A Vineyard Vow

by Katie Winters

  Charlotte shook her head delicately. After a long, horrible silence, she said, “I can’t find him. And none of the groomsmen know where he is.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Amanda didn’t fully blackout. There were bits and pieces of the next several minutes that she remembered later; like, she remembered Audrey’s big eyes as she said, “That idiot. We’ll find him. Don’t you worry about it, okay? I’m sure he’s just out for a walk. Or he forgot his tie in the dressing room. There’s probably an explanation.”

  She also remembered the roar of her father’s voice.

  “What the heck do you mean, you can’t find him? Where was he? Let me find him,” Richard Harris blared. He was a lawyer; he knew his way around the courtroom; he could intimidate anyone if he wanted it.

  “Richard, please. Calm down.” This was Susan, who sounded to Amanda’s sincere sadness really upset. Like, the kind of upset that proved that Susan felt out of control.

  Amanda knew her mother well enough to know that Susan Sheridan hated being out of control.

  “I agree with Richard,” Scott said. His voice was much more friendly, the kind of voice you trusted. “I think we just have to find him. See what’s going on. We can’t jump to any conclusions.”

  That moment, Jake burst in from the hall. His eyes were similarly large, fearful. He scanned from his mother to his father to Amanda and then swallowed.

  “Have you seen him?” their father blared again.

  Jake cut fully into the foyer and then shut the door behind him. He shook his head slowly.

  “When was the last time?” Richard demanded. “We can’t keep the guests waiting like this.”

  Amanda’s heart had slowed to the worst kind of dreadful beat. She staggered back just the slightest bit. Luckily, everyone was fixated on Jake and didn’t notice. Their bride was hanging by a thread.

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. I was with the twins, and I —”

  “Well, I won’t have him mess up this wedding,” Richard fumed. “Probably just got mixed up. I’ll head out and look for him.” Richard turned to look at Amanda. Weirdly, he gave her a thumb’s up. “We got this, bun. We’ll have you down the aisle in no time.”

  Amanda couldn’t speak. She hated that this day had so much power over her. Aunt Lola walked toward her, wrapped her arm around her shoulder, and said, “Let’s head back up to the dressing room, okay? No use waiting here.”

  Amanda knew that, really, it was borderline torture to wait there. The music which the bridesmaids were meant to walk down the aisle to had begun. Slowly, step-by-step, Lola led Amanda up the staircase. Behind her, Susan lifted her dress to make sure that Amanda didn’t trip.

  Inwardly, Amanda thought, what does it matter if I trip? What does it matter if I embarrass myself any more than I already have? What does it matter?

  Somehow, Amanda found herself back in the dressing room. Audrey handed her a small plate of various kinds of cheeses, crackers, and freshly-baked bread. Listlessly, Amanda chewed, expecting to feel some jolt of energy. But still, she felt so strange, as though all her muscles had given out on her.

  Outside, a January snowfall had begun to flicker from the soft grey clouds above. Brittany burst into the room with several bottles of wine, which she said Aunt Christine had given her. Behind her, Piper brought several wine glasses. As she entered, she proudly proclaimed, “I only broke one, all the way up from the kitchen! Pretty good, right?”

  Amanda gave Piper a crooked smile as she handed her a glass for her wine. Brittany poured her the first glass of red, to which Amanda said, “No, Brittany! My teeth! I still have to walk down the aisle—and the pictures!”

  At this, Brittany and Piper exchanged worried glances. Somewhere in the back of Amanda’s mind, something broke. She recognized, in their faces, that there would be no walk down the aisle. Wherever it was, Chris was gone. He was gone for good.

  Amanda gulped down a glass of white wine while her friends, Audrey and Aunt Lola, tried to make up a conversation. Amanda watched the snowfall and hardly listened. She knew they said whatever they said to make Amanda think everything was okay, and she knew that deep down, with each passing minute, everything was less and less okay.

  Occasionally, her mother or her father or her brother stopped by the dressing room to check in on her. Their cheeks were bright red with cold, as though they’d actually thought Chris had wandered out into the snow. When Charlotte arrived at some point, she said, “Ursula’s wedding was almost canceled, remember? I found her out by the Joseph Sylvia. She looked insane. I had to drag her back in and re-do her makeup.”

