The Wedding

The Wedding…

Tatiana is getting married.

Maureen shook her head. It was hard to believe that Tatiana was getting married. They had received a phone call February 14th with Darren giddy and drunk as he announced his engagement to her sister. Maureen had been worried. It was only February and in November, Thanksgiving week to be specific, Tatiana had tried to take her own life. She’d spent a week in the hospital, two weeks in a crisis center before coming home. And in two months she was engaged. Fifteen months had passed and it was time for the wedding. It was really going to happen.

Maureen had gotten over the timing, the proximity to the suicide attempt. But Darren’s mother had posed challenge after challenge. She was insistent and demanding and for all intensive purposes trying to stop the wedding from happening. Tatiana heard along the way that Darren’s parents had been married in the same part of the state as her parents, up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Coincidentally Tatiana’s Aunt and Uncle live there still. She thought it would be so romantic to be married on the Cape as well. The church Tatiana and Maureen’s parents had married in had burned down years ago, but she found a different one, on Main Street in Chatham. The priest happened to be from the home town of the bride and groom and so added to the circle of nostalgia nicely.

And then the troubles truly began. Tatiana’s brother was military and due to the nature of his particular job, vacations were difficult to schedule. He put in for his sister’s wedding but was told he could not take leave until August. After some discussion with Tatiana’s mother and with her fiancé, Tatiana decided to have a wedding at the beach in June and a reception near her mother’s in August.

Tatiana called her grandparents to wish them a Happy Christmas over the holidays and her grandfather asked her if she would be attending the yearly family get together at a swanky resort in the mountains. The family had gone every August for fourteen years. Last year, however, people had said that was it. Grandpa and Grandma were too old and it was too hard and the family get togethers were done. So Tatiana hadn’t expected it at all. She asked when it was. It was the same weekend as her reception. She had not sent out invitations yet, but with her brother’s inability to change his leave she did not have the option of being flexible. She emailed the uncle whose job it was to arrange for the family reunions and his email back was more than brusque. It would appear that moving the family reunion was out of the question. She had called Maureen in tears. “What do I do?” and Maureen had answered, “You do what every bride does. You pick a day, you send out invitations and you wait for RSVPs, nothing works for everybody.”

But Tatiana was insistent that her grandparents attend her wedding reception. She called them which was futile. Grandma was struggling with dementia and was certainly not up for travel or for making promises. Grandpa had been in poor health for thirty five years. He had developed diabetes young and had had heart trouble for as long as Maureen could remember. His legs were weak from circulatory issues and all the plastic veins they’d put in when they harvested his real veins for by-pass surgeries. He’d had several by-pass surgeries, the lastone they’d done they performed five by-passes and after words he’d said he didn’t want to be opened up ever again. The stitches had gotten infected due to the diabetes and he’d ended up with staff and it had taken a very, very long time to heal. His eyes were effected by the disease. But he still had that incredible mind.

She then called the other uncle to plead her case. He was noncommittal. And so Tatiana called Maureen again. Again she was in tears. “My daddy is dead. He can’t be at my wedding. Why can’t his family at least care enough to come to my reception? Why?” Maureen didn’t know what to say. She was appalled. But a lot of things had appalled her amongst the Flaherty family.

A few years ago Andrew had died. Sure it was a shock. He’d been 16 at the time. But Maureen’s cousins hadn’t known how to behave and worse their parents hadn’t done much to guide them. One of the Uncle’s hadn’t even bothered to attend the funeral, he’d planned a golf trip for a year with his buddies and as his wife said “They wouldn’t want him to miss it.” And so Tatiana had lost her head a bit. Andrew has been her favorite cousin, and she was grieving and she said some awful things to the other girls. And they’d never forgotten and their mother remembered it still. When Maureen had called her aunt last year with the news that Tatiana was in the hospital the aunt had brought up the awful things Tatiana had said to her cousins. Adding in there at the end, “it is always good to know when someone you are dealing with isn’t dealing with a full deck.” Maureen had hung up the phone so angry and close to tears. At the time they hadn’t know if Tatiana would be live through it.

And so Tatiana had to accept that her father’s family wouldn’t be coming to her wedding reception. It was unheard of. And then Darren’s mother started in. She didn’t like the location of the wedding, she wanted a reception at the wedding, she didn’t like the date and there were several other things. Tatiana explained that her mother would only pay for one reception and having a reception in August was not negotiable. Her brother could only attend in August and so, August, near her mother’s house, were two items that would not change. So Darren’s mother decided to plan a reception. And then as she was paying for it, she decided to create her own invitation list. And the list got longer and longer until it was nearly two hundred people. Well, Tatiana was upset because she’d gone through the whole bother of planning a reception in Williamsburg near her mothers. Darren was upset because he had specifically requested a small wedding and what his mother was describing was not small.

