Page 13 of The Ties that Bind
My mom dropped me off at the apartment, gave me her usual loving goodbye hug and started the drive back home. I sat down with a book and a glass of iced tea to wait for Marty. Really, I had expected he would beat me back here, but I figured his work at the shop or at Aiden’s was causing him to run late. Or maybe he had gone out to eat with his mom too.
Three chapters into the book, my phone lit up with a call. Savoring a few moments to relax, my eyes refused to leave the page until I finished the sentence I had started. So by the time I picked up the phone, it had already vibrated a few times. Hastily, I answered. “Hello?” The word turned into a question when I realized I hadn’t seen the caller’s name on the screen.
“Hi, Honey.”
“Daddy!” Low, loving and so familiar - only one man could possibly have that voice. I had to blink a few times to hold back a sudden pressure behind my eyes that would turn into tears if I let it.
“Maggie.” I could picture that wide, toothy smile my dad always had, combined with the pride in his eyes that he felt for all his children. “Your mom called and told me you were getting married! And to Marty! Damn, I’m so happy for you both. I always liked that man, and I won’t have to meet someone for the first time when I fly back home for the wedding.”
“When you-” I lost my voice for a moment, scarcely able to believe yet another thing that meant the world to me had fallen into place. “When you fly in for the wedding?”
“Did you think I would miss my only daughter’s special day? Your brothers are both focused on being bigwig military types, not finding women to settle down with,” he joked. “When will I have another chance to be at one of my children’s weddings? Your mom called me nearly two weeks ago, but it took until today for me to be sure I could get that special leave I asked for. I’ll be home in a couple days.”
“Daddy, I’m so, so happy you’ll be here!” I had never told Marty how much it meant to me for my father to give me away, and I had been waiting, holding my breath to hear if he could make it to our set date at the end of June. If he couldn’t… I didn’t know what I would have done. Despite my love for Marty and all our plans, I might have brought up the possibility of moving the date.
“Your mother thought it was best you hear it from me. It’ll be all of us together, just like at Christmas.”
My skin tingled all over, and my heart skipped and skidded. Was this real? Would the whole, complete Fontenot family really be able to come together for my impromptu June wedding? “I have to call Scott and Nick,” I murmured, mostly to myself. My mom had handled calling everyone, including my brothers and father, and I had just been so busy lately… Why hadn’t I called them immediately, right after Marty proposed?
Well, I knew the answer to that as far as my father was concerned. He worked offshore on oil rigs where he had limited cell service, so he could be pretty hard to get ahold of sometimes.
“They’d like that. Scott and Nicholas remember Marty too, and, in the words of Scott when I talked to him yesterday, ‘Wow, my not-so-little sister is getting married? Cool beans’.”
“Cool beans,” I repeated, forgetting to be emotional and snorting loudly. “Scott’s just as big a goofball as before he joined the army.”
“Not even a drill sergeant could stomp that out of him,” my dad agreed solemnly.
“Let me let you go so I can go call him and tell him that,” I requested, my heart full and content. “I have so much to tell you, Daddy, but I’ll wait until you get home!” I hung up only to immediately dial another number.
“Little sis!” Scott answered, sounding thrilled to hear from me.
“Cool beans? Really?”
***
Marty
I sat down on the antique living room couch, letting the air conditioning waft across the layer of sweat I had accumulated throughout the day and admiring the handiwork of all the incredible people who had turned out to help decorate Aiden’s house. White lace trailed down the staircase railings like the veil of a runaway bride, interspersed periodically by ties that would also hold flowers on the day of the wedding. There would be flowers everywhere, actually - in the tall white stands from my mother’s Lafayette shop and the smaller vases adorning tables and the mantlepiece, wrapping around the elegant columns outside on the front porch and in the center of every table that would be set up outside.
And they had done so much more than prepare for the flowers. Colored lanterns hung all around the ground floor of the house. The curtains had been changed out to reflect the colors and themes chosen for the wedding. I touched the cover that had been laid over the couch I sat on, knowing it hid the unweddinglike paisley pattern. Everything on the whole ground floor of the house sported solids and patterns of whites, pinks and soft purples.
It looked incredible, and it had only taken about half a day to do all this. The idea of waiting until the day before the wedding to decorate the backyard had made me a little nervous, but after seeing how smoothly everything had gone today, I knew it would be just fine.
Any group effort needed a team leader, and the leader of the move to clean and decorate the house walked out of the kitchen just as that moment, holding a glass of iced tea and brushing back a few strands of hair that had escaped her messy bun. “Momma, the house looks incredible,” I told her as she sat on one of the covered chairs with a sigh of relaxation. “We couldn’t have done it without you.” She had been everywhere at once, directing everyone as they carried things in from the LaFleur Flowers truck and returned from shopping trips for other things needed to complete the decor, putting up several of those decorations herself, and delegating tasks.
“Doesn’t it?” she said, pleased. “It’s all thanks to you, Zoe, Aiden and everyone else who helped.”
“No, it’s definitely not,” I argued. “Someone had to keep us all in line so we’d get things done. And all of this-” I gestured expansively to encompass the room. “-was your idea.”
“It still took all of us to get this done,” she insisted. “And your help in particular by going to check up on the progress at the shop.”
I thought back to all the pictures I had taken of completed shelving and hanging installments for the flowers, pots and other little things we would sell at the new shop. “It’s coming along nicely, isn’t it? Should be ready to open the day after tomorrow.” My brother Joshua was coming down to NO for a few days to oversee the running of the store and start training the new hire I hadn’t met yet since my mother and I would both be busy.
“We’ll have to order another LaFleur Flowers truck, but you’ll be able to make do with your pickup for now.” The fondness that crossed my face when my mom mentioned my pickup didn’t escape her. “Yes, of course, you can bring your truck here. Your father’s old pickup will be enough for hauling things at the nursery.”
This was the first time I had seen my mother just sit down and relax in days. I could swear she was more stressed than Maggie and me, but I knew that was because she loved me and wanted everything to be pristine and perfect for us both. “It’ll be fine, Momma. Everything will be ready in time. We’ve got this.”
She relaxed even further, sinking into the couch. “I know. It’s just so much so fast! I guess all weddings are a little stressful, though.”
