Mother of the Bride

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  Lightheaded and giddy for a second, Amy’s heart had flipped over! She had felt it pounding crazily against her ribs as she’d looked at Daniel, overwhelmed, while he’d enveloped her in his arms, kissing her and holding her like he never wanted to let her go.

  ‘I’m so happy,’ she’d told him, trying not to cry.

  ‘I wanted it to be somewhere special. Somewhere we’d always remember and think about. Italian legend says that the couples who pledge their love to each other here will love each other till the end of time.’

  ‘I love you now and for ever,’ she said aloud, overcome with emotion.

  Dan was the best boyfriend in the world, and she was the luckiest girl to have found him. They had been going out for two and half years, but both of them had known almost immediately that they were meant for each other. Now she couldn’t believe it: they were engaged and going to get married!

  ‘Come here, you!’ she’d said, pulling him closer and kissing him.

  A long time afterward, as they’d watched the last rays of the sun disappear and lights flicker, lighting up the city and sparkling on the dark water, they’d begun to walk back slowly towards the restaurant he had booked for dinner. Hand in hand, they’d laughed and chatted.

  ‘I booked us a table at La Rondine.’

  ‘Oh, Dan, you’ve everything planned.’ Amy had laughed. La Rondine was one of the best restaurants in Venice, and there was a waiting list for a table.

  He’d told her that they were going somewhere fairly fancy for dinner, so luckily she’d decided to dress up a bit and put on her cream linen shoestring dress, instead of her normal jeans and T-shirt and flip-flops. She had flicked her light brown hair softly around her face and pinned a piece of it back with an antique comb he’d bought her in a little shop near the Rialto.

  The restaurant was on a small side street and overlooked the water. It had candles on the tables, and fairy lights decorating the beautiful wrought ironwork on the balconies and windows and doors. The former summer residence of an Italian prince, it still had most of its original stonework and carvings, and there was a fresco on one wall.

  They had the best table in the house; and Dan, wanting to celebrate, had ordered a bottle of champagne before they’d even had time to study the menu.

  ‘You look so beautiful,’ he’d said, kissing her hand.

  ‘And you look so handsome,’ she’d said, returning the compliment as she’d gazed at his blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, and his unruly dark hair – which he hadn’t combed when he’d got out of the shower earlier. He’d been wearing a light blue shirt and beige chinos which emphasized his lean body.

  Knowing this night was going to be unforgettable, Amy had ordered gnocchi to start and the house special of butter fish for her main course. The setting was so perfect, and Dan had squeezed her hand as they listened to the band singing ‘L’amore’ over in the corner.

  Amy hadn’t been able to resist every now and then watching her ring sparkle in the flickering candlelight as they shared the most romantic night ever.

  ‘Wait till the family and everyone hears!’ She’d laughed. ‘They won’t believe it.’

  ‘The lads will be surprised!’ Dan had said.

  Talk about understatement: most of Dan’s friends had been going out with girls for years – some since college and two or three since school – and yet none of them had gotten around to making the relationships permanent. Dan’s best friend Liam was an utter player, and went from girlfriend to girlfriend, all of them beautiful and blonde – and none good enough for him to commit to!

  ‘Will we phone them?’

  ‘Let’s enjoy the rest of the night here,’ Dan had teased. ‘You know if you start calling people you’ll be doing it for hours.’

  She’d laughed. He was so right. ‘We’ll phone them when we get back to the hotel.’

  A long time after midnight they had taken a water taxi back to the hotel. Wrapped in each other’s arms, both deliriously happy and a little drunk, they’d been ready to tell everyone the good news about their engagement.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Engaged?’ Jessica Kilroy screamed. ‘You and Dan got engaged!’

  She couldn’t believe it. Her best friend Amy had woken her in the middle of the night, phoning from Venice to tell her that she had just got engaged to her boyfriend.

  ‘The wedding’s going to be next summer, Jess, and I really want you to be my chief bridesmaid. Say yes, please!’ insisted Amy, all excited.

  ‘What about Ciara?’

