Chapter 18

The next morning, Willow was waiting for them in the church car park, and she gave all of them big hugs. She started with Sophie, and finished with Larissa. “Your family has been so nice to me,” she told Larissa. “I owe you all so much. I wish that I could just adopt you as my family of the heart.”

Larissa smiled, and said, “I’m sure we’d all love that. I sure did make them my family, it’s a lovely way to describe it, a family of the heart. I mean, that’s who they are for me, but I just call them my family now.”

“What about your real mum?” Willow asked, so Larissa explained quickly. By this time, they were inside the church, still arm in arm. But once they were in church, Larissa found another family waiting to talk to her: Amelia, with Ross, and his whole family. Even Tim, and a girl she didn’t know. This would be Tim’s girl, and she had a lovely smile on her face. Willow grinned, hugged Larissa tight and said she’d catch her after church.

Amelia hugged Larissa tight, and said, “hi, Larissa, lovely to see you, and Steph told you I have so much to thank you for, right?” Larissa nodded, and hugged her back. “Great. We’ll talk about it later, but first, we want to introduce you to someone.” But before that, both Ross and Grace had to hug her too, and she laughed. Once they’d done that, Amelia smiled, and said, “Anyway, we wanted to introduce you to Isla.” Larissa smiled and held out her hands and took both of Isla’s hands.

“It’s lovely to meet you, and Steph told me about you and Tim, and it made me really happy.” She smiled at Tim. “And I hear you both have extra reason to be happy this morning, and I’m so glad you’re here.”

Isla gave her a shy smile in return and said, “I do, thanks. We had a wonderful night. It’s also nice to meet you, given how much I heard about you.”

Larissa grinned. “Well, it probably was all greatly exaggerated, but I can see that you’ve made Tim happy.” She let go of Isla and hugged Tim. He hugged her tight in return and said, in a choked-up voice, “Thanks, it’s such a big deal.”

She pulled back and smiled at both of them. “Well, I’m really glad for both of you, and that you’ve come to church this morning, and I hope you feel very welcome here, but remember, both of you, to give thanks for the gifts you’ve received.” They smiled at her and promised to do that.

Then it was Ross’s parents turn. They both hugged her, and his mum said, “We do have so much to be thankful for. And thankful to you, particularly. And thank you for letting us come to your wedding. We wish we could thank you properly some way, but Amelia says that you firmly believe in paying it forward?”

Larissa nodded strongly. “So many wonderful people gave amazingly to me in a way I can’t pay them back, so I can only pay it forward, and so you must too.”

Ross’s mum smiled at her. “OK, we’ll look for an opportunity to do so. But we’d love to help you too; if you ever see a way for us to help you pay it forward, let us know.”

“Well, sure, thanks. And let’s start with that now. I’m about to introduce you to a young lady who needs some friends, including amongst her own age group. Amelia, can you do me a favour and introduce her around? I’ll let her tell you as much as she wants about why. And her mum needs friends as well.”

She turned and smiled at Cheryl, who’d been waiting in the background. As soon as Larissa did that, Cheryl positively ran into her arms, and held her tight. Larissa could see her mother, hanging in the background, but she could also see Vicky making her way towards Cheryl’s mother.

“Well, I think some introductions are in order,” she said, turning Cheryl around. “This is Cheryl, a friend I made last week. She doesn’t know many people at church here, especially her own age. Cheryl, this is Amelia. Her brother is married to my sister, and she knows everyone here, unlike me. And Ross here is her guy, and this is his family.”

Amelia stepped forward and hugged Cheryl. “It’s lovely to meet another of Larissa’s friends, and I’m sure you’ll be my friend, and also that you’ll find friends your age as well. Larissa, how did you get to know Cheryl?”

Larissa looked at Cheryl, who said, “She saved us! And then I went to work with her. She’s awesome. Larissa, tell them about the eagle!”

Larissa laughed at that totally confusing non-explanation, and said, “Tell you what, Cheryl, church is going to start soon, and we don’t have time for that now, so I’ll tell them after. Has your family got someone to sit with today?”

“Oh, can we sit with you, please?”

Larissa looked up the church, and saw that as well as Willow, who was hugging Asha now, Asha’s family had turned up, and were settling into their row too. “I’m sorry, Cheryl, I’d love that, but I see that my family has filled up our row already, and there’s a reason I need to sit with them today.”

She looked around, but Ross’s mum got the hint. “Cheryl, maybe we can sit with your family, then? We’re not regulars here, and you can show us around. Why don’t you introduce us to your mum?”

“Go on, Cheryl. We’ll talk after church,” Larissa told her, and Cheryl led Ross’s parents over to her mum, who was talking to Vicky. Amelia looked at her enquiringly. “She turned up at church smashed out of her mind last week, and when Vicky got her alone, she said she’d only talk to me – she heard about my youth night talk you organised. She got herself trashed because her home situation was awful, so I engineered for her mum and her and her sister to get a new home this week. And got her to watch me work for a day. And the price for her is no alcohol at all until she’s eighteen. Vicky helped. But this is a new church for them, so they don’t know people.” Amelia nodded, and dragged Ross off to join the conversation with her mum. Larissa smiled at Grace and went off to say hello to Asha’s family.

