My Big Fat Fake Wedding

by Landish, Lauren

  I do a quick check-in with Kaede and Courtney, who are working on the apology draft, to tell them where I’m headed. Courtney wishes me luck, saying that as mad as Dad is, Mom is more hurt.

  “She really believed you and was so happy for you. She was already thinking about what she wanted your kids to call her. I think she’d settled on Lolly but was still talking Dad into going for Pop.”

  Guilt blooms afresh.

  I climb into my Camaro and drive out to the estate. There’s media both just outside the parking garage of the office and at the gate to the house, but a pair of sunglasses and a cranked-up radio help me ignore them.

  Karl greets me at the front door, his face tense but professional. “You doing okay, Karl?”

  “They are respecting the property lines, sir. I wish they’d respect a few more lines, but that’s beyond my powers,” he says. “Your mother is in her library.”

  Mom’s library is the equivalent of Dad’s study. It’s her ‘cave’, the place she gets to do whatever she wants and express her tastes however she wants. You’d expect a library to be all dark woods and expensive tomes, but you’d be so very wrong. She’s turned it into the epitome of old-school femininity, with patterned lace wallpaper, pale rose-colored crown moldings, and a bunch of books with covers I’d rather not think about my mother reading. It’s safe to say this my least favorite room in the house.

  I find Mom sitting on her white loveseat in loungewear, even though it’s late afternoon, which is unlike her. She’s staring out the window that faces the garden, a cup of tea on a saucer next to her. As I close the door, she turns around, and I stop, shocked.

  Somehow, my mother’s aged ten years overnight. Normally, she looks a good decade younger than she actually is.

  Now, though, the woman looking up at me is a wreck. She looks shattered, her face lined with wrinkles that weren’t there yesterday, her eyes puffy and red, and I have to blink to convince myself that the gray I see in her hair is sunlight and not gray.

  “Why?”

  Only one word, but it breaks me more than all of Dad’s ranting and Courtney’s browbeating. Her voice is a cracked, paper-thin parody of the soft voice that I grew up listening to, the cool balm to Dad’s bluster.

  “I wish I had a good reason,” I finally admit, unable to hold up to Mom’s pleading eyes. “We never meant for it to happen like this. We didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  Mom’s soft smile says that even the consequences we don’t intend are ours to bear.

  “When you came to me saying you were marrying Violet, I remembered an old dream I had,” Mom says vacantly, looking out the window again. “It was soon after Abigail and Violet became friends, and she’d invited Violet over for a sleepover.”

  “Which time? She was always over here.” The attempt at lightness falls flat as Mom cuts her eyes back to me.

  Mom takes another sip of her tea and nods. “She was. But this time, you spent all day being the most annoying pain in the ass a big brother could be. When the girls wanted to swim, you complained they were splashing too much. When they played inside, you complained they were too loud and disrupting your homework. You, of all people, complaining about being able to do homework.”

  “If I remember right, you said I could sleep outside then.”

  Mom nods. “And that night, when you’d gotten your sleeping bag arranged in Abigail’s treehouse, I noticed something. From this window, I could see both your and Abi’s rooms, and you were looking up there at Violet. And I just had this vision, a dream. I brushed it off at the time, though I did wonder when you two would fight so fiercely through high school. Love and hate are such a thin line, and you lost interest in everyone else so readily, but never Violet. And the engagement brought it back around.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. Truly, but I’m going to make this right.”

  “How?” Mom asks, her eyes starting to water. “How can you make it right?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit honestly, “but I’m going to.” I reach out and take her hand, “Mom, it started out because I was trying to get Dad off my back and because Violet wanted to do right by Papa. But over the last two weeks, or maybe you’re right and it started long ago . . . but when I stood up there yesterday, I meant every word I said to Violet.”

  Mom looks at me hopefully, swallowing. “You mean . . . ?”

  “I mean I’ve got some things to do, some people to talk to . . . maybe some asses to kick, and a few lumps to take.”

  Mom smiles and stands up. “Then go take care of them.”