  ‘Of course Ciara’s going to be a bridesmaid, too, she’s my sister. But I want you to be chief bridesmaid, Jess. Will you do it?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Jess agreed immediately, knowing that no one in their right mind would have a flaky weirdo like Ciara O’Connor as their chief bridesmaid, sister or not.

  ‘Then that’s settled,’ said Amy, happily. ‘Jess, I’m so glad that you’ll be there when I’m walking up the aisle.’

  Jess smiled. She had always been right beside Amy, ever since their first day at St Teresa’s School. Both terrified and missing their mammies, they’d struck up an immediate friendship, clinging on to each other as they braved the class of twenty-five boys and girls. All through school they had been there for each other: like two little angels dressed in white frilly dresses on their First Communion day; or trying to control their giggles during numerous school plays, which involved dressing up as everything from shepherds to pirates and dancing fish. They’d shared years of birthday parties, and school outings, and tours! They’d both got lost on their transition year trip in Paris. They’d been seasick together on the car-ferry to Holyhead, en route to Stratford-on-Avon, and both frozen to the marrow up in Mayo on a class outdoor-pursuits weekend which involved bogs and mountains and abseiling – and far too much cold water for their liking. They’d cheered each other on, playing hockey and basketball, both relegated to their school’s worst teams. One year they’d worked on a joint science project which got them a place in the Young Scientist of the Year exhibition – much to the surprise of their science teacher, Miss Heaney.

  They’d both got drunk for the first time together, followed by a night spent secretly puking in Amy’s house, and deep, deep regret – with vows to become teetotallers, which they had promptly both broken at the following weekend’s disco in the rugby club. They’d fallen in love in the same week at Irish college, and had bawled like two red-faced babies the whole way home on the bus from Donegal with their young hearts broken. They’d gone to the same university and backpacked around Europe together, got burnt to a crisp in various holiday resorts from Marbella to Crete in their skimpy bikinis, and bailed each other out more times than they cared to remember. Their friendship had spanned almost their whole lives, and Jess knew that she wouldn’t have missed being part of Amy’s wedding for the world.

  ‘Listen, Jess, Dan says I’ve to get off the phone or we’ll be rabbiting on for the night and it’ll cost a fortune.’

  ‘Tell him to shut up.’ Jess laughed. ‘It’s not every day my best friend gets engaged.’

  ‘No, I’d better go.’ Amy sighed happily. ‘Anyway, I’ll see you the minute we get home. There’s so much to talk about.’

  Jess sat on the side of her bed in her pyjamas. She really was happy for Amy, delighted for her. Daniel Quinn was drop-dead lovely, the ideal boyfriend, and would make a perfect husband. Amy was so lucky to have met him. They were a perfect pair and were meant for each other. Being Amy’s bridesmaid was an honour, and one that she would take seriously. She’d have to organize Amy’s hen weekend! Help with the wedding! She wanted everything to go smoothly for her best friend.

  Looking out at the dark street Jess thought just how differently their lives were running now, both going in different directions: Amy getting married and settling down with Daniel, while she was resolutely single. She could hardly remember the last time she had gone on a decent date, let alone had a romance with someone. She met guys al
l right, in bars and discos, and they seemed interested in her, but usually she never heard from them again. In teacher training college she’d dated a guy called Brian Carson for a year, trying to convince herself that he was special, but she hadn’t been surprised when he’d told her that he had met someone else, a girl from Cork, and had got a job in a school down there. There had been a been a few guys that she had seen briefly since then, but nobody special, and her heart ached to meet someone and love them just the way Amy loved Daniel.

  She glanced at herself in the bedroom mirror, seeing a broad face with brown eyes, framed by wavy fair hair. She was wearing an old Mr Men T-shirt and red and black doggy print bottoms. Hardly attractive! Who’d love someone who looked like she did? Guys only wanted to date girls who were anorexic and thin! This wedding was a wake-up call . . . time for her to be not only a bridesmaid but to get herself in order, get focused on finding her own Mr Right. She would lose weight, at least a stone! There was no way she was walking up any aisle the size she was now. She had no intention of looking like an elephant dressed in a bridesmaid dress beside skinny Ciara O’Connor, who hadn’t a pick on her. She would get fit. Go for long walks every weekend. Let her nails and hair grow. Set up a file on her laptop immediately called ‘Amy’s Wedding’. This would be her bible, with lists and plans of all kind. She was a good organizer, all her friends knew that, and first thing in the morning she would text them all and tell them the good news.

