“What’s wrong with you boys?” she growled. “Why can’t you just be normal? I raised imbeciles!”
Charli gallantly braved the outburst by holding her hands tighter. “Everything is fine,” she assured her. “There will be a wedding today. We hope you’ll be a part of it.”
Mom snatched her hands free. “Of course I will.” She smoothed the sides of her pale blue dress. “I’ve waited long enough for this, don’t you think?”
“You look lovely, Mamie.” Bridget’s comment came at just the right time.
Mom softened in an instant. “Thank you, darling,” she beamed, reaching to pinch her cheeks. “You do too. Where are your boots?”
Bridget twisted in my arms, lifting her foot. “I took them off. I really hate boots.”
Dumbstruck, Mom glanced at me, then Charli.
“We’re moving on to a new phase, Mamie,” beamed Charlotte.
That might’ve been an opportune time to mention that we were flying the coop again, but neither of us did.
Mom began fussing with Charli’s hair. “You look beautiful, darling,” she praised. “But you always do.”
Charlotte tugged at her dress, probably making sure her feet were hidden. Mom would’ve rescinded the compliment if she’d known she’d ditched her shoes.
“Is Ryan alright?” asked Mom, turning to me.
Jumping to the conclusion that my brother had been jilted at the altar was a reasonable leap. The real story was far less believable.
“He’s fine,” I assured her. “Bente got a little overwhelmed. They opted for a civil service.”
She nodded, resigned. “I just want them to be happy,” she said solemnly.
“I’m happy, Mamie,” interjected Bridget cheerily. “I’m getting married to my Daddy today.”
“Yes, my darling,” she replied, perking up in an instant. “You are.”
“I’m the best girl.”
Mom took a moment to think things through. Over the years she’d become adaptable too. A four-year-old best girl wasn’t too hard to come to terms with. “I think you and I should head inside,” she suggested, opening her arms. Bridget leaned forward, falling into them. After fussing with her hair, Mom lowered Bridget to her feet and straightened her dress. “Quick, darling.” She took her hand. “It’s too cold out here for little girls.”
Neither of us said a word as we watched them disappear through the front doors of the church, heading into the great unknown. I had no idea what sort of production we were about to take part in, but I knew it was huge.
Guests started filing through the doors, and the only person I recognised was Mrs Brown. She gave us a wave and we both waved back.
I leaned toward Charli. “Do you want to make a run for it?”
“No,” she replied firmly. “We can do this.”
I slipped my arm around her waist. “You really do look beautiful in that dress.”
“Despite the bare feet?”
“I like you barefoot.” I dipped my head, chasing her lips. “Although I’d prefer you barefoot and pregnant – in our little cottage on the beach.”
She smiled slyly. “You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?”
“I know when it’s time to change course, Charlotte.” I breathed the words into her hair. “It’s been a tough few months for us. We deserve better times.”
“Regrets?”
I tilted my head, half shrugging. “No, just an overwhelming desire to get back to normal. Our normal isn’t in New York.”
71. BACKUP PLAN
Charli
We hadn’t seen Jean-Luc in days, and there would be no escaping him today. Adam’s hackles went up the instant he spotted him. I wasn’t quite so tense.
“My children and their stupid schemes,” he announced, throwing his arms wide as he walked toward us. I was actually glad that was his opening remark. It meant the queen had clued him in and we didn’t have to explain.
“This is a happy day, Dad,” Adam grumbled. “Don’t make a scene.”
“I have no intention of doing any such thing.” Jean-Luc stopped in front of us and folded his arms. “Am I still giving the bride away?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I’m not walking that big aisle by myself.”
Adam wasn’t thrilled to be handing me over. Hearing him lay down the law wasn’t unexpected. It was a given. “If you so much as insult a hair on her head –”
“You should go inside, Adam,” Jean-Luc interrupted. “Bridget was dismantling the flower arrangements on the altar when I left.”
I didn’t doubt for a second it was true. “Adam, go,” I urged, shooing him away with my bouquet. “I’ll see you in a minute.”
He nodded stiffly, looking torn. “Don’t be too long.”
I wondered what he thought was going to happen.
Jean-Luc waited until Adam began walking away, and called him back. His constant need to get the last word in infuriated me, but I held my tongue and waited for him to speak. So did Adam.
“You must take her rings,” he said. “It won’t be a proper ceremony without an exchange of rings.”
He was right. I tucked my bouquet under my arm and slipped them off my finger. “Don’t let Bridget hold them,” I warned, handing them to Adam.
“I won’t.” He finally smiled. “She’s got nowhere to stash them now that she’s ditched the boots.”
***
I didn’t complain when Jean-Luc suggested we wait a few more minutes before heading inside. I was hardly an excited bride. Adam and I had no interest in walking down the aisle. We were merely taking one for the team – a notion that the king quickly picked up on.
“This is not really your scene is it, Charli?” he asked.
“The wedding or New York in general?”
He dropped his head, but I still saw his smile. “I think you’ve adapted remarkably well this time around, unlike Adam.”
“We’re leaving, you know,” I warned. “I’m going to steal your precious boy away again.”