On the way, she found Dave and Lem and some of their families, and had another round of hugs, and a very big one with Sal. They came to church occasionally, so it wasn’t that surprising to see them. It was certainly a full house for her friends and extended family today though. And then she saw Ruby’s family, most of them, they were there too, so she was introduced to them. That was new. And wow, even Layna and Joseph had turned up; she’d rather got the impression that they weren’t religious?

She was nearly the last to sit before the service started, after saying hello to everyone. The pastor rolled his eyes at her, and she smiled apologetically at him. Then she looked at Julian and frowned. Who’d he talked to? She was supposed to be helping him with his support network, but she’d had no chance so far. She cozied up to him and he smiled at her. Oh, Liam, for sure, and then she saw Julian grinning at another mate, a private joke no doubt, probably at her expense. Well, she could kiss him; today was a great day.

She enjoyed the service and the sermon, but it was once the formal part of the service ended and the pastor got to his announcements that she really got interested. After talking about the formal events for the week, he made an appeal for furniture for the stash, particularly beds. No pressure, but if you were thinking of upgrading a bed, the church furniture collection had space after using some to help a family in real need this week, and his great thanks to the unnamed benefactors who helped the family out – exactly the kind of thing the church should be about. Then he welcomed Willow by name and said that he was glad she was feeling really good this week after being under the weather the week before. Larissa glanced at Willow and saw her smiling at that; now Larissa knew the pastor, she’d bet that was a coded message for Willow. Then, to her surprise, the pastor announced that this coming Saturday, it would be his pleasure to marry two of the flock and he named Julian and Larissa, and said, “They’ve got a huge group of extended family and friends here today to pray for their well-being, and share today with them. Julian’s family have been coming to church here for a long time, and many of you know them. Larissa has only been coming more recently, and it’s been lovely for us that she has. She’s not so well known, though she talked about her journey at our youth group late last year, so a lot of the younger members know her. If you know them, you might want to mention them in your prayers. We’re certainly looking forward to helping them get married. Both Julian and Larissa have a pretty high profile on social media, maybe even famous, and we think that they are excellent examples for our young people, and in fact for all of us. Julian and Larissa, thanks for being such great examples of pursuing Jesus-led principles as hard as you can.” Wow, Larissa thought, that was a lovely strong comment, she’d have to thank him later. Then he followed with a prayer for both of them and their marriage that showed he’d been talking to all of her families – sweet, really a lovely thing to do, and she felt great after that.

After the service, Larissa was super busy with lots of people wanting to wish her and Julian the best. There was all the family, of course, and her grandparents. Then some were friends one way or another, while others were people she knew vaguely, or from the women’s council. She spotted a group of younger people hanging out waiting for her, so she started working her way towards them, and then they were congratulating her, and linking their marriage back to things she said when she talked to the youth night. When she had a chance, she beckoned Cheryl into the group and introduced her, and said that Cheryl spent a day with her for work during the week. That instantly gave Cheryl some interest for the other kids, and then Cheryl wanted Larissa to tell them about the eagle, so she told them a version of the story that starred Cheryl chasing the massive eagle around the cafeteria, and they loved listening to that and how all the furniture got broken.

When she was done with that, she turned away from the kids, leaving Cheryl to tell them more about her working, and found Cheryl’s mum talking to Julian and a couple of his mates. She broke away from that when she saw Larissa was free, and gave her a big hug. With a choked up voice, she said, “What a difference a week has made for us. You really saved us. My girls are so much better off, totally different today.”

Larissa smiled at her, and said, “Jesus loves you, you know.”

“I know, and so did you. Just amazing. The difference you’ve made for us ... astounding. I thought that you’d done enough on Sunday, the bond and all, but taking Cheryl to work with you on Monday, I understood afterwards why you did that. And then on Tuesday, she went and told the school principal everything – blew my mind that she’d just be honest about it all; no way she would’ve done that before.” Right, Larissa thought, so surely I’ll be going to her school. “So what can I do to thank you? I know I can’t possibly do enough, give you something big enough.”

“Oh, no,” Larissa said. “You know my story. I’m the same, other people gave me far more than I can ever thank them for. So you have to pay it forward, like I do. Rest, consolidate, love your girls and make them strong, and then when you’re strong enough, you pay it forward.”

She looked at Larissa and smiled. “OK, I’ll do that, I promise. But that other family, that sat with us ... they’ve asked me to help babysit for another family and then they’ll take my girls to youth nights. I’ll do that, yes?” Larissa smiled, sure, that’d be great.

By now, numbers were dropping, and soon it would be time for her to take Julian to the airport. She managed to find Layna and Joseph, and thank them for coming – she didn’t know that they were Christians. “Oh,” Layna said, “we’re not the churchy kind at all, but sure, we like what Jesus stood for. But today was pretty good for a church thing, and we’re really glad we were here to share it with you. And in a few minutes, I’m having a talk to your pastor about wedding planning.” She grinned. “I heard about your fun and games around planning it last night.”