  Chapter Four

  Helen slipped out of bed, pulling on her dressing gown and slippers quietly, so as not to disturb Paddy. How could he sleep with all the excitement of Amy’s engagement! Her mind was racing, filled with plans and lists and ideas! Trying not to wake him, she went downstairs to the kitchen and plugged on the kettle. She liked it when the house was still and quiet, sleeping. It gave her time to think, the only noise the sound of a thrush singing somewhere out in the trees.

  As the pale sun began to rise she curled up on the window seat with the warm mug of tea in her hand. She still couldn’t believe that Amy was all grown-up now and was engaged! It only seemed like yesterday that the kitchen had been littered with a high chair and a playpen and baby toys; then there had been Lego sets and Barbies, My Little Ponies and Sylvanian Families, Nintendos and Amy’s rollerblades! Where had those years gone? Soon Amy would be married and creating a family of her own!

  All the birds were leaving the nest: Ronan, their twenty-six-year-old, was living with his Polish girlfriend, Krista, in a house in Ranelagh with a few friends. And Ciara, their youngest, who was still in college, had made it quite clear that as soon as she was able to leave home she’d be gone, too. Soon there would be just Paddy and herself and Barney the dog left rattling around the house. Helen suddenly felt old, as if a big chapter of her life was beginning to close while another one opened.

  She glanced at the clock. It was only 6.55 a.m. She made another cup of tea and some toast for herself. She was dying to phone Fran Brennan with the news. She’d give her best friend another hour. When Paddy was up and dressed they’d phone Dan’s parents. She had met Eddie and Carmel Quinn only once, briefly, when they had bumped into each other at a charity fund-raising concert with Amy, but they had seemed nice. Hopefully they were equally pleased about the engagement, and the fact that they were all going to be in-laws. She was dying to tell everyone the good news. Her eighty-four-year-old mother Sheila would be thrilled with the romance of the proposal in Italy and news of her first grandchild’s wedding. It would give Sheila something to look forward to: at her age, births, marriages and deaths became huge milestones.

  From her friends, Helen knew that a daughter’s wedding was fun but also a lot of work. It was going to be such a happy time, and she couldn’t wait till Amy got home to sit down and talk about their wonderful wedding plans! It was so exciting!

  Helen put Barney on the lead as she crossed over to Fran’s house. Fran, in her navy tracksuit, congratulated Helen with a big hug as the two of them set off for their regular morning walk through Linden Crescent and down through the big public park close by.

  ‘Go on, tell me all about it. I love news of engagements and weddings!’ Fran encouraged. Katie, her eldest daughter, had got married only three years ago. She had enjoyed every minute of organizing the wedding – and now was the proud granny of two-year-old Saoirse.

  ‘Well, it was very romantic,’ Helen began, retelling the whole story about the proposal overlooking the canal in Venice.

  ‘Lucky Amy,’ said Fran enviously. ‘When Tom and I got engaged it wasn’t very romantic! I was twelve weeks pregnant with Greg. Poor Tom nearly had a fit. We were terrified telling our families. I think Gladys Brennan thought that I was a brazen hussy and had trapped her son and forced him into marrying me. Funny, because when Greg was born she was mad about him. He was her favourite out of all her sixteen grandchildren.’

  ‘I remember when Paddy asked me to marry him it was coming up to Christmas and my family was upstairs in bed. You could hear my dad snoring!’

  ‘Talk about romance.’ Fran laughed.

  ‘We were sitting at the fire with the Christmas tree lights on and Paddy took me totally by surprise when he proposed. We bought the ring the next day in town, and came home and told my parents. It’s so different to now. Couples fly off somewhere exotic, like New York or Paris or Venice, to pop the question!’