  Chapter 26

  Violet—Sunday—1 Day After the Wedding

  The dawn breaks bright through the hospital’s waiting room window, waking me up from the fitful sleep I finally found about three in the morning.

  My spine feels like someone’s filled it with glass and then beaten it with a rolling pin and my neck, especially, is cricked in a way that makes me wonder if I’m going to need a chiropractor stat. I can barely feel my toes, and my left wrist hurts from cradling my head while I slept.

  But nothing hurts worse than my chest, where my heart thuds hollowly. The one kindness is that Abi brought me some clothes and helped me change out of my wedding dress late last night before she went home to get some sleep. She promised to be back today, though, which I’m glad for because I feel so alone and so scared.

  My family fills the entirety of the hospital’s waiting room, sprawled over every chair and piled up in the corners, leaning on each other. But only Nana and Aunt Sofia are willing to sit on this side of the room. Mom and the triplets sit across from me, glaring at every opportunity. And my cousins mostly just look confused and concerned, but they understand the basics of what I’ve done and choose to go the safe route of the majority and ignore me.

  Nobody sits within three seats of me, and I fidget to try and get back to some feeling in my right foot because my bladder’s screaming at me that it was a really, really stupid idea to drink that last coffee at two o’clock this morning.

  Finally, I can’t hold it any longer and go waddling out of the waiting room, wincing with every step until I’m all the way to the ladies’ room. After I’m done, I wash my face, looking down at the streaky mess that comes away in my hands, the stubborn remnants of yesterday’s makeup that withstood the tears of the night. Using the harsh soap by the sink, I scrub at my face, wishing I could wash away the last twelve hours as easily.

  When I come back to the waiting room, a few more people are awake, and a doctor is talking with Nana. She nods, then points toward me. I can read her lips even from the doorway. “There she is.”

  Oh, great, what did I do now?

  “Miss Russo?” the doctor says, giving me a supportive smile. It’s the first one I can remember seeing since yesterday, and I feel myself tearing up again before I can blink them back.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re allowing a few people in to see him. You should prepare yourself. He’s on machines, so we have him heavily sedated, but he’s made it through the night. Angela said you should go first.”

  I swallow and look over at Nana. “Are you sure?” I ask, feeling like she should be the first to go in, or Mom, maybe. Not me, when this whole thing is my fault.

  Nana nods. “Stefano and I have had many conversations about his health, his life, and yes, even his passing. There is nothing I need to say to him that I haven’t already said many times over. But I don’t think that’s true for you. Go to him, open your heart, and be at peace, Violet.”

  Though her words are a balm to my soul, I can hear that she’s exhausted. I doubt she slept at all, instead staying awake to be the rock of our family and provide comfort to everyone else, just like she’s doing for me. I love her so much.

  I follow the doctor to Papa’s room, where I find him hooked up to not just one machine but to a whole plethora of them. There are beeps, squiggly lines on monitors, tubes running from his arms . . . everything. Even though the doctor tried to prepare me for this, I
don’t think anything he’d said would’ve made me ready to see Papa like this, weak, a shell of his usual self, and so pale and frail looking.

  I nod, and the doctor leaves, probably to fetch more of my family. In the few moments I have before someone else comes in, I cross over to his bedside, taking his hand. He looks so small under the white sheet, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. His mouth’s a little open around the tube that’s taped in place, and if it weren’t for the mechanically steady rise and fall of his chest, I’d be even more afraid.

  “Papa,” I whisper, looking into his face. “Papa, please . . . please come back to us. I’m sorry. I just wanted us to have that good memory of walking down the aisle. I know how much it meant to you to see me married, and I just . . . I couldn’t see any other way. Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Please, I love you so much, and I’m not ready to let go of you. I need you to be here, to give me advice because I don’t know how to fix this. I want you to know that I do love him. Ross, I mean. It was fake, and I’m so sorry for lying, but it was real too. Oh, I messed up everything, Papa!”