  Audrey tittered nervously. She lifted herself from the chair and walked toward Amanda, where she leaned heavily against the table where Amanda’s makeup items remained.

  Under her breath, Amanda lamented, “I have never felt like such an idiot. Ever. And now I’m being stood up on my wedding day. ”

  “Okay, that’s it,” Audrey stated. She snapped her finger toward the red wine bottle nearest to Brittany and commanded, “Pass that over, please. The bride deserves to get ripped.”

  Amanda looked at Audrey and burst out laughing. She hadn’t laughed this hard — in a way that made her heart feel on the verge of bursting in what felt like years. She laughed so hard that a small button popped off the back of her wedding dress and fell onto the floor. This made her laugh even more. Brittany and Piper looked at her as though they’d never seen this version of Amanda before in their lives.

  Amanda had never seen this version of herself, either.

  She felt absolutely crazy.

  Audrey poured her the glass of red and joined her laughter. “That’s right. I know what you’re picturing. We have him tied up to a tree while we poke and prod him with sticks until he starts crying like a little girl.”

  “That’s... an idea, Audrey,” Aunt Lola said, grinning wilding. “I can just see it now.”

  “I think Amanda likes it,” Audrey added, stealing a glance at the supposed bride-to-be.

  But Amanda couldn’t stop laughing long enough to say whether she liked it or she didn’t. She finally forced herself to sip the very top of the liquid before her, and then she closed her eyes as the harsh taste floated across her tongue.

  Two hours after Chris’s dramatic disappearance, Susan arrived back to the dressing room again and smacked her hands on her thighs. She looked like she’d been crying. Her eyes found Amanda’s, then turned toward the glass of wine in her hand. Susan shrugged, poured herself a glass as well, and then fell in a cozy chair opposite Amanda.

  Amanda didn’t have to ask. Obviously, Chris was nowhere to be found. Susan nodded toward Brittany’s phone, which Brittany had set to play a number of old songs from their high school days. Brittany and Piper were both tipsy and dancing in their bridesmaid gowns, trying to keep the situation lively.

  Finally, Amanda forced herself to ask.“Did everyone leave?”

  Susan shook her head slowly. “No.”

  “But they’re not still in the hall waiting for the ceremony to start, are they?”

  Susan shook her head again. “No. Your father told them to start the reception. Dinner will be served on time. Heck. We have all this food. Zach created a beautiful menu —”

  “And the cake. The one that Christine baked...” Audrey added.

  “Well, yeah. We have that, too,” Susan affirmed.

  All eyes turned toward Amanda, as though she could possibly tell them what to do next. She stared at the floor and felt the depth of this nightmare that was now her reality. It was the worst-possible scenario. Hundreds of people had traveled all the way to the Vineyard to watch her marry “the man of her dreams” in a “winter wonderland wedding.”

  And the groom had dumped her at the altar, basically.

  “Okay. Okay. We should go,” Amanda finally said. They were some of the first words she’d spoken in several hours, and they even surprised her.

  “Baby, are you sure?” Susan asked.

&
nbsp; Amanda nodded slowly. “But I don’t want to wear this stupid wedding dress any longer. Besides, if we sell it, we can say it was basically never worn. Right?”

  There it was: that Amanda-Harris-practicality. For a slim moment, she recognized herself again.

  Claire was sent to the Sheridan house to collect another dress for Amanda to change in to. She arrived back with a beautiful black, low V-cut gown, one that Aunt Lola announced she’d worn to a gala event in New York the previous summer. “Claire Danes was there,” Lola affirmed, as though this was enough of a reason to wear it to the reception of your wedding that hadn’t actually happened.

  Still, when Amanda slipped it over her slim frame, she recognized it as one of the more beautiful gowns she’d ever donned.

  “Thank you, Aunt Lola,” she breathed. “It’s perfect.”

  I feel like I’m attending my own funeral.