Tatiana’s background is in psychology and crisis therapy and as such she is often unofficially diagnosing those around her. She feels her mother-in-law to be, in addition to being an alcoholic is mostly likely bipolar. Maureen has often asked her why she would knowingly walk into that situation. Tatiana always answer’s “Well if I am borderline along with all the other stuff like post traumatic stress disorder and OCD then why would anyone ‘knowingly walk into that situation?’ ” Maureen always shrugs. She just can’t see how placing one person with a personality disorder as they are called in a relationship with another person with a personality disorder is anything but a disaster.

On top of the disorders, Darren’s mother seems to be unwilling to give up her place as the “little girl” in her family of men. Darren, his father and his brother have all spent their lives revolving around her. Even Darren’s brother, who has been dating the same woman for four years, revolves around his mother. But then something happened which Maureen did not expect. And she felt her attitude change ever so slightly. Tatiana called again, quite late and quite drunk. Darren had gone to his parents and confronted his mother.

Darren had never, in a million years done such a thing. He and Tatiana were arguing about the wedding ceremony, and the reception afterwards, and the large party it was becoming. Tatiana was upset because Darren was mad at her and she felt he needed to discuss with his mother. Darren seemed to feel it was Tatiana who needed to do a better job of “handling” his mother and Tatiana had said “she isn’t an Arabian Horse in need of handling she is a little girl in need of a spanking.” And so he’d left in a fit. But he’d gone over to his parents’ house.

It turned out that his mother had convinced his father that Tatiana’s guest list was also quite extensive. Darren had been a bit shocked when his father quite angrily defended his mother. So Darren had driven home, gotten Tatiana’s guest list, two of them, one for the ceremony and one for the reception. Tatiana had invited her mother, Maureen along with husband and children, the Aunt and Uncle who lived in the town and her grandparents. Darren’s mother’s list was nearing two hundred. Then Darren showed his father the guest list for the reception in Virginia. It included approximately one hundred guests for Tatiana. When Darren’s father saw the two lists he was of course quite surprised and accused Darren’s mother of manipulating himself and their son. When Darren left they were shouting at one another as he had never seen his parents do. He arrived home beyond upset and told Tatiana that he didn’t want to hear another word about any of it or he was calling the whole thing off. And that was when Tatiana called Maureen.

Maureen found herself in the unusual position of actually taking Darren’s side. “Tatiana, in twelve years of marriage my husband has never gone to his mother’s house to accuse her of manipulating any one or of being selfish. And she isn’t quite in the league of your mother-in-law to be but she has had her moments to be sure. That takes an awfully strong man. Wait a few days and see what you think.”

And so it continued through the spring. Tatiana asked her cousin Becka if she would host the after the ceremony party at her house. Becka’s house though very nice isn’t large, but she has a lovely well landscaped yard that would surely do the trick. Darren’s mother sent her sister over to check it out and see if it would do. She called Becka, made an appointment to view her house, walked through it and called Darren’s mom to report “it is completely out of the question.” Tatiana was furious.

And then in May phone calls started coming in. First Tatiana’s cousin on her father’s side, “I can’t make it to Massachusetts. I’m supposed to go overseas for work and it is a really good opportunity for me and I can’t pass it up.” And then one by one the other girls dropped out until it was just the maid of honor making the trip. And then the week of the wedding Tatiana called the beauty salon where she, the maid of honor and her niece the junior bridesmaid would be getting their hair done. They had not scheduled her in. Tatiana started crying on the phone and so they squeezed her in as it was only three people… Maureen had picked her up to take her to her appointment and Tatiana was a mess. She got her dropped off with her girls and went to run other errands for the bride. But the late appointments made the bride late and the groom’s mother nervous. She called over Darren’s brother’s girlfriend and demanded, “Nancy call Tatiana and find out what is taking so darn long!” And so Nancy called. Three times. And Tatiana answered three times. And finally one hour late, the bride appeared.

After the wedding, and the pictures on the beach, and a piece of the most amazing cake Maureen had ever seen, Maureen sat with a glass of chardonnay and marveled that the wedding had even managed to occur. She sat watching the waves a moment and then raised her glass and silently toasted her sister. “If you could preserver through all the silly obstacles and indifferent and selfish family then you really stand a rather good chance at this marriage thing. May it be a happy, joyfully, and long marriage.”

The Wedding Girl

Product Description
DIV DIV At the age of eighteen, in that first golden Oxford summer, Milly was up for anything. Rupert and his American lover, Allan, were an important part of her new, exciting life, so when Rupert suggested to her that she and Allan should get married to keep Allan in the country, Milly didn’t hesitate. BR BR Ten years later, Milly is a very different person and engaged to Simon—who is wealthy, serious, and believes her to be perfect. Milly’s secret history is locked away so securely she has almost persuaded herself that it doesn’t exist—until, only four days before her elaborate wedding. To have and to hold takes on a whole new meaning when one bride’s past catches up with her and bring the present crashing down. BR BR With her trademark style of keen insight, and razor sharp wit, Madeleine Wickham introduces her fanatical fan-base, plus a host of new readers to a fresh and irresistible heroine in I The Wedding Girl. P /P /I /DIV /DIV

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• ISBN13: 9780312628208
• Condition: New
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