  The words tumble out of my mouth, one on top of the other as tears track down my face in rivers. It’s the same roundabout loop my mind’s been stuck in all night but the first time to give the words voice because no one wants to hear anything from me.

  The door behind me opens and Mom comes in, her hand entwined with Aunt Sofia’s. It looks like she’s holding on for strength, but it’s probably at least a little bit to keep Mom under control. Sofia gives me a supportive look, but Mom’s still so upset I can feel it coming off her in waves.

  ‘I raised you better than this, Violet Antonia Carlotta Russo,’ she’d said last night before clamming back up, tearing a fresh jagged wound open. Disappointing my mom is something I’ve strived to never do. She’s done so much for me, raising me, sacrificing for me, and I’ve always wanted to show her that I was worth it.

  And then she’d pointedly directed the conversation away from me and my sham of a wedding to Papa. Everyone had sat around until late in the night, and even early this morning, sharing stories of his life like he was already gone, even though he’s still here, fighting for his life. I’d kept my mouth shut, not wanting to bring any attention back to myself, and thought of happy memories with Papa alone in my mind and heart.

  “Daddy,” Mom says as she comes up, and I know how much she’s been shaken. Though Mom used to call her father ‘Daddy’ when she was a girl, I’ve only ever heard Mom call Papa ‘Daddy’ twice in my life. The first time was when Mom had a uterine cancer scare that turned out to be a benign tumor, and the other time was when Papa was diagnosed with his heart condition. She’d rushed in shortly after Dr. Lee had told me his prognosis, afraid she wasn’t going to make it in time.

  Now, she just holds Papa’s hand, whispering against it in prayer, as Aunt Sofia switches to holding me up. Mom rises silently and kisses Papa on the forehead.

  “He’s going to get better,” I whisper, clenching Aunt Sofia’s shirt in my fist. “He has to.”

  Mom looks at me so grimly that Sofia squeezes me protectively. “Come on, Violet,” she says. “Let’s give your mom a few moments alone with Stefano.”

  It’s another of Sofia’s dodges, but she’s right. This isn’t the place for Mom and me to have this conversation. It’s also not the place for Mom and me to reevaluate our relationship. Our emotions are too raw, too fresh.

  In the hallway, Nana is waiting for us. My heart drops. I don’t think I can withstand an attack from her after Mom’s harsh words from last night are still so fresh and the result of my actions, Papa lying unconscious in bed, stared me in the face just moments ago. But she hugs me and I melt into her arms.

  “I’m so sorry, Nana,” I cry, sobbing against her small shoulder.

  She pats my back, rubbing soothing circles between my shoulder blades. “I know, baby. I’m not here to pile guilt at your feet. I wanted to let you know that Dr. Lee came by just now. You remember his cardiologist?” I nod, thinking back to that first big spell and Dr. Lee’s direct but kind manner. “He looked over all the tests and reports from last night and this morning. He wants to do surgery on Stefano.”

  I gasp, and Aunt Sofia switches her support once again, taking Nana by the arm. “Is he sure Stefano can handle that? Can you handle that?”

  Nana’s sad smile is hopeful but resigned. “No, and no. But it’s his best chance. Before, he didn’t want to risk it, but now the risk-reward ratio, as he called it, has shifted. With the surgery, Stefano might have a chance, a small one. Without it, he . . .”

  Her words break off as the strongest woman I’ve ever known breaks down. It’s not a crumbling, dramatic scene. Angela Russo would never. But tears slip through the soft lines of her face and she hugs Aunt Sofia tightly. I feel like an intruder on their moment of sisterly support and quietly slip away to give them some privacy.

  A little bit later, Aunt Sofia plops into the chair next to me in the waiting room, handing over a steaming cup of coffee. “Your uncle, my husband, was an idiot,” Sofia whispers to me. I have no idea what she’s talking about or why she’s talking about it now as they’re preparing Papa for surgery.