Jean-Luc didn’t seem alarmed. He probably knew it was on the cards when Adam quit his job.
“He hasn’t been ours for years, Charlotte,” he replied dryly. “Time away will do you good. I think you probably need it after the events of the past few months.”
It wasn’t an answer I was expecting, but he was right – I did need it. And the only way he could’ve known was if he’d been told. “You know that I found my mother?”
Jean-Luc nodded. “Life is full of defining moments,” he said gently. “I hope you don’t count that as one of yours.”
I scowled. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.” I was too busy plotting what I was going to do to my bigmouth husband when I got hold of him.
“No; perhaps your father might be the better option,” he said awkwardly.
My father-in-law wasn’t renowned for heartfelt pep talks, so this rare moment was gauche and uncomfortable. Jean-Luc glanced across at the huge church and wisely changed the subject. “I wasn’t joking about Bridget and the flowers,” he said. “She was stripping red roses from the floral arrangements. I can only assume she knows something we don’t.”
“Bridget knows a lot of things you don’t,” I declared. “I made her that way.”
“She’s part Décarie,” he insisted.
“Only the good parts.” My catty comment didn’t faze him at all. He would’ve expected no less from me.
“I heard that Ryan reinstated her wings,” he commented. “I’m pleased.”
He must’ve been lying. The king was the biggest opponent of all things La La.
“You and I don’t fluff around and pretend to be polite to each other, Jean-Luc,” I reminded him. “It’s one of the things I like best about you. Please don’t ruin it.”
“I’m not trying to be polite. I admire Bridget’s desire to fly. I always encourage ambition.”
I couldn’t argue. It was the only thing he did encourage. We were quiet for a long moment. I
had nothing more to say, but Jean-Luc seemed to be working up to something else. I shuffled from foot to foot, trying to find relief from the freezing pavement while I waited.
“When Adam was young, he was a terribly restless sleeper,” he said finally. “He’d throw himself out of bed some nights. It used to terrify his mother.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “He didn’t grow out of it until Bridget was born,” I told him. “He hasn’t been restless in a while.”
“He used to dream he was chasing something,” he continued. “We asked him time and time again what it was, but he didn’t know. Quite odd, don’t you think?”
“Why would it be odd?”
“Well, it would’ve made more sense if something was chasing him.”
I shook my head, suddenly seeing the much deeper picture. Adam had been running for most of his life, always trying to catch up to the life his parents had mapped out for him. He only stopped running when his daughter was born.
“Every night I’d line a stack of pillows on the floor next to his bed. Running while sleeping is only foolhardy if you have no backup plan. I assume the same rules apply to flying, – at least, that’s what I told Bridget.”
I dropped my line of sight to the pavement, unable to look at him. “I can’t imagine you telling her any such thing.”
“I have never clipped her wings, Charli,” he said seriously. “Who do you think taught her to stack cushions on the floor?”
My head snapped up at the question. “You taught her that?”
He shrugged. “I encourage ambition, but a backup plan is important.”
His admission floored me. I had no idea how to reply. “We should go,” I told him, walking away. “Everyone will be waiting.”
Jean-Luc called me back, just as he always does.
I groaned. “Don’t ruin it.” I spun around so fast that the bottom of my dress flared. “You and I just had a moment. Don’t ruin it by saying something mean.”
“You think I’m hard, don’t you?”
Inconsistent was a better description. He was hard on me, but every now and then he’d show me glimpses of a much kinder man. I’d never fully managed to crack his tough exterior, and probably never would. Perhaps that’s why I elected to agree with him. “Brutally hard at times,” I agreed. “I hope you’ll treat Bente differently.”
“I expect I will. We don’t share the same rapport.”
Ignoring the fact that I’d begun shivering, I paced back to him. “Say something nice about me.” I thrust my bouquet at him as if I was casting a spell. “I dare you.”
He lifted his head. The smirk was gone. “You’ve been a wonderful, fiery addition to my family and I adore you.” His low tone was as serious as the look on his handsome face.
I was so shocked I couldn’t speak, which was a good thing. It saved me from killing the compliment with a smartarse comment. I mustered a rigid nod and walked away again.
“The loss wasn’t yours, Charlotte,” he called. “It was entirely your mother’s.” I stopped walking but didn’t turn back. “You’ll do well to remember that.”
I swallowed hard to clear the lump from my throat. Then I walked back to him again and took his arm. “Hurry up and walk me down the aisle. Just to piss you off, I’m going to marry your son again.”
72. THE MAGIC STICK
Adam
Despite the earlier drama of the day, our second wedding went off without a hitch. Both of us struggled to get through the stiflingly traditional ceremony, but we managed. Charli even managed to promise to love, honour and obey me without laughing. The inclusion of that vow proved how just little attention Ryan and Bente had paid to the planning of their nuptials.
By the end of the night, their reasons for bailing were obvious. It was hardly a romantic or intimate affair – more a well orchestrated production designed to showcase wealth and social pedigree. We endured walking up the aisle, cutting a six-layer cake and slow dancing – and had our photo taken a million times to prove it.
