Chapter Twenty Four
Bella
This might come as a surprise but I have never been more miserable in my entire life. A man I've known two days and a night is gone. But he’s not out of my head or my body and to make it worse the people all around me keep asking where he is.
“What have you done with that gorgeous man of yours?” Dottie leans across to inquire, her eyes twinkling naughtily.
“Oh, I think he went to find a drink,” I say.
Or another plate of turkey. Or to the washroom. I say, every time one of his friends or an auntie inquires.
They look so cute sitting in a row along the bench, the SEALs and the aunties. Interleaved boy girl boy girl like giants and Lilliputians, they’re all having the time of their lives by the looks of things. It’s a real Instagram moment but I sit rigid, unable to eat, unable to speak except to answer the queries of where my fiance is.
No one notices my devastation and why should they? It’s a happy event and they’re all here to have a great time. I force myself to push my lips up into a smile and push food around in the plate like I’m eating.
I bust myself with the tasks that are required of me as bridesmaid, which aren't too many now that it’s coming to an end. I’m supposed to get drunk and make out with the groomsman. The first part I’m working on. The second part I screwed up.
It’s probably for the best. What kind of man screws his best friend’s girl and her sister? We must have been a game for him to feed his ego. So why do I ache in every cell for him?
He just doesn’t seem like that kind of douchebag. All his army buddies love him. Well, men could go for that scenario. But the wives that are here seemed fond of him and he was playing with the kids like he loved every moment with them. He’d be such a lovely dad. Shit, not a good thought to be having now. Just focus on Scherri. Oh shit, I really messed up there too.
How could I have been so nasty to her on her wedding day? I’m just the biggest bitch in the world.
I sink again then and it all goes by in a swirl. The cake, the first dance outdoors with the country band and the millions of fairy lights in the trees. Shit don’t think about the trees. Just don't think period. I grab another glass of champagne. Scherri is dancing with our father.
Daddy spared no expense for this wedding. I know he really loves both his girls and is determined they’ll have the best he can provide. Then she goes to dance with her stepdad, and also her husbands dad and rather than dance with mom, his ex, Daddy reaches for me. He takes me in his embrace and I bite my lip to stop from crying but it doesn't work.
It can’t have been easy for him coming up here and entering the house his wife cheated on him in.
Then the couple have slipped away to grab their things and leave in their Airstream for wherever they’re heading on their Honeymoon. Scherri told me it’s some gorgeous island in the north west where they can play together in the water and the hills with their dog. Pebble, the dog Jacket gave them.
Scherri has gone to the house and I’m supposed to be helping her take off on her honeymoon, not sitting her thinking about my own problems. I locate her flower bouquet and head quickly inside. I need to beg some big time forgiveness.
I wait beneath the stairs until I see Stick come down, carrying the luggage out to the trailer, then I head up to help Scherri. I stand at the door for a second admiring how beautiful she is. She’s going to continue wearing the white crochet lace dress to drive off. So her husband can enjoy stripping it off her tonight in their little wagon house. Like his face has indicated he’s desperate to do all evening.
“I meant it when I said it wasn't like that,” she suddenly says, interrupting my daydream.
She’s been watching me in the mirror.
“It doesn't matter now,” I say and bustle into the room to organize her last minute stuff.
If I just stay busy, my thoughts won’t knock me down.
“Jacket’s gone. God knows where this time. And I don't want to spoil any more of your day going over what happened.”
“Nothing on the planet could spoil this day but it does matter,” she says, more kindly than I deserve. I guess she can tell I’m hurting as much as I try to hide it. “You mustn’t think that either I or Jacket would ever have betrayed Stick.”
I sink down on the edge of the bed and she turns to face me.
“I don’t really see how you can evade that one though.”
My sister takes a long inhale.
“Stick was there at the time,” she says. “With us.”
Now I’m confused.
“Watching,” I say.
“Not exactly.”
I gape at her stupidly then it dawns and my stare morphs to amazement. My sister is all kinds of surprising and if it hadn't been the man I love she was involved with, I’d be high-fiving her with props.
“Wow.” I breathe.
“Yeah, it was wow,” she says shaking her head with a wry purse of her lips. “I can’t believe it happened now. I mean it was this particular moment in time when all three of us needed to move forward on our own paths. That one time seemed to open us all up.”
I sit there trying to take that in. To imagine how that works. Frankly I'm pretty entangled in the visualization of having two men inside your body at the same time. Two gorgeous hunking men. My sister is so fucking lucky.
“I was in a menage once.” A voice squeaks out of nowhere.
“Oh my god,” I screech, leaping up off the bed.
Away from the mound rising up at me. The blanket and coverlet shifts then rises up like a night terror and then Dottie appears from underneath, just about.
The blanket swathes her so that only her tiny plum face is visible from its folds.
“Sorry dear, you sat on my foot and I didn’t want to move and interrupt you guys.”
I exchange an amused glance with Scherri. If this was one of our girlfriends, we’d be all over it wanting the dirt, but this is our ninety three year old great aunt. I can tell her curiosity is peaking too, and I can tell my old auntie doesn't care a fig about her years. In her mind she’s the same age she always was. Same as us.
“I ran away to Europe when I was nineteen, wanting to be a reporter and grabbing my chance while the war was on.”
“I can’t imagine being so young and running toward instead of away from danger.”
“Nineteen then was different than it is now. We were much more free. Lots were mothers by then, so not free.”
“And then?” I ask, dying for the story. My aunt has become a real pal to us this weekend and we to her.
“They were two boys on leave, Crispin and Arthur, heading back to the front the next morning. Crispin I had been seeing and Arthur was his mate, in the same brigade. Skinny young men, not the hunks you girls have. But it was still an incredible experience. Not like that, darling girl,” she says to me; “Don’t look so shocked. We had kinky sex back then too you know, you two aren't the only ones.”
Scherri and I meet eyes and laugh. I sit down on the stool beside her and she makes a space then leans into me.
“Go on.”
“I had this cathartic moment feeling like I was joining the two of them together. All the shit they were dealing with, the killing, their friends dying, bonded them and they were able to express that through my body.”
I look over at Scherri and she’s nodding her head like, yes, that’s exactly how it is.
“You’re so fucking lucky,” I tell her.
She nods slowly.
“And having a guy like Stick who gives you everything.”
“He is amazing,” Scherri agrees, softly.
“And so is Jacket,” Dottie tells me.
“Yes.”
“You should go get that man back,” Dottie says.
“I can’t,” I moan and Sherri puts her arm around me.
“Believe me life is too short to let a good one get away,” Dottie says, lying back down in Scherri’s bed.
She must have come up here when she got tired.
“What happened to the two soldiers, Aunt Dottie?” I ask, needing the ending.
“Dead. I never heard from them again and when I went to inquire. Dead. Two days later.”
I swallow down a lump that’s throbbing painfully in my throat. When I look over at Scherri, her eyes are glistening with tears.