  “I loved him more than is healthy, but Giuseppe was one of those men who always had an angle, always a scheme . . . and more often than not ended up the sucker. I blame us for living in New York, that city . . . eh, it is what it is. But ’Seppe . . . I can’t tell you the number of times he’d come home having lost five hundred dollars here, a thousand there. That is a lot of money today, but back then it was months of wages. One time, he even lost five thousand dollars from our retirement account because of some ‘plan’ he had.”

  I look over, surprised. “I didn’t know that.” Apparently, hearing about my Uncle’s poor choices is supposed to make me feel better about my own, but losing money and what I’ve done to Papa are nothing alike.

  Sofia nods, chuckling. “I tore the hide off Giuseppe’s back more than once when he screwed up, and he slept on the couch more days than our children probably remember. But the reason I stayed with him . . . well, two reasons. One, Giuseppe might have been a sucker, but he was also a man who’d do whatever it took to fix things. That five thousand dollars? It took him six months of working a second job at night to replace it, but he did it. He made us right again. Second, I loved him. And love is sometimes crazy, Violet.”

  My voice is small, quiet enough to keep it just between the two of us. “I would do anything to make this right because I love Papa so much. You’re right, love is crazy, and maybe what I did was ridiculous, but it was because I wanted to give him that memory. I wanted to give us that moment.”

  Aunt Sofia tilts her head, looking at me with soft eyes. “That is true, Violet. But I think you’re missing the point of my story. I’m not talking about Stefano. I’m talking about your Ross.”

  I protest, “I can’t do that right now. It was all for Papa, and I have to focus on him.”

  She hums noncommittally and pats my hand, letting me disappear into my mind. Thoughts of Ross and the wedding try to sneak in, but I push them out, not able to handle thinking of that when my grandfather is lying on a table with his chest open and we’re praying for a miracle.

  Sometime later, Archie comes in with lunch. He’s subdued too, not his usual big and brash self, which only reiterates how dire the situation is. But at least he’s on my side and not judging me for the fake wedding. “You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. If anything, this is that sniveling rat, Colin’s, fault.”

  He’s trying to make me feel better, but we both know this is on me.

  Dr. Lee comes through the double doors down the hall that we’ve been staring at, and we all stand, his few steps down the hall to the waiting room taking way too long. “Angela,” he says, taking her hands, and my heart stops.

  No! No, no, no, no. Please!

  “The surgery was rough, but it was a success.” A sigh of relief goes through the room and then a
few whoops of joy sound out. Dr. Lee smiles, but it’s that detached professional one that doctors have. Distantly, I wonder if they practice that in the mirror during medical school.

  “But that was the first step of many. He has a long way to go, so I want you to be prepared for that. He’s in the recovery room, and we’ll get him into ICU tonight. At some point, we’ll wean him off the medications keeping him unconscious and see how he does, how his heart reacts. He’s going to be a hospital guest for a while.”

  Dr. Lee looks around the room. “Please, everyone, go home, get some rest,” he urges us. “There’s nothing you can do for him sitting here.”

  A few of my cousins glance at each other and nod, getting up to kiss Nana on the cheek and promising they’ll be back if needed. Nana kisses them back, giving them all a little bit of comfort before they walk out. As they pass me, though, more than a few give me dirty looks, and I doubt that I’m going to be invited to any more family gatherings anytime soon.

  Finally, it’s just Nana, Sofia, Mom, and me, and the doctor clears his throat. “Mrs. Russo, you really—”

  “No.”

  She doesn’t raise her voice, she doesn’t sound shrill or hysterical. She simply is stating the truth. The only way she’s leaving this hospital is if she’s physically carried out.

  Dr. Lee doesn’t know Nana the way our family does, though, and tries to talk to her. “Mrs. Russo, you need to rest, and eat, and—”

  “And I’m sure that my husband is being provided with a hospital meal. I can eat that,” Nana says matter-of-factly. “As for sleep . . . at my age, sleeping is something I can do sitting in a chair by my husband’s bedside just as well as I can in a regular bed. Now leave me alone.”

  Dr. Lee turns to us, knowing when he’s been beaten. “I’ll stay with Mama,” Mom says. “Someone needs to go to the house and wrangle the family.”