One Hex of a Wedding Read online

  He gave me a quick smile. “Don’t worry. The detective said that she’d have to call Animal Control. They need to check whether the cat’s underweight or if she’s been mistreated. That way they can add a charge of animal neglect or abuse to whatever Janette’s gotten herself into. I’m going to adopt her after she’s been checked out. She’s a nice cat, and our old Tommy died recently. He was fifteen. My daughter misses him and Tilda would be good for her, I think.”

  At least I wouldn’t be lying awake at night, worrying about the cat. I told him he was doing a good thing, and then turned to find Murray headed my way. “Come on. I’ve asked them to be careful with your grandmother’s dress, by the way. They know that I’ll have their heads if anything happens to it. Let’s go get some caffeine. I think we both need it.”

  As we left the shop, I glanced back, ruing the day I’d picked the Bridal Veil’s name out of the phone book.

  STARBUCKS WAS ALMOST empty—odd on a hot summer’s day, but good for us. I ordered an iced quad-shot Venti raspberry mocha, no whip, while Murray opted for a triple-caramel Frappuccino. We helped ourselves to gooey chocolate brownies, too. As we settled at a window table, more than ready for our sugar rush, it occurred to me that over the years Mur had walked through hell and high water with me. I just hoped I could return the favor.

  “So, here we are again,” she said after a moment. “Seems like this is our ‘I need my hand held’ spot.” She raised her drink. “Here’s to holding hands and friendship.”

  Mur seemed a bit wistful. I gazed at her, wondering if something other than the obvious was wrong. “Mur,” I said gently. “Is something bothering you? Is everything going okay with Jimbo?”

  She glanced out the window for a moment, then turned back to me. “Jimmy and I are fine, actually. Even with all this crap going down. But there’s been a lot of other stress lately. Stuff I didn’t want to bother you with because I know you’ve been so frantic with the wedding plans.”

  I stared at my cup. “Yeah, I have been frantic, I admit it. But I want to know what’s going on. We’re best buddies, Murray. We’ve been like this since college.” I held up crossed fingers. “So, talk to me.”

  She cleared her throat. “I had a pregnancy scare last month.” Before I could say a word, she held up her hand. “It turned out negative, thank God, but it made me think. And Jimmy and I’ve had several long talks. Neither one of us sees ourselves as parents. We love our nieces and nephews and so on, but we just aren’t interested in having any of our own. So, I was talking to him about getting a vasectomy.”

  I nodded. Made sense. Both of them were established in their lives, they weren’t kids who changed their minds depending on the way the wind was blowing. “What’s the problem?”

  She shrugged. “My mother. You know that we don’t see eye-to-eye, but it’s gotten worse. When I told her that we weren’t going to settle down and raise a passel of kids, she got upset at me. She wants grandchildren. My brother’s probably fathered a few, but if he has, the women haven’t come forth and aren’t likely to. He’s such a loser. White Deer’s going to talk to her for me, though. Try to smooth things over.”

  I winced. Even though I loved my kids, I didn’t see motherhood as life’s crowning achievement. It was an integral part of life for some women, but not the be-all and end-all for every woman. “I don’t know what it’s like to think of life without my kids, and I’m not going to pretend I do, but I am sorry she’s giving you trouble.”

  “I just hate knowing that my mother thinks I’m a failure because I don’t have kids. I’ve climbed my way up a very difficult ladder to the job I have now. I’m in a responsible, important position. I own my own home, I’m in a stable relationship, and all she can say is ‘When are you going to get married and give me a grandchild?’ ” She sucked hard on her straw.

  I was searching for something to say that might help when my cell phone went off. As I opened the phone and looked at the caller ID, my stomach dropped. It was Rose. Something was wrong, I just knew it.

  “Oh shit,” I said, flipping it open and pressing the phone to my ear. “What’s wrong?”