Any favour I owed my brother, dating back to the day I was born, had now been repaid.
***
Our first day of remarried life was good. For the first time since Bridget’s fall we ventured back to the park. I expected her to hesitate, but she didn’t show a hint of trepidation as she cut across the lawn and headed for the playground.
“She’s fearless,” I muttered under my breath.
“She has fear,” amended Charli. “She just understands her limitations a little better now.”
I stood on the edge of the path for a long time keeping an eye on Bridget. She flitted from one piece of equipment to another, steering clear of the climbing frame. “This is the beginning, isn’t it?” I asked Charli.
She clenched her fists together and blew a warming breath into her hands. “Of what?”
“A few weeks ago she thought she could jump off that frame and fly,” I replied. “She knows she can’t now. Eventually she’ll land there no more.”
It was the only part of the Peter Pan quote I could remember, but the meaning was firmly in my mind.
Charli patted the seat beside her. “She still believes.” As soon as I sat down, she cuddled against me in a ploy to get warm. “And if she stops, we’ll show her more magic.”
Keeping half an eye on Bridget I murmured against her cold cheek, “You sound mighty sure of yourself, Coccinelle.”
She laughed quietly. “If I can make a believer out of her uncle, I can make anyone believe.”
Not even Ryan could find an explanation for the discovery he’d made in Tiger’s upstairs apartment a few days earlier. The horse he claimed to have almost won the Kentucky Derby with back in the sixties was named Secret North – the coordinate on Bridget’s compass that they’d spent weeks tirelessly searching for.
I’d given up looking for logical explanations a long time ago. I’d been hit with the magic stick too many times.
“I’m going to convert your father next,” she claimed.
It wasn’t one of her better ideas. He wasn’t the most open-minded man to begin with, and he’d become impossible to deal with lately. I refused to try any more.
The final straw was when he made good on his promise of having someone clear out my desk at the office. Nothing could describe the hurt of having my belongings delivered to our door as if it was trash he was putting out. Charli did her best to play it down, urging me to forgive and move on. But I wasn’t interested in making peace this time round –I’d done it too many times before. All I was interested in was getting back to the beach and kick-starting the life we should’ve been living.
“I think you should just steer clear of my father,” I suggested.
Charli slipped a hand inside my coat. “I’m sorry, Boy Wonder,” she explained, “but yesterday when I agreed to obey you, my fingers were crossed.”
***
A firm plan for getting out of the country was hatched over the dinner table that night. I had no reason to stay in New York a minute longer. My job was gone, and now that the all the permits were approved, Ryan was overseeing the club renovations perfectly well by himself.
“You want to go next week?” Charli choked. “I can’t wrap everything up in a week. I haven’t even quit my job yet.”
“I could go before you,” I offered. “It’ll give me a chance to make sure everything is perfect for when you get there.”
Her stare was so intense that I had trouble maintaining eye contact. I focused on Bridget instead, who was doing her usual routine of pushing her food around her plate. I straightened her chair and pulled it closer to the table. “Eat something, please,” I ordered.
“I am,” she insisted. “You just can’t see me.”
Charli’s mind was still on the subject of moving. “I’ll need at least two weeks,” she insisted.
“No problem,” I replied. “It’ll take me a week to get everything sorted at the cottage.”
Her eyes drifted to our daughter. “And what a
bout Bridge?” she asked. “Who will she travel with?”
I shrugged. “Let’s ask her.”
It was a risky move. Charli’s confidence in the parenting department had taken a battering lately, and Bridget inadvertently had the power to knock her down even lower.
In a few short sentences I laid out the options to Bridget. She could either come to Australia with me or hang out in New York for an extra few weeks with her mama.
The kid barely thought about it. “I have to stay with my mum.” She pointed her fork at Charli. “I need her.”
My relief was nothing compared to the jolt that hit Charli. “You need me?” she asked in a tiny voice.
Bridget answered as if it was a silly question. “Yes,” she replied. “All the time.”
I leaned across and kissed the top of her head. She had no idea that she’d patched up her mother’s heart with a few simple words, and that was how it was supposed to be.
“You’re beautiful,” I told her. “And I love you.”
“Good,” she replied. “Then I don’t have to eat more dinner.”
73. WILD ANIMALS
Charli
Quitting my job was like a bad break up. There were tears, and the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line was used more than once. Mercifully, Bronson didn’t need much recovery time. After a cup of tea and a handful of tissues, he pulled himself together and went back to polishing the leaves on his potted plants.
“I’ll be fine, darling.” He took a step back and looked up at the top branches of his ficus. “Maybe I’ll find someone taller next time.” He was clearly over me. I, however, would never be over him.
I agreed to work until the end of the week, to make sure everything was up to date. I spent the rest of that morning cataloguing new pieces that Bronson had just picked up on a four-day buying spree. Everything was just about in order when something caught my eye.
“Bronson, what do you know about this?” I waved the piece of paper at him. “This painting was sold weeks ago.”
He set his can of Pledge down and snatched the paper. “Oh, yes,” he crowed, barely glancing at it. “It was returned. Your mother brought it back.”