My mother-in-law wore black to my wedding. She did it because she was mourning the loss of her son’s future, as he was marrying so below him. I know this because she told me – it was the first thing she said to me after the ceremony.
Mia, New York
Nora was wasted. Not, like, funny wasted – like barely-sitting-up-straight wasted. She’d been seeing off the wine like it was some sort of personal mission to. Maybe it was. Nora had noticed a smear of dried ketchup across her wrist and she picked at it leisurely, sending flakes spinning down to the top of the picnic bench. Bea and Sarah were both preoccupied with text conversations. Eileen looked fit to spit. Cleo was gamely doing her best to keep the evening on an even keel. Ahh, weddings. Daisy forced herself to take another drink of the local ale she had ordered. It wasn’t particularly agreeing with her; she was tired and looking forward to climbing into the single bed in the twin room she was sharing with Sarah that night.
‘Are you going to have a look around the shop for yourself tomorrow?’ Cleo asked Eileen politely. ‘I bet they have beautiful stuff for the mothers of the brides – at least accessories. You could get a big hat!’ she said brightly, teacher-voice in full strength.
‘Now, I don’t really want to be over-doing it,’ Eileen answered with a sigh. ‘After all, it’s basically just like getting married in a big living room, isn’t it?’
‘Mammy.’ Nora was drunk, sure, but she wasn’t drunk enough to let that one slide. ‘Harry and I are spending over six thousand pounds on this venue; could you please not refer to it as someone’s living room?’
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ countered Eileen, in a tone that suggested she was anything but, ‘but all the money in the world wouldn’t make it a suitable place to get married. My own mother, God rest her, wouldn’t even consider it official!’
‘Eileen,’ Cleo intervened carefully. ‘They’ll have a special license for marriages to be carried out, it’s fine – it will be just as legally binding as any ceremony in a church, you know.’
‘My mother told me not to go over to England,’ Eileen continued, as if Cleo hadn’t spoken. ‘She told me, she did: she said, Eileen, your children will be godless. And she was right. Sure, my poor mother was always right.’
‘Oh, you are so full of crap sometimes,’ Nora burst out, sitting straighter on the bench. Bea and Sarah’s texting fingers fell still; the bridesmaids exchanged nervous looks. Nora wasn’t done: ‘Stop using Nana and Daddy to push all your guilt onto me. I’m sure they’d just be happy that I’m happy. Because – you know what Mammy? – I’d marry Harry in my own living room before I married him in a church purely to please a whole load of distant cousins who have never met my fiancé, didn’t send us congratulations when we got engaged, and generally don’t give a toss about us.’
Eileen’s face was ashen, but her mouth was tight. ‘There’s no talking to you when you’re like this. You don’t show any respect for your God, I’m not sure why I expect you to show respect for your mother.’
‘Oh, enough of the sanctimonious bullshit,’ Nora pleaded. ‘I don’t know why you worry so much about saving face. Considering Fin.’
Bea, who had sat in shocked silence up until then, made a little strangled noise. Even Daisy had to bite back a gasp. Nora had had fifteen years to bring up the elephant in the room that was her youngest sister, and she chose to do so five months before her wedding?
If Eileen’s face had been grey before, now it was positively corpse-like. She had probably thought it had been so long that her family were never going to call her on it. She must have known they’d all been able to do the maths. A widow for twenty years, with a daughter of fifteen, and no explanation, no back story given. And none forthcoming, even now. Eileen rose stiffly from the table, gathered her handbag to her chest and walked off without a word. Even when she was out of sight, even after she was surely well down the road back towards the B&B, the girls didn’t speak.
Until finally: ‘Fuck. Nor…’ Bea breathed. ‘Are you okay?’
‘What was that?’ Daisy asked, still a bit shell-shocked.
‘Should someone go after her?’ Cleo worried.
‘She’s fine.’ Nora resolutely saw off some more of her glass of wine. ‘Just being a drama queen. As usual. Jesus.’ She turned to Sarah, forgetting the pact the girls had made back at the train station. ‘When you and Cole finally have that baby, please don’t model your parenting on my bloody mother.’
There was an excruciating silence. Sarah went the colour of the rosé wine she’d been nursing all evening.
‘Okay. That’s you done for the night.’ Bea rose from the table and dumped the remainder of Nora’s glass of wine across the grass.