  Rose wasted no time with small talk. “Grandma M. had a heart attack,” she said. “For real this time. We’re at the hotel. You’d better come soon. They don’t know if she’s going to make it, and they’ve already sent her to Seattle. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

  Eight

  MURRAY DROVE ME back to my car immediately. “Are you going to be okay? Do you want me to go with you? I can drive you there.”

  “I’ll need my car later,” I said, shaking my head. “And there’s really nothing you can do. You know that Grandma M. and I aren’t that close.” In fact, I was feeling numb. A little too numb. I cared about Grandma M., probably even loved her. I just didn’t like her.

  As Murray headed off in the other direction, I put in a quick call to Joe to tell him what happened, then pulled out into traffic. As I sped along toward the hotel I thought over everything that would likely happen and, once again, shoved my wedding to the backburner.

  Rose and Dad would need me. They were both prone to hysteria and were the designated basket cases in our family, while Mom and I shored everybody up. That was how it usually worked out in our household. My mother anchored the boat for everybody involved. Just like Nanna always did. Just like me.

  My mother had never liked Grandma M. and the feeling was mutual. By now they’d learned how to coexist, but no love was lost between the two. The trouble being that Grandma M. and my mother were engaged in a longstanding rivalry over my father, who conveniently played the part of Switzerland, refusing time and again to choose sides. I’d never understood his hesitance. In fact, through my childhood I’d been repeatedly angry at him for not standing up to Grandma more. I always felt he owed his allegiance to his wife, not his mother, and that he should stand by her side when the battles raged. And rage they had.

  I swung into the parking lot, made sure I had keys in hand before locking the car, then ran along the outside of the motel until I came to Rose’s room. The door was wide open. As I rushed inside, I saw her throwing clothes in a suitcase. Our parents were standing there. By the looks of things, they’d already packed.

  “How’s Grandma M.?” I leaned against the wall, panting a little from the heat. I was in better shape than I’d ever been, but I still wasn’t cut out for jogging, especially while wearing a tightly laced corset under my clothes.

  Klara pressed her lips together and wrapped her arm around me. “Not too good, honey.”

  “Is she going to make it?” I asked, resting my head on her shoulder.

  My mother gave me a gentle hug. “We don’t know. They’re transferring her to Seattle. She needs better care than she can get here. The ambulance left the hospital about twenty minutes ago.”

  I let go of my mother and wrapped my arms around my father. He held me tight, his cheek grazing the top of my head. For a moment, I flashed back to when Nanna died, and how he’d just held me, never saying a word, rocking me gently as I cried. Now, it was my turn. I glanced past his shoulder at my mother, who gave me a tight smile, her face creased with worry lines. Gently, I broke away from my father.

  “Transferring her to Seattle means she had a major heart attack. Why didn’t you call me from the hospital?”

  Rose shook her head. “Everything happened so fast. By the time you could get there, they’d already have her on the road. I called you on the way back to the hotel.”

  “When did it happen?” I asked, feeling like I’d been cut out of a vital family event. I knew that Rose was right, but once again, I felt alienated, as if my life were set in a world apart from theirs.

  Klara glanced at her watch. “Only about an hour ago. We were eating breakfast and she said she wasn’t feeling well. Since she’s always saying that, we didn’t really pay any attention. I didn’t . . .” Her voice drifted off and I could see the conflicting emotions play across her face.

  Rose
surprised me. She put her hand on our mother’s shoulder and, with a shake of the head, said, “Grandma M. is always complaining. I didn’t take her seriously, either, so don’t blame yourself, Mother. I thought she was playing wolf again until she started talking about her arm hurting and her chest feeling tight.”

  “We all thought that,” my father broke in. “Never mind about it now. We have to focus on treatment rather than on what happened.”

  I slid onto the bed next to my sister and pulled her down to sit next to me, taking her hand in mine. “Rosy, I’m so sorry.” She blinked and ducked her head, tears collecting in the corners of her eyes.

  My father cleared his throat. “We have to leave, Emerald. I want to be there as soon as we can. They’re taking her to the University of Washington hospital and I want to get there as soon as possible.”

