Once the ceremony began and I found myself safely seated in my chair in the chapel, I could finally look around, could find faces and take in the scene. I crossed my fingers that whatever pain I’d felt moments before was just a flash, an ache after a long morning.
I found Dylan across the aisle, staring directly at me, his eyes glowing. And then, miracle of all miracles, for what felt like the first time in two weeks, he looked away from me, at one of his oldest friends and her fiancé as they got married. He was beginning to let down his guard, to relax.
I found Charlotte wearing possibly the biggest hat in the entire building—purple, with what looked like a giant bird-of-paradise on top of it.
I saw Zach’s parents across the aisle, tears in his mother’s eyes.
I listened to their vows, to the sermon. I watched the choir boys rise and sing, the bell ringers stand with reverence.
And then, another pain, this one worse. Shit. It was definitely a contraction.
I closed my eyes and tried to remain completely still. One. Two. Three. I counted in my head as slowly as I could until it stopped. When it was over, I realized that I had missed a moment when we were all supposed to stand again. I scrambled to my feet as inconspicuously as possible, and as I did so I caught Nick looking at me with a concerned gaze. I tried to flash him a little smile—the last thing I needed was for Nick to disturb the ceremony.
I looked to Dylan, but he was thankfully still engrossed in the wedding. If I could only make it through until the recessional, I’d be fine.
Another hymn. Another reading. Another contraction.
I gripped my program, thankful that this one didn’t seem to be so bad, and this time I saw Nick’s expression fixed on me.
I steadied myself and put every ounce of energy I had into remaining still. Calm. A few more minutes, a few more steps out the church, and no matter what was going on, I’d be home free. Done with the wedding of the century.
* * *
An hour later I’d followed the doctor’s orders: drank water, put my feet up, sat in a warm bath—careful not to disturb the extensive hair and makeup job—and by some miracle the contractions had stopped. And somehow I’d managed to keep the entire contraction thing from Dylan, who was now watching some action movie on the television in our hotel room.
“Bloody hell. I’m exhausted.” Dylan was stretched across the bed, and I gave him approximately six minutes of television watching before he was deep into a nap. I giggled to myself remembering his promises about backrubs. The truth was, this was all exhausting for him too—the worrying, the stress of not being able to have me safely where he wanted me. As soon as we’d gotten back to the hotel, I’d promptly (and carefully) shimmied out of my gown and into a robe, and Dylan had dismantled all of the buttons and accessories of his suit.
After the ceremony, we were meant to have climbed into a carriage and participated in the processional to Buckingham Palace for a meal. But when I exited the church behind the deacons, deans, bishops, and the rest of the choir, I found Dylan waiting for me. He subtly ushered me out of the queue, around the side of the church, and swiftly into a waiting car. I still had no idea how he’d arranged that. Apparently he’d promised our presence at dinner later, but for the time being, I was safe from chaos, and blissfully contraction-free.
After our substantial disco naps at the hotel, we’d fluffed ourselves back up—it’s amazing how hairspray can survive even the hardest of naps—and made it to the dinner at Buckingham Palace. And after two long hours of talking with Zach’s very eccentric aunt Candy and the even more eccentric Bernard, the Duke of Wilcox, the party had finally moved into the ballroom for dancing.
This was usually my favorite part of weddings. The wine had kicked in. People felt like they were on vacation. Someone always behaved badly in the most delicious way. But this time, I was relieved for the anonymity this stage of the night brought. No one would notice if you weren’t in your seat.
“Baby?” Dylan looked down at me. Our eyes locked, his arms wrapped around me, and I felt so safe in his embrace.
“Let’s blow this Popsicle stand. Whaddaya say?” I asked. Dylan laughed, just a little. I loved how relaxed he was, at ease, even in this old palace.
“I love it when you speak nonsensical American to me.” He kissed my nose. “You’re ready to go?”
I nodded, and he took my hand and led me towards the door.
But just as we entered the grand hallway outside the ballroom, we heard the band begin to play “’S Wonderful” by Ella Fitzgerald. It’s what we’d danced to at our own wedding in New York. The closest thing we had to “our song.” Not exactly a standard wedding song—just a bit too offbeat, harder to dance to than most, but it’s what had been on the jukebox. It was ours.
Dylan paused and pulled me into a room off the ballroom. He ushered me into the small, dark room and left me standing in the middle of the space. Then he closed the door just enough. We could still hear the band, and there was a strip of light pouring in. Enough light to dance by, I realized, as he slipped his arms around me.
“Really?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re going to dance with me in the room we broke up in five years ago?” Over five years earlier, we’d had an enormous fight in that very room during the engagement party for Prince Richard and Jemma. A lot had happened that night.
“Hush,” he scolded. “Let me dance with my wife.”
I obeyed and leaned into him as best I could. I gently kicked off my flats, pushing them to the side, and he turned me, tucking my side against his front, so we could feel the length of each other without my belly getting in the way.
My shoulders dropped, and I fell deeper against him, moved with him in the quiet. I wouldn’t have known that I needed this dance away from the party, this moment, but Dylan did. I needed to breathe in his smell, be held by him, have a moment that was just for us. I thought about our story—that breakup so long ago and all of the millions of blissful, and hard, and loving, and gloriously real moments that had made up our life between then and now. A tear slid down my cheek. Then Dylan’s finger lifted my chin, prompting my gaze to meet his. “Baby?” he asked, searching, swiping away my tear with his thumb.
“I love you,” I said, and he held me just a little tighter.
The song ended and another began, but we kept dancing. Swaying.
And then it happened. A pain I knew without a doubt was a contraction. Dylan’s hand landed on my stomach as the muscles tightened and shifted, as the pain crept around my abdomen.
“Damsel?” he asked.
I just nodded, eyes closed, and rested my forehead against his chest.
“You’re having the baby?”
I nodded again.
Dylan called Lloyd from the phone in his pocket, and as six hundred guests danced to jazz standards in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace, we slipped out the front door.
“Dylan? Lydia?” I heard Nick’s voice behind us. “Everything okay?”
“I’m in labor,” I said sheepishly.
“Need any help?” he asked, so sweetly.
I shook my head. “Thanks, but it’s not my first time at the rodeo,” I said by way of explanation, and I scanned the palace yard for our car—Lloyd would be pulling up any minute. Nick looked at us once more, from Dylan to me, until he was satisfied that his medical expertise wasn’t really necessary.
“You’re heading off too then?” Dylan asked as he calmly rubbed my back.
“Uh, yeah. I’m uh…I—”
“Tell her I’m at the hospital,” I said, smiling. “And that the kids can only have one bowl of Lucky Charms.”
Nick smiled an enormous smile before bounding towards the exit of the palace grounds.