry him, or you change your mind, don’t marry him.
Your future happiness is much, much more important than some big splashy wedding at the Met.
That’ll be over in five minutes. If you marry the wrong man, that can hurt you for a very long time.
So if you want to back out, right up to the very last minute, I’m with you, and I’ll handle everything and you’ll be out.
I told Tommy that with Marlene, that if he wanted to back out at the last minute, he had my blessing.
That’s not because I’m not crazy about Marlene.
I want each of you to be happy, and to marry the people you love and who love you.
No matter who that is. Just keep it in mind, and if you change your mind, tell me.
You don’t have to put up with some little greedy, nasty person who would make you unhappy.
So Taylor Whitfield is not a sure thing,” Dominique said firmly, “unless you say so.”
“He thinks he is,” Felicity said sadly. “He’s getting very controlling, and that’s not the kind of relationship I want.
A dictatorship where I have no say about anything.
That’s not the marriage I want. I think he’s just nervous,” she said with forgiveness.
Dominique wasn’t so sure. She didn’t like Taylor, but who Felicity married was entirely up to her. Dominique believed that.
After Felicity went to bed, Dominique wished that she could talk to Bill about it, but she didn’t dare call him, and then she decided to anyway. If he was busy or asleep, he wouldn’t pick up.
He sounded discouraged when he answered. “How’s it going?” she asked him.
“Very slowly. She’s having reactions to the medications, and now she’s got shingles.
Probably from the stress. She’ll come through it, but she’s taking our life with it, and I miss you.
” It was nice to hear. Bill was becoming a distant figure in Dominique’s life.
They hardly talked anymore and she had no idea when she’d see him again, even if it wasn’t his fault.
“I miss you too,” she said with a sigh.
“How’s the bride?”
“I think she’s making a mistake. She’s pregnant and she wanted to terminate, and he wouldn’t let her. I have a feeling he’s being very hard on her, and she’s not telling me everything. His parents are just appalling. They want her to get a DNA test to prove the baby is his.”
“Nice people. Does she have the guts not to go through with it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It takes a lot of courage to cancel a wedding.
I told her that I would fully support her if she did.
She always wants to do the right thing, and I think he has a powerful hold on her.
She seems unhappy to me. And I hate to see her start out with a baby she doesn’t want.
This has all the ingredients for a bad marriage, and we both know what that’s like. It comes at a high price.”
“I can testify to that.” Thirty years later, he was still paying the price. “You were smart to get out fast. The longer you wait, the harder it is.”
“I had no other choice. Andrew had so many affairs I lost track. He’s bringing another twenty-two-year-old bimbo to the wedding.
He has no relationship with his kids. Felicity doesn’t even want him there.
She won’t let him walk her down the aisle, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to.
She only invited him to be polite and respectful. ”
“How’s your mother?” They hadn’t spoken since she got to Paris.
“Happy as can be. She’s the blushing bride, and Clément is wonderful to her.”
“It sounds like she got it right.”
“It only took till she was eighty-five. Maybe when I’m eighty-five we’ll figure it out,” she said wistfully. “I feel like I’m almost there.”
“So do I,” he said, wishing he could put his arms around her.
But Eileen was being difficult and demanding.
She was still in pain, and expecting him to run the nurses and wait on her hand and foot, and he didn’t want to refuse in her hour of need.
They were married after all. “Hopefully, we’ll get things organized here so I can at least leave the house.
” But he would have to stand up for his right to do that, and he never did.
He had to take a position, and until he did, he and Dominique would only have what they’d had for sixteen years, leftovers and crumbs and stolen moments, never enough to make a life or a whole meal.
And now, in a crisis, they got nothing at all, and he knew it too.
Dominique had always accepted it because she loved him, but she was no longer sure how long she could live at subsistence level, or less.
She was starving. He never fought for their relationship, or their future.
Her mother was right. If she stayed with Bill, she would have a very lonely old age.
She already was lonely, with no relief in sight.
They talked for a few more minutes, then hung up when one of the nurses came to get Bill. There was a problem with one of the electrical machines that exercised Eileen’s legs so they wouldn’t atrophy and she wouldn’t get blood clots.
Dominique and Felicity went back to Liliane Leroy’s studio the next day, and they had solved the problem. The dress was finished and fit perfectly, and Felicity even had a little leeway in case her waist thickened further or her breasts grew before the wedding. Liliane had understood the problem.