  I stared at them bleakly. “Do you need a ride? I can take you down if you aren’t up to driving—”

  “I’ll drive,” Klara said. “Your father will ride with me. Rose will take her car. She’s a good driver and will be just fine, won’t you darling?” My mother’s voice was steady, soothing almost, and it was during times like this that I could hear a little bit of Nanna in her.

  Rose shrugged. “I don’t have a choice. I’ll be fine.” She looked around the room. “Everything’s packed. We just need to put the suitcases in the cars.”

  “Have you checked out yet?” I asked, feeling a little guilty and desperate to help. I couldn’t run off to Seattle and leave Joe and the kids alone, but surely there was something I could do.

  Mother shook her head. “Not yet.”

  I cleared my throat. “Give me your room keys. I’ll check out for you.”

  “Thank you, darling,” she said, giving me a distracted kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry we won’t be here for your wedding—”

  “Oh, your wedding!” Rose let out a little gasp. “I’d forgotten all about it. We won’t be here—”

  “I can postpone it for a few days,” I said grimly. It wasn’t like I had a dress for it, after all. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that Nanna’s dress had been ruined by that butcher of a seamstress.

  “Nonsense.” My father’s voice was firm, the same voice he’d used to end all arguments when we were children. “Even if my mother survives, she’s going to require a lot of care. She’ll stay with us once she’s ready to leave the hospital. I doubt we’ll have a chance to get away for the rest of the summer.”

  I sighed. No doubt Rose would feel the same and while I understood, a slightly selfish, tiny little voice inside wanted to protest. One of the happiest events of my life, and my family wouldn’t be able to share it with me. As much as I’d dreaded facing Grandma M., the fact that she’d wanted to come and participate had made me happy.

  I bit back my disappointment. “You’re right. Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? For a day or so?”

  Klara hoisted her suitcases. “Honey, you have Kip and Miranda to watch over, and your fine young man to nurse back to health. I want you to be happy and safe and healthy. We know you and Grandma M. never really clicked. No one is going to think less of you for not going with us.”

  I gathered their key cards as my father wrote me a check for what he estimated the hotel had cost them. I fingered it, looking at his spidery signature. He was getting older. Both he and Klara. My parents had always seemed young to me until now. As I folded the check and slid it into my purse, they stowed the luggage in the trunk.

  I cornered my mother, away from Rose and my father. “What are her chances? Really?”

  Klara scanned my face. “Honestly? The doctor gives her fifty-fifty odds. She could be a lot worse, but she’s not out of the woods yet. The heart is such a resilient organ, but push it too far, and it’s going to fail.”

  “But she was so trim,” I said. “And she walked a lot. She didn’t drink.”

  “That’s not all there is to it,” Klara said. “At her last checkup, we found out that her triglycerides were sky-high, over five hundred. Her cholesterol was two-fifty. She’s always so stressed out that it affected her body.” She shrugged. “I’m afraid it may be touch-and-go-for a while. Your father and Rose aren’t going to be much use over the next week or so.”

  I took her hand in mine and we walked over to where Rose was standing.

  “We’d better get moving,” she said. “I don’t want . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, but I knew what she was thinking. If Grandma M. didn’t make it, she wanted to be there for the end. And my father would want to say a proper good-bye. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “Go,” I whispered. “Go and be safe on the drive, and call me when you know anything more. I love you.”

  “We love you, too, honey,” my mother said. “Don’t you forget it, and don’t go getting into anymore trouble.”

  I watched their cars ease out into traffic, waving as they sped down the street. Once they were out of sight, I stopped by the reservations desk to check them out. Afterward, I’d stop at the bank, then go directly home. I had to tell Kip and Randa about their great-grandma, and then I needed a bubble bath. Our wedding plans were turning from a dream into a nightmare.

  IT TOOK ME a total of thirty minutes to place an ungodly amount on my credit card and to deposit my father’s check in the ATM. Dad had underestimated the bill by a hundred dollars, but I wasn’t going to tell him. They had enough to worry about as it was. By the time I pulled into our driveway, I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally.

