Page 122 of Kiwi Sin
Daisy wasn’t wearing pink. Her dress was white, form-fitting, elegant, and sequined, all of it showing her body and all of it the very last thing from Mount Zion. She’d said, when we’d shopped for the dresses with Priya and Dove, that she didn’t want to be reminded, but I remembered those wedding days differently, maybe. The extra-good food the women had made, the special sweets, and the way they’d decorated the Joining Hut with flowers.
And the bride in a pink dress, excited to be starting her new life. You could say it was brainwashing, but those things were what I felt, so …
We did it in the garden, on the Sunday ten days after my hearing. Gabriel and I had gone to get the license as soon as we’d received a copy of the court order granting permission, and Gray and Daisy had already had theirs.
“Let’s do it together,” Daisy had said, “if you want to, Oriana. That’ll make it easier.”
It had taken me a moment, but then I’d got it. Because shehadworn that pink dress before, and then had sex in the Joining Hut. Sex that had hurt so much, she’d cried. For her, that day hadn’t been a dream. It had been the start of her nightmare.
Today wasn’t that day, though. Today was something entirely different.
The garden was full of people. Some of Gray’s old teammates, who were his investors now. Drew and Hannah Callahan, who’d helped us get Frankie out and then had helped Gabriel, and their kids. Matiu and Poppy Te Mana and theirs, and, of course, Laila and Lachlan and Laila’s twin girls. Aisha, sitting with Priya. Gabriel’s family, and mine. It was an entire garden full of flowers and babies and sunshine. Even Iris had come, though she was sitting at the back and scowling. Never mind. I appreciated the effort.
Gray’s mum, Honor, puffed up the track and said, “They’re ready for you. Should I tell Victoria to start the bride music?”
“Yes,” Daisy said, clutching her bouquet to her. It was roses and dahlias in shades of cream, burgundy, and peach, and it was lovely. You might think mine would match, but it didn’t. Mine was all creamy white and green, because mine was gardenias.
A pure soul,Gabriel had told me.Joy. And a secret love.
Not secret any longer, because here we were, stepping into the sunshine.
Wait. Daisy’s bouquet was shaking. I heard the music drifting up to us, coming from Victoria, the lawyer who’d helped us with Mount Zion both times, because she’d also agreed to play her cello for the ceremony.
The people who help you most aren’t always the people you think, because there are more kind hearts in the world than you can count.
Now, Honor was beckoning us on, but I stopped and turned to Daisy, and then I took her wrist.
It was shaking, too.
I asked, “What is it?”
Victoria was halfway through the song now.Marry Me,it was called, and Gabriel had found it. The crowd was turning our way, looking for us. I ignored them. Victoria could play the song over again, that was all.
Daisy said, “What if I’m not good enough at being in love?”
* * *
Gabriel
I’d heard this song first on the radio in the ute, driving along beside the sea, with the sun sparkling on the blue water, the windows down, and the wind in my hair. A year ago, that had been, before I’d got the nerve even to speak to Oriana, when she’d been sixteen and the whole thing had been impossible.
And I’d known anyway. I’d heard that song and thought,That’s how I feel.I’d seen her walking down the aisle to me in my mind, and today, she’d do it for real. I had her ring in the pocket of the first dress trousers I’d ever owned, and she’d have mine on her thumb. “So I don’t lose it,” she’d said yesterday, during our final dinner as single people, sitting around the table in the yurt with her sisters and Gray on a night when it had taken every bit of willpower I had in me to get into the ute and drive away from her.
The problem was—she wasn’t coming. I glanced at Gray, and he looked back at me, his eyebrows raised. I looked the other way, at the celebrant, who was slim and elegant and always looked a little amused. His name was Hayden, and he was married to one of those teammates of Gray’s, to my surprise. I’d never known a gay man before. I hadn’t imagined one being a bulky, bearded rugby player with two cauliflower ears and a smashed nose, let alone one who sat as stolidly as any man from Mount Zion ever had, his meaty hands clasped in front of him and his expression unreadable as he stared at his husband.
“The world is full of strange and wonderful things,” Hayden had said earlier today, when he’d caught the surprised look on my face on meeting Luke Armstrong. I’d laughed and said, “Yes, it is,” and I’d meant it.
Victoria paused at the end of the song. Up the track, Gray’s mum, Honor, made an exaggerated circular motion with her hand.Do it again,I guessed that meant, because Victoria got her bow moving and did it.
There was no way the delay was Oriana. Oriana would walk to me barefoot if the ground were paved with thorns, and I knew it. I asked Gray, “Do you want to go see?”
“No,” he said. “Either she’ll come or she won’t.” He didn’t look comfortable, though.
Was it too good to be true, then, this life we’d all planned?
* * *
Oriana
