moments as the remainder of the wedding party joined them. Telling herself that she would be thankful for this reality check later, Connie allowed herself to be hurried into a side room while the photographer snapped candid shots and Marcus told the guests how to find the hall where the reception would be held.
After the guests had headed toward the reception site, the wedding party hurried back into the sanctuary for a few group photos. Then the attendants trooped over to the reception en masse while Jolie and Vince struck a few poses as husband and wife.
It was a happy, talking, laughing mob in the reception hall. Connie couldn’t have counted the number of hugs that enveloped her, and yet shortly after the new Mr. and Mrs. Cutler arrived, Connie found herself standing alone in a corner watching the festivities. She felt apart, solitary, sealed away behind an invisible wall of past mistakes.
Some prisons, she had learned, were not made of bars.
Squaring her shoulders, she scolded herself for letting regret stain this of all days. After sending a quick prayer upward, she fixed her smile and forced one foot in front of the other until she was in the midst of the throng once more.
Marcus sauntered forward, free of his clerical robes, a cup of punch in one hand and a relaxed smile on his face. He glanced across the room to the table where Jolie and Vince were seated. Russell lolled on his aunt’s lap, playing with the edge of her veil, which she’d looped over one arm before taking her seat.
“I never expected this,” Marcus said, surprised when his sister jumped slightly. He shouldn’t have been. She held herself apart too much. It sometimes seemed to him that Connie had not yet left prison behind her.
“What?” she asked uncertainly.
He waved a hand. “This. Somehow, I never thought about it. There always seemed to be so much else to worry about, and now suddenly here we are, a real family doing just what real families do.”
“It’s the Cutlers,” Connie said. “They’re just so normal that they make you feel normal by association.”
“I don’t know,” he mused, his green eyes narrowing. “I think we might be more normal than we realize.”
“You, maybe,” she countered softly, then immediately amended that. “And Jolie. Definitely Jolie.”
He cocked his head. “Not you?”
“Not me,” she answered softly.
He looped an arm around her shoulders in brotherly support.
“You may be the most normal of us all, Connie.”
She shook her head and Marcus sighed inwardly. Sensitive and caring, Connie had suffered the most after their mother had abandoned them. As a result, she could not seem to stop punishing herself for past sins. She carried such needless guilt, such overwhelming shame. It was one of the reasons Marcus had convinced her to regain custody of her son. Going against Jolie had hurt him, but he had known Jolie would survive. He hadn’t been so sure about Connie, and yet here she was, as lovely and sweet as ever.
He followed her adoring gaze to her son. No longer entertained by the delicate edging of Jolie’s veil, Russell suddenly flopped over and tried to pull himself upright on Jolie’s lap by tugging at the bodice of her wedding gown. Vince immediately reached over and plucked him off Jolie, settling him in his own lap, but Connie was a very conscientious mother. She had a gift for it, frankly, if Marcus did say so himself.
She immediately started toward her rambunctious son, saying “Uh-oh. Someone is restless.”
Marcus followed in her wake, watching the way that Russell so readily came up into her arms.
“He looks so adorable in that little suit,” Jolie said, her eyes shining.
Her smile looked permanent, Marcus was thankful to note.
“Marcus insisted that he had to have one,” Connie said, sliding a look at Marcus. “He spends too much on us, doesn’t he, munchkin?”
“Don’t be silly,” Marcus scoffed. “If you’d let me pay you for keeping house—”
“You do pay me,” Connie interrupted tartly. “You’re putting a roof over our heads.”
“It’s more than a fair exchange,” Marcus argued.
“Somehow, I don’t think he minds,” Vince told Connie, smiling at Marcus and clasping Jolie’s hand in his.
Marcus saluted him with his punch glass.
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Connie replied, “but I do. That’s why I’m intending to go to school and learn a trade of some sort.”
Marcus studiously kept a grimace off his face, even as Jolie sat forward, exclaiming “That’s great!”
“You have to know that we’ll help in any way that we can,” Vince assured Connie.
“Thanks, but that’s the point, isn’t it? I have to be able to help myself. Still, since you’re not working at the cleaners now, Jo, maybe you could watch Russell a couple of days a week? They won’t charge me to keep him here at the day care, but I know he’d rather spend some time with you. It would give him a nice change, at least.”
Jolie literally beamed. “That would be wonderful!”
Marcus smiled to himself, so very proud of both of his sisters.
While Connie had been in prison, Jolie had cared for Russell as if he were her own child, and in many ways he was. It was entirely understandable that Jolie hadn’t wanted to give him up, but once Connie had been released, Marcus had known that—for her sake as well as Russell’s—she had to take over guardianship of her son. She hadn’t believed herself worthy of mothering a child, but no one who knew her could say that now. Marcus’s one regret was that Jolie had gotten hurt in the process, and he had feared that the resulting break in the family would be permanent.
Thank God that had not been the case.
Vince had helped Jolie find a way to forgive and reconnect with her family. Considering that they’d fought a custody battle over the boy, Connie showed great compassion and wisdom in asking Jolie to help care for Russell. Thankfully, Connie understood that Jolie would always share a special bond with Russell and that he needed Jolie to be his aunt. Now, she could be.
Marcus only wished that Connie could forgive herself for her past mistakes as readily as she forgave others. He hated to think about Connie not spending her days with her son, but he understood why she felt that she had to go to school. Somehow, though, something told him that it wasn’t the right thing to do, not at this time. Still, he kept his opinion to himself.
One thing he had learned was that God always had a plan for His children, and Marcus had no doubts, that, when the time was right, God would reveal His plan for Connie.
Connie tacked her smile into place and took her son to find his sippy cup and something appropriate with which to fill it. She loved her sister, and she had no doubt that it was wise to have Jolie watch Russell whenever she could, but she felt stretched thin at the moment. She had not expected this day to be so hard for her. That it was seemed irrefutable proof that she was not the person she should