  ‘Engagements are great! But they’re nothing compared to the wedding, as that’s what it’s all about!’ insisted Fran. ‘You know me, I love weddings.’

  ‘You are such an old romantic,’ Helen teased. Fran couldn’t see a wedding car pass or watch a bride going into a church without getting emotional.

  ‘But when it’s your own daughter’s wedding it’s so much fun, Helen, I promise. I know there’s a lot of work and stress organizing things, but it’s great. I loved it! It’s just such a special time. I really enjoyed helping Katie organize her wedding, and I’m sure that Amy’s wedding is going to be wonderful. You’re going to have such fun!’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Have you met Dan’s parents yet?’ quizzed Fran.

  ‘Only very briefly, but I think we should have a family get-together dinner when Amy and Dan get home. The dad, Eddie, seems grand, but Carmel . . . I’m not that sure about her. She’s tall and very elegant and rather full of herself. A bit intimidating!’

  ‘Do you remember I had the mother-in-law from hell?’

  Helen laughed, remembering Fran’s mother-in-law, Gladys, who had visited every Sunday and always complained about the dinner Fran had made.

  ‘She was a right rip! She had me scalded. Nothing I could ever say or do was good enough for her. She criticized my cooking, my cleaning, my childrearing, my weight.’

  ‘At least she spoke to you.’ Helen laughed. ‘Bridey O’Connor didn’t speak to me for years. She thought I wasn’t good enough for Paddy. She rarely visited, and made me feel so unwelcome when we used to go down to Cork that eventually I stopped going.’

  ‘But you were good to her in the end, Helen.’

  ‘She was Paddy’s mother. I wouldn’t have it on my conscience not to be good to her.’

  ‘God, I hope we don’t end up like that with our daughters-in-law,’ worried Fran.

  ‘You and Sandra get on like a house on fire – although of course she isn’t actually married to Greg,’ teased Helen. ‘Anyhow, I don’t think Carmel’s that bad. It’s just she’s rather distant and caught up in her own life.’

  They walked along the leaf-strewn paths, turning down by the lake, where Barney barked at the ducks dabbling in the muddy water. Then they passed by the new playground, where a few mothers watched toddlers playing on the swings and slides.

  ‘Pity they didn’t have that here when ours were young,’ said Helen aloud.

  ‘Are you mad? We’d never have got them out of it! I brought little Saoirse here when I was minding her one day last week, and I had to bodily lift her, hysterical, from the swings, and she scre
amed the park down. A woman came over to check that I wasn’t kidnapping her.’

  ‘Things have changed so much.’ Helen laughed. ‘We used to let our kids run around this place on their own. The only worry was that they’d fall in the water with the ducks. We’d be called unfit mothers these days for letting them loose in the park without an adult.’

  ‘Do you remember the time my Lisa walked to the shopping centre? She can’t have been more than three years old and the security guard brought her home.’

  ‘You hadn’t even missed her,’ said Helen. ‘God, it was so easy and uncomplicated then.’

  After doing another circuit of the park they turned for home and a celebratory cup of coffee back in Helen’s place, with Fran promising to give her an idea of how to start planning a wedding.

  Chapter Five

  Amy and Dan decided to hold a party to celebrate their engagement a few days after they got back from Italy, but when Amy looked around their two-bedroom apartment in Milltown, she wondered how in heaven they were going to squeeze so many friends and family into such a small space!

  As they were one of the first of their group to get engaged there was great excitement, and having a party seemed the perfect way to announce it. Both sets of parents were coming to the party, Dan saying it was a chance for them to meet in a relaxed, informal way. Amy worried that they wouldn’t hit it off.

  All week everyone had been congratulating them. Norah Fortune and the crew in Solutions, the marketing company where Amy worked, had made a great fuss and bought a big chocolate cake.

  ‘You came home with more than a tan from Italy,’ Jilly had joked, admiring her ring.

  ‘Do you think there are enough candles?’ Amy asked.