  This was the thought that spun through her head as she stepped out of the dressing room and spun round and round the spiral staircase, down toward the reception hall. Behind her, she heard Audrey and Aunt Lola whispering to one another.

  “I don’t think she should go to this,” Aunt Lola said.

  “I don’t know. She’ll be able to hold it together with us by her side,” Audrey replied.

  “You’re right. She’s strong like her mother.”

  “I swear if Chris shows his face back here again, I’ll take him out myself,” Audrey growled. “Pregnant or not pregnant. He’ll go down.”

  Amanda smiled inwardly. She really felt like she was watching Noah’s Ark take off without her. In minutes, she pressed against the double-wide doors that led to the mansion’s reception hall and delivered herself into the beautiful display of a reception that celebrated nothing at all.

  From the door, she was grateful to find that everyone seemed in good spirits. The drinks flowed, the appetizers continued to course out from the kitchen, and she even witnessed a smile from Zach as he ducked out of the kitchen for a moment. Toward the kitchen, Aunt Christine hovered with a glass of wine in-hand. She lifted her finger and mouthed, “Nice dress,” then nodded with certainty.

  Nobody had really noticed Amanda, or that Amanda was really Amanda, the jilted bride. She supposed that was because she’d taken off the dress. She stepped toward Aunt Christine and sidled along her, all shivery and strange. Christine lifted a bottle of wine from the table and refilled Amanda’s glass as the other girls from the dressing room entered the reception hall.

  “I think it’s going to be a damn good party, Amanda,” Christine told her. “If there’s anything the Sheridan and Montgomery and Harris clans have in common, it’s a good party, right?”

  Amanda nodded somberly as the other girls joined them toward the corner. Brittany and Piper, who remained in bridesmaid dresses, did ignite a bit of attention. Amanda decided not to care. She instead caught Audrey’s eyes and said, “Tell me a joke. Any joke in the world.”

  Audrey splayed both hands over her pregnant belly and gave Amanda a mischievous smile.

  “Any joke?”

  “Yes. You have full permission to go off the rails.”

  “Okay. Here’s one. There once was the most beautiful young woman in the world. She thought she had it all.”

  “I don’t think I like how this is starting,” Amanda admitted as she sipped even more of her wine.

  Audrey continued. “Over time, she realized that she was overweight. Really, really overweight.”

  “I really don’t like how this is going,” Amanda continued.

  “She had about two hundred pounds — an entire human male, in fact, to lose, if she wanted to meet her potential,” Audrey continued.

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “Was there a joke in there somewhere?”

  Audrey furrowed her brow. “You put me on the spot. It was the best I could come up with. It —”

  But suddenly, the double-wide doors burst open to reveal Richard, Jake, and two of the groomsmen, who Amanda had known for several years. Behind them came Uncle Trevor himself, who burst over toward Susan, stopped dead, gasped, and gripped his knees.

  “Uncle Trevor!” Susan cried. “What’s wrong?”

  Again, he gasped. “I’m afraid we have an even bigger problem on our hands now. As of about a half-hour ago, nobody has seen your father. He vanished.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Susan gaped at Uncle Trevor for a long, horrible moment. Already, she felt like the day was in free-fall, as though the ground below would come undone beneath her.

  Now, her father with dementia was missing.

  Susan’s knees knocked together as the reality of the situation really hit her. She thought she might collapse. A strong voice in the back of her head told her that, no — she had to remain strong, for Amanda, for Jake, for her sisters, and now, for her father.

  “Okay. He probably wanted to help find Chris. Maybe he got confused and just slipped out. He couldn’t have gone far,” Susan said. She turned to find Richard beside her, who looked more volatile than she’d seen him in years. “You don’t remember the last time you saw my dad, do you?”

  Inwardly, Susan thought it was almost funny to ask her ex-husband this, especially since he had only just met her father for the very first time that morning. My, my, how you could know a person so well, for decades of your life, and then discover how little they knew you at all.

  Richard shook his head and grunted. “No. And there’s no sign of that damn fiancé, either. I don’t know what we thought, letting him close to our Amanda.”

