Kate
"What are you thinking?"
I turned to see Jess in the doorway watching me.
I shrugged and looked at myself from another angle in the mirror.
"I don’t know. I guess I just never imagined this day would ever come."
"You look beautiful," she said, coming over behind me and playing with my veil. "I know Jonathan will love how you look."
"Thank you."
She squeezed my hand.
"Why don’t you come downstairs and sit with us. I'm sure my mother would love a few words before you walk down the aisle tomorrow."
I nodded and waited for her to leave before I lifted the veil off my head. The time had gone so fast, and I couldn’t believe that tomorrow was the day I got married. Somehow it felt surreal, and the more I thought about it, the more I started to feel panic in my stomach.
I was the lone woman of New York, the person without family, love, or anyone to even be a bridesmaid. How did someone like me end up like this? How was I able to find someone to love me and make me feel as though I was the most important woman in the world?
I put the veil back on the hook and zipped the dress back up before leaving the room.
Meredith was lying in her bed in the lounge when I came down the stairs, and when she saw me she sat up with a smile.
"Jess said you looked stunning." She smiled and I thanked her.
She pointed to the sofa beside her.
"Sit with me, Kate," she said, her voice frail. "Let's talk."
I sat down gently beside her and looked at her, the smile that I’d first seen on her mature yet beautiful face now hard and tired. She looked as though she'd aged fifty years overnight with her skin graying and sunken in. Cancer was a hideous disease, and it made my heart break to see her looking like a shadow of her former self.
"Thank you for letting me stay here overnight," I said to her.
She shook her head.
"It doesn’t matter what happens, Kate, you’re my daughter now. You're here, and for as long as I'm alive I'll look after you. Jonathan tells me your parents are no longer around."
I nodded.
"Well then, we couldn’t have you sitting in some hotel room on your own, now could we? You’re part of our family."
Her housekeeper came in and placed a tray of coffee down in front of us on the table and handed Meredith hers.
"Thank you," she whispered, blowing it with her thin lips. "You’ve made my son happy, Kate. I've never seen him this way before, and I know it's all because of you."
"Oh, I don’t know..." I began, but she stopped me.
"He's a different man. I don’t think anyone will recognize the change that he's gone through. Even though I'm his mother, I know what he used to be like. I've read about it in countless papers, and I never believed he would find someone like you that could change him. Jonathan’s powerful, Kate, but what you have inside you is far more effective."
"All I've done is love him," I said quietly.
"Sometimes that's all it takes," she replied, putting her mug down. She rested her head back onto the pillows behind her, exhausted and closed her eyes slowly. I moved closer towards her and took her frail hand in mine.
"I wish I could take this away," I said, suddenly feeling sad because the woman in front of me was not only my mother-in-law and the only mother I knew that cared about me, but she was one of the nicest people I'd ever met. I couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to know that one day soon you were going to close your eyes and never open them again.
"There's no need," she said, opening her eyes again slowly. "I've lived my life proudly, I think, and I'm getting to see my son get married. What more could I want?"
"Mrs. Davenport?"
Her home nurse walked into the room with a tray of medication, and she looked at me sympathetically.
"She'll have to get some rest now, Kate," she said, putting the tray down on the table. "Tomorrow's a big day, and she'll need all the energy she can get."
I stood up, taking my coffee with me, and before I left, I kissed Meredith on her sunken cheek.
"Thank you, Mom," I whispered into her ear. "Thank you for giving me Jonathan."
I went to walk away but she held onto my arm.
"No, Kate, thank you for loving him."
I left the room with tears in my eyes, understanding what Jonathan had meant when he said his emotions were conflicted, and how he didn’t know whether to feel happy or overcome with grief.
I found Jessica in the kitchen writing an email, and she put the lid down on her laptop when I went in.
"Evan?" I asked, perching on the stool beside her.
She nodded and sighed.
"We're all over the place right now, but I guess the one thing I'm grateful for is that ever since Mom’s collapse, he's been there for me. He's been by my side, and that's more than I could ask for right now."
"Have you both...?
She shrugged and turned back to her laptop.
"We’ve kissed, but I don't think he knows what we wants. I'm just happy for the attention."
"He'll come around," I said, resting a hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard right now with your mom and our wedding and just everything, but you're the only sister I have, and I want us to work on that relationship, okay? I've never had someone like you before that I could turn to."
"We'll always be family, Kate." She pulled me to her and squeezed me in her arms. "If you're important to my brother, you're important to me."
She stood up and pulled me with her out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
"Now, Sis," she said turning to me at the top. "You're getting married in the morning, so let’s make sure you feel like a million dollars tonight."
I bounced off her energy and followed her into the room she was staying in, finally feeling the excitement that came with having a family, and tomorrow I knew it would be official. Tomorrow I was going to become a Davenport and hopefully it would be forever.