I pawed around in my little handbag for a tissue; Helen pressed one into my hand. My eyes filled with tears and I mouthed, “Thanks.” “’S’okay,” she mouthed back, her own eyes brimming over.
Up on the little dais, Luke and Rachel held hands and Rachel said, “I am responsible for my own happiness, but I surrender it to you; it is my gift to you.”
“Before I met you,” Luke said, “been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.”
“…as we strive for self-actualization, together we will be more than our respective parts…”
“…all that glitters is gold and you are my stairway to heaven…”
“…I pledge to you my loyalty, my trust, my faith, and no passive-aggressive acting-out…”
“…if there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now…”
Dad’s forehead was furrowed. He was baffled. “Is it not all a bit…what’s that word you say?”
“Feathery Strokery,” Jacqui whispered loudly from the row behind us.
“That’s right, Feathery Strokery.” Then he realized it was Jacqui who’d spoken, and mortified, he stared at the floor. He still wasn’t over the Scrabble e-mail.
I can’t believe a drug addict owns a hotel,” Mum said. “Even if it is a small one.” She gazed around the beautifully decorated room, at all the ribbons and flowers. “Would you look at the way Narky Joey keeps staring over at Jacqui?”
Everyone snapped their heads around. Joey was at a table crammed with Real Men. (One of the tables, there were actually three in all, each housing eight Real Men. Several second-tier Real Men and possibly even some third tier.) Undeniably, he was staring at Jacqui, who was at the “Single People and Gobshites” table.
“Mind you,” Mum admitted reluctantly, “she’s looking very well for an unmarried woman who’s nearly eight months pregnant.”
Seated among our peculiar cousins, including the oddball priest who was visiting from Nigeria, Jacqui positively glowed. Most pregnant women I knew got eczema and varicose veins; Jacqui looked better than she ever had before.
“Cripes!” Mum yelped as something hit her in the chest. A yellow hat. Maggie’s.
Claire’s son, Luka, and JJ were playing Frisbee with it.
“Best thing for it,” Mum said. “It’s rotten. She looks more like the mother of the bride than I do. And I am the mother of the bride.” She twirled the hat back to Luka, then looked down at her plate. “What the hell are these yokes? Oh, these must be the famed sugar-snap peas. Well, I won’t be touching them.” She shoved them onto her side plate. “Look,” she said. “Joey’s still staring at her.”
“At her bazoomas.” This from twelve-year-old Kate.
Mum looked at her sourly. “You’re your mother’s daughter and no mistake. Go back to the children’s table. Go on! Your poor auntie Margaret is over there trying to control the lot of you.”
“I’m going to tell her what you said about her hat.”
“Don’t bother your barney. I’ll tell her myself.”
Kate sloped off.
“That put that little madam in her place,” Mum said, with grim satisfaction.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“Powdering his nose.”
“Again? What’s up with him?”
“His stomach is sick. He’s nervous about his speech.”
“He’s got food poisoning!” Helen declared. “Hasn’t he?”
“No, he has not!”
“Yes, he has.”
“No, he has not!”
“Yes, he has.”
“Anna, there’s some man, over there, who keeps sneaking looks at you,” Claire said.
“The one who looks like he’s out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers?” Mum said. “I’ve noticed him, too.”
“How do you know about the Red Hot Chili Peppers?” several voices asked.
“I don’t know.” Mum looked confused. In fact, she looked quite upset.
“Givvus a look,” Helen said. “The one in black? With the long hair?” She drawled, “He looks like a bad, bad man.”
“Funny, that,” I said. “Because he’s a very good one.”
How’s everyone here?” Gaz asked. “Any headaches? Sinus problems?”
“Go away,” Mum said.
Rachel had warned Gaz not to acupuncture anyone and he had said he wouldn’t unless it was an emergency. But despite his best efforts to drum them up, no emergencies had happened.
“Go on, be off, yourself and your needles! Don’t be badgering people. The dancing is about to start.”
“Okay, Mammy Walsh.” Forlornly, Gaz wandered off, with his pouch of accoutrements, almost tripping over a posse of little girls who had been liberated from the children’s table.
Francesca collared me. “Auntie Anna, I’ll dance with you because your husband died and you’ve no one to dance with.” She took my hand. “And Kate will dance with Jacqui because she’s having a baby and she doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“Um, thank you.”
“Hold on,” Mum said. “I’m coming for a bop, too.”
“Don’t say ‘bop’!” Helen said, in anguish. “That’s a terrible word, you sound like Tony Blair.”
“Dad?” I asked. “Will you dance?”
Carefully he shook his head, his face as white as the tablecloth.
“Maybe we should get him a doctor,” I said quietly. “Food poisoning can be dangerous.”
“He’s not poisoned, it’s just nerves! Hit the floor.”
We merged forces with Jacqui and Kate, all of us holding hands. Helen joined us, then Claire, then Maggie and baby Holly, then Rachel. We were a girl circle, our party dresses swinging, everyone happy and smiling and laughing and beautiful. Someone handed me baby Holly and we twirled together, my sisters’ hands helping to spin me. Swirling, whirling past their radiant faces, I remembered something I hadn’t known I’d forgotten: Aidan wasn’t the only person I loved; I loved other people, too. I loved my sisters, I loved my mother, I loved my dad, I loved my nieces, I loved my nephews, I loved Jacqui. At that moment I loved everybody.