  Susan snapped her finger to her lips and shook her head softly. There couldn’t be talk like that; not now that Wes was missing. Not now that Amanda had joined the party in a sleek black gown. Not now. She tilted her head toward Amanda, and Richard’s eyes traced toward her. His face fell slightly. He knew he shouldn’t have said what he’d said.

  But Amanda spoke pointedly. “We have to get our coats and look for Grandpa. I don’t care about anything else. He might have gotten confused with all the chaos. Come on. We’re wasting time.”

  Amanda — Susan’s bright and beautiful and totally devastated daughter, shot between the crowd and made her way toward the staircase, presumably to grab her coat and a pair of boots from the dressing room. It was time.

  Susan kept the information as close as possible, telling Richard that it did them no good to have two-hundred individuals scouring Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, and the surrounding woods. “I don’t want anyone else to wind up lost,” she insisted.

  Richard nodded as he tugged a big wool cap over his ears. If Susan wasn’t mistaken, she was pretty sure she’d bought that hat for him on sale at a J.C. Penney, of all places. As he adjusted it, none other than Penelope appeared in the doorway, having walked up from the reception hall. She blushed pink at the sight of Susan.

  “Any sign of the groom?” she asked as she crossed and uncrossed her slender arms.

  Richard shook his head. He didn’t look entirely happy to see her. “We have a bigger problem on our hands, Pen. You okay down there a little while longer?”

  Penelope nodded, although her eyes seemed to flash with annoyance. “I’m feeling pretty nauseous, actually. Maybe you could give me the key to the room?”

  Nauseous? Susan balked slightly. Penelope gave her a pointed look, one that begged the question: Was Penelope...

  I mean, was it possible that she was...

  Pregnant?

  “GOOD TO SEE YOU, SUSAN. I wish it were under better circumstances,” Penelope said.

  Susan could feel an ironic laugh bubbling up from the depths of her stomach, but she kept it at-bay. Ultimately, she had nothing against the girl. Susan was engaged for heaven’s sake. The chips had landed where they had, and she was grateful for it.

  But in this strange moment, as Penelope cut past Richard and Susan to find her coat in the foyer closet, Susan and Richard locked eyes. He looked like a wounded animal, as his palm traced over the back of his neck. Susan could see it. Penelop
e was pregnant. Richard was going to be a father, all over again.

  “I wanted to tell you,” Richard said softly.

  Susan gave a light shrug. “It’s not really my business, is it?”

  Richard looked even more wounded. But there wasn’t time for any strange dialogue; there wasn’t time for apologies. Susan needed to find her father.

  A few minutes later, Susan, Scott, Richard, Jake, Amanda, Lola, Christine, Zach, and Tommy burst out the mansion doors and into the haze of whirling snowflakes.

  “We have to hurry. It’s going to be pitch-black between the trees soon,” Tommy stated. He slipped his arm over Lola, then uttered decidedly, “And I think we should make sure we stick in groups. Stay safe out there, everyone. Not the kind of weather we should be out in. That’s for sure.”

  Scott slipped his hand over Susan’s gloved one and made heavy eye contact. His stance was clear: they would go through this together. They struck out toward the closest line of trees as Susan’s inner mind screamed with sadness and turmoil. Just before they plunged into the darkness, someone grabbed Susan’s upper arm. She nearly leaped out of her coat.

  “Hey! Susie.” It was Christine, alongside Zach. “We’re going to head to Oak Bluffs and check around the house. No telling what might have happened. Maybe he got a ride back home and is fast asleep in bed.”

  “Good idea,” Susan said. “I don’t know what to make of any of this.” At that moment, she thought she might burst into tears.

  Hold it together, Susan. You have to be strong for everyone else.

  “We’ll be in touch,” Zach affirmed. “And we’ve called the sheriff, just in case.”

  “Good. Thank you,” Susan replied, cursing herself for not taking that obvious action.

  Susan and Scott made their way out into the woods, which grew thicker then thinner again as it eased toward the little town on the other side. Susan and Scott called Wes’s name as loud as they could, with Susan occasionally yelling, “DAD!” Within minutes, her voice was hoarse and her lips were chapped, but they kept going.