  Joe heard the car and was waiting on the porch for me, wincing a little as he leaned against the wall. He stopped me before I could go inside and guided me over to the porch swing, settling down beside me.

  “Murray called me. Tell me about it. Talk to me before you have to go tell Kip and Randa.”

  I leaned my head against his shoulder—the one that didn’t have a big white bandage covering it—and told him about Grandma M. “It’s not that I don’t love her. I do. But I just don’t have the same connection with her that Rose and my father do.”

  “But seeing them hurting, hurts you,” he murmured.

  I nodded, relieved that he understood. I hoped and prayed she would recover, but I wasn’t going to be a hypocrite and suddenly become her favorite granddaughter. I took a deep breath. “There’s more.”

  “More? What else?”

  “I have no wedding dress.” I straightened my shoulders and rubbed my forehead. Big headache looming and I was right in its path.

  Joe gaped. “What?”

  “I said, I have no wedding dress. Janette skipped town, leaving my dress in pieces that will take a seamstress weeks to restore, if it’s even possible. And I can’t even get my hands on them because they’re being held as evidence. I have a feeling there are going to be a number of unhappy brides-to-be crying their eyes out today.”

  “I take it you’ve already cried?” He tipped my chin up and gazed into my eyes. All I could see was love.

  “Yeah,” I said, slumping. “Anyway, I’m too tired to cry. But the upshot is that I’m out both a wedding dress and a family for our wedding.” I started to add, “I’m beginning to wonder if we should call it off for now,” but one look at his soulful eyes put a stop to my words before they could even escape my lips.

  Joe let out a low sigh and brushed my bangs away from my eyes. “Well, you’ve got the groom. That’s one thing you can count on.”

  True, I had my groom, all right, though if the sniper had taken better aim, I’d be attending a funeral rather than getting married. The thought made me shiver. I stood up.

  “I’d better tell the kids,” I said. I wasn’t sure how they were going to take it; they’d never been a big fan of their great-grandmother, but then again, kids could surprise you with their attachments. Finding no further excuse to keep me outside, I headed through the door to deliver the news.

  MIRANDA AND KIP were both solemn, but I had the feeling it was because they felt they should be,
rather than a gut reaction. Kip awkwardly patted me on the back. He had such a sweet look on his face that I just wanted to wrap him in a bear hug and tousle his hair.

  “Don’t be sad, Mom,” he said. “The doctor said that she might get better, right?”

  I nodded, thinking this was a good time to show by example. “Listen, kids, I want to explain something to you. I love your great-grandma, but this is harder on your Aunt Rose than on me. She’s a lot closer to Great-Grandma M. They get along really good. She’s Great-Grandma’s favorite, just like I was Nanna’s favorite. Do you understand? What I’m trying to say is that while I’m sad about this, I’ll be okay.”

  “Do you feel bad about the way you feel?” Kip asked, and I could see him struggling. I knew exactly what he was feeling. Was it okay that he didn’t cry? That he wanted to go play? Or should he sit with me, pretending to be more upset than he really was in order to make me feel better?

  I was struggling to pick the right words when Randa spoke up.

  “Of course she feels bad, but she’s being honest and that’s more important. It’s like when Andrea dumped Gunner right after they started going out. I felt kind of guilty about being happy, but he hurt my feelings and the truth was that I was glad she dumped him.”

  I nodded. “It’s important to be diplomatic at times like this, Kip, but you shouldn’t pretend to feel any other way than you do. In other words, don’t gloat, don’t be callous, but don’t force yourself to cry if you don’t feel like crying. Understand?”

  He nodded, digesting the information. “Okay, then. I’m gonna go play. Call me as soon as dinner’s ready. I’m hungry.”

  As he hit the stairs, Randa looked at me. “You’re such a cool mom. You know that, don’t you?”

  I grinned at her. Compliments from my impatient and temperamental fourteen-year-old daughter were few and far between now, but occasionally she surprised me.