mother. Make him sit down, Mam, please.
‘So, it does fill me with joy …’
She looked up and her face crumpled as Fitz started to cry.
‘It fills me with joy,’ he sniffed, ‘to see that you two really do love each other, so bear with me while I say,’ he peeked at her and Dom over the rim of his oval, steel-rimmed spectacles, ‘keep hold of that love and you’ll be grand.’
Erin’s mouth twitched as she attempted a smile.
‘Finally, let’s raise a glass to the bride and groom. I wish you both health and happiness and family that will love and anchor you.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ she touched his arm, his new, but ill-fitting, suit as he sat down.
‘Your mam would have been so proud of you today,’ he smiled.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Erin repeated and stared at her bump. There had been no way or no gown to hide it and everyone who was there knew anyway.
‘Was it alright?’ Fitz asked.
She told her father that his speech had been perfect as she, once again, looked across the circular table towards her in-laws. Sophie was scooping imaginary crumbs from the table. Gerard smiled, gave a small nod in her direction.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have—’ Her father leaned into her as he drained his glass. She crooked an arm around his neck and kissed his cheek.
‘I told you, Dad, it was really perfect. Thank you.’
Three round tables of ten people squeezed into the room created the background noise that she and Dom needed. ‘You wanna get out of here?’ her husband whispered.
‘You know we can’t.’ She felt his sigh in her ear and shivered. There was nothing she wanted more than to get back to the flat and curl up in bed with this man and their bump.
‘Okay, we’ll stay a bit longer,’ he agreed. ‘But no one really expects us to hang around drinking, love.’
‘Let’s circulate, give it another half hour,’ she said. Pulling herself to a standing position, she dismissed thoughts of the absent music and first dance, reminded herself to be grateful to Dom for putting this together so quickly – on his own, without much help from her or anyone. ‘I’m going for a quick pee,’ she whispered before heading to the back of the function room towards the corridor and the loos. Just as she was about to turn the corner, a voice she recognised stopped her in her tracks.
‘She’s shameless.’
Erin’s hand automatically protected her stomach. Every nerve ending in her body told her to turn around; that she had no business listening, but her feet had rooted to the tacky carpet.
‘You’re tired. We’ll go soon.’
‘Gerard, do not patronise me! I’m not tired. I simply can’t stand the girl.’
‘That “girl”, as you call her, is carrying our grandchild. Keep your bloody voice down.’
Erin backed herself up against the wall. She tried to edge each vertebra, one by one against it, suddenly caring little for the off-white dress she had carefully chosen in a small vintage shop near Putney. Closing her eyes, she willed herself invisible.
‘Is she?’ Sophie hissed. ‘We don’t know that, do we, and he’s too besotted to care!’
‘Stop!’ her husband snapped. ‘You want to go, we’ll go, but this is not the time or the place for a scene.’
She should walk on up there, Erin told herself. Just walk on up that narrow, dirt-brown corridor, make her way slowly past them, brandishing her bump between them. She should smile sweetly at her mother-in-law, and widen her grateful eyes at Gerard, the man who thankfully seemed to have donated most of Dom’s character. Erin knew what she should do but, instead, she pleaded with her bladder and backed into the room to mingle with their friends as best she could.
‘You look angelic,’ Lydia whispered.
‘Divine,’ Hannah agreed.
‘Well, I would,’ Nigel, Dom’s best man grinned. ‘Seriously, there’s something very sexy about pregnant women.’
And with one eye on Sophie emerging from the corridor, Erin laughed.
Later, as they were leaving, everyone made a guard of honour to an out of tune ‘Here Comes the Bride’. It was only as Dom steered her underneath, past Fitz and her brother Rob, that Erin saw Sophie waiting at the very end. She would be waiting to whisper that he’d always have a home if he changed his mind. Erin stooped low. Dom was not going to change his mind. Dom loved her. He hadn’t stopped smiling since she’d told him about the baby. And even though she had never asked it or expected it of him, Dom had asked her to marry him within days of the news. Dom had married her. Because he loved her.
He pulled her through the arch and as she stood, she leaned into Gerard’s kiss, matched her mother-in-law’s air kiss, and gripped her new husband’s hand. At the door, she was pulled into another hug as Dom tried to help her with her coat.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Lydia squeezed hard. ‘Get some sleep.’
Erin nodded. It had been a long day, but she hugged her sister-in-law back.
‘Look after that brother of mine.’ Lydia smiled. ‘He’s the only one I’ve got.’
Erin nodded, pulled Hannah, her other bridesmaid, into the hug and scanned the room until her eyes rested on Fitz and Rob, who, hating goodbyes, had moved away from the door. When her father placed his fingers on his lips and blew her a kiss, and her only brother winked, Erin nodded and fought back tears.
Nigel handed Dom the car keys and smiled at Erin. ‘It’s outside and all warmed up for you, love.’
‘Thanks, Nigel,’ she whispered. Sometimes it was the small acts of kindness from people that made her fill up. She looked at Sophie, who was wringing her hands. And sometimes, she thought, it was cutting words that did it. Against all her better instincts, she turned back to her mother-in-law and whispered. ‘I love your son and he will always know that. Always.’
Her response was the tiniest nod, a minute jerk of the woman’s disapproving head, a cold but noticeable acknowledgement.
In the car, they both shivered. Dom reached over and rubbed her arms with his hands. ‘Who the hell gets married in December?’ he asked, laughing. ‘Right, let’s get you home to bed.’
She closed her eyes briefly, wanting to commit that moment to memory – his desire to keep her warm, to get her back safely. At twenty-seven, Dom’s wedding night should have involved honeymoon sex, lots of it. Part of her felt she should apologise – not just for the lack of wedding night love-making but the whole thing. The whole ‘meet a girl and within seven months find out she’s pregnant and five months later marry her’ thing. Whirlwind didn’t cover it.
He placed a hand inside her coat and squeezed her knee, bare but for the flesh-coloured tights she’d worn with her short, fitted, lace dress. ‘Never more,’ he said.
She
