It's Better This Way(77)

Uncle Eddie looked toward Laura.

“And, Laura…” Hillary paused, and Carrie knew how hard this was for her. “You are welcome to attend, if you’d like.”

Laura nodded, and once again Carrie could see the other woman was holding back tears. “Thank you,” Laura whispered, flashing a smile to Eddie.

Carrie knew this was a groundbreaking moment. Sure, Uncle Eddie and Hillary and Marie had a long way to go. The road wasn’t going to always be smooth. Still, she felt confident that her cousins were happy to have their father back in their lives and were willing to give Laura the benefit of the doubt.

Time would tell.

And so would the wedding.





Chapter 31




Today was the long-awaited day of Hillary and Blake’s wedding. Julia had been an emotional mess all day. Now they were in the church, and Hillary was with her sister, Carrie, and the other bridesmaids getting dressed in a room off the side of the sanctuary.

The bridal shop had sent a woman to dress Hillary. With the assorted bridesmaids and everyone else, the room had grown crowded. Seeing they weren’t needed, Julia and Amanda found a quiet corner in the hallway outside and sat down on a bench. Julia struggled to get her tears under control.

Amanda handed her another tissue, which Julia carefully placed beneath her eyes to stop the flow of tears from ruining her makeup. After sitting for an hour being worked on by the makeup artist, she was determined not to ruin the woman’s hard work.

    “If you’re all weepy now, what are you going to be like during the ceremony?” Amanda asked, a smile teasing her lips.

“You wait,” Julia warned, waving her finger at her sister. “See how you react when Carrie’s the bride.”

“Remember Mom at our weddings?” Amanda said, reminding Julia of their own mother’s reaction on their individual wedding days. “You’d think she was attending a funeral.”

“And we each promised we would never be like our mother,” Julia said, laughing and weeping at the same time.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, we are our mother, after all,” Amanda said in a singsong voice.

Julia broke into laughter. “Oh, so true.”

Eddie arrived, looking uncomfortable in his tuxedo and starched white shirt. He normally dressed for the golf course, and this wasn’t his usual attire. He nervously paced the area in front of Julia and Amanda.

“Is Hillary dressed yet?” he asked.

“Patience, Eddie.” It would be a good half hour before everyone was seated.

“Why are you nervous?” Amanda teased.

Eddie stopped his pacing and rubbed his fingers through his carefully combed hair. “I don’t know, I just am. It’s hard to believe the newborn baby girl I held in my arms is about to become a wife.”

“I know,” Julia whispered, grabbing another tissue from the packet her sister held in her hand. She sniffled. “This is ridiculous. Today is a happy day.”

To Julia, this day was much more than she had ever hoped it would be. Even now, she had a hard time trusting this fragile truce between the two families. How grateful she was to Laura for taking that first uncomfortable step and contacting her. That had initiated a new beginning for the two families.

    Despite Julia’s multiple efforts to reconcile her daughters and their father, it’d taken the last woman she ever suspected to accomplish what had seemed an impossible task.

Laura joined them and looked lovely in her rust-colored dress. At one time, Julia had barely been able to tolerate the idea of the other woman. She viewed Laura much differently these days. While they would never be close friends, thankfully the distrust and resentment were gone. In Julia’s opinion, this was about as close to a modern-day miracle as she ever thought she’d see. Her one hope now was that sometime in the future, their children would find the same acceptance toward one another.

Word came that all were ready for the wedding to begin. Laura left and was seated in the row across the aisle from Heath.

Hillary appeared, and Julia gazed lovingly at her beautiful daughter and blinked back fresh tears.

“Mom,” Hillary said, nearly laughing out loud. “Why are you crying?”

Unable to speak, she shook her head. The emotion was so much more than looking at the beautiful woman her daughter had become. It was that her family was together and there was nothing but love here. The resentments were gone, they were a family again, perhaps not in the traditional way, but family nevertheless, gathered around the daughter they had created together in love.

“Dad?” Hillary said, sighing. “You, too?”

Eddie wiped his eyes. Julia hadn’t been married to him all those years without knowing his thoughts matched her own. The tears were those of gratitude that Hillary and Marie had accepted him and Laura and were willing to have a relationship with them both.

    “You’re so…lovely,” Eddie whispered brokenly.

Hillary laughed off his words. “I should be considering what you paid for this dress.”

“It was worth every penny.”

Amanda left and was seated with Robert and assorted family and friends. The bridesmaids lined up behind Julia. Blake’s grandmother was seated first, then Julia was escorted to the front of the church by Blake’s youngest brother, followed by his mother and another of Blake’s brothers. Blake’s twin brother, Bradley, was beside Blake at the altar, serving as his best man.