Larissa laughed. “I’ll have to go and find Steph and kill her!”

Then Amelia found Larissa, and hugged her, and asked if it was OK for her to come along to the airport ... she’d sleep in the back of the car on the way there, so she still got her time with Julian, and then she’d talk Larissa’s ears off on the way home to keep her awake. Sounded great.

She saw Willow leaving, and Willow said this time was even better than last week, and the pastor was a great guy; she’d be back whenever she could. Larissa hugged her to encourage her and then she spent the last few minutes they had talking to Julian and a couple of his friends, who were trying to find a time Julian could go surfing with them. Maybe Friday morning; he deserved it, but he had such a lot to do. In the car, Larissa got him to make a list of what he had to do so that she could knock off as much as she could during the week; then he’d be able to go surfing with them after all. If the wind was right.

Amelia did talk her ears off on the way home, and then she dropped Amelia at Ross’s home, and made her way to her own home, and took a deep breath; she had a busy week in front of her.

Larissa had a busy day on the Friday, the last day before her wedding. She did get Julian to go surfing in the morning, and then they had a busy day of chores, getting ready for the wedding and their holiday, but the centre of the day was ‘Lunch with the Parents’.

Julian and Larissa didn’t know much about it – just that Sophie had asked them to have lunch, a parents of the bride and groom thing, and sent her an address. Intrigued, Larissa had looked it up, and it was just some random house in a suburb near the sea – whatever. But Sophie had been quite definite about it, so they’d squeezed it into their day, and they were happy to bend over backwards for their parents, who’d been so wonderful to them. But ... what was going on?

Well, a few minutes before they were due, they arrived at the address, and found a plain unmarked gate. They turned into the driveway and followed it for a very long way – past a few houses behind tall fences, and then through a vineyard, before ending up at a little carpark. Wow, Larissa realised, they were at the top of a cliff looking over the bay – what an absolutely fantastic view! What was this place? And there were several cars there – she recognised one of them immediately: James and Sophie. Well, they were in the right place, then – Julian had been sure that there was some mistake.

A young girl – could only be fourteen at most – welcomed them by name when they got out of their car. “Hi, Julian and Larissa, welcome to our house! When you’re ready, I’ll show you to lunch. And it’s such a pleasure to meet both of you, I’m a huge fan, and Mum says I’m allowed to ask you for autographs later, if you don’t mind!”

“Well, sure, of course,” Larissa said, “but, like, where are we, and what’s your name?”

The young girl laughed. “Oh, this is our house, and my name is Jenna. Mum has a little business on the side, catering for lunches, and you’re our guests for today. Come this way, please.” As they followed Jenna, they could see that it really was her house, and she led them around the side, and pointed out the toilets, and then walked them past an amazing infinity pool with incredible views over the bay, and then to a little bungalow next to it. The little bungalow was completely open to the outside, and was filled by a table with the rest of the guests around it, and lunch spread out on the table.

The guests were all standing to welcome them. Larissa smiled, thrilled at the guest list: Dave, Kat, Lem, Sal, Bob, Mary, her mum, and finally, James and Sophie. Kisses and deep hugs all around, what a wonderful thing for them to organise! She held each of them tight, and they told her how excited they were for her and Julian, and how much they were looking forward to the wedding, and she could listen to Julian, standing next to her, getting the same. Last of all, she hugged Sophie.

“Oh, this is so lovely, thank you so much for organising this! I just expected the two of you, but I should’ve listened more carefully to what you said, huh?” Sophie laughed at her, thrilled with her response. “And just how did you find this place?”

“Oh, she’s a friend of a friend of Mary’s, and they come here fairly often to entertain their guests.”

Yep, that made sense, though she turned to Mary and said, “Wow, thanks, what an awesome place to bring your guests, but what if the weather’s bad?”

Mary smiled, and pointed out where the bungalow could be closed up, all glass windows, and said, “Beth just shuts the place up, and the view can actually be even more amazing, storms coming across the bay.”

Finally, they sat down around the table, and Beth and Jenna brought out the rest of the food, and for a few minutes, they busied themselves grabbing food from the table, and Jenna offered them all whatever they wanted to drink – all non-alcoholic drinks, Larissa was pleased to see.

Once they all had food, James grabbed their attention and said, “Thanks everyone for being here. Julian and Larissa, we’re here for two reasons: firstly, to share with you how pleased and excited we are that you’re getting married.” He paused here for a chorus of agreement, and Larissa and Julian smiled at them all. “And also, we all love you deeply, and we wanted to share with you our own perspective of what being married is like, both the wonderful thrills and satisfaction, as well as the hard heart-breaking challenges that one way or another you’ll have, as much as we all would love for you not to have them. We had dinner together earlier this week, and we all agreed that this is how we can most love you.” Then he smiled. “And one real benefit of having so many parents is that you can get quite a broad perspective on what that means. Because we can all see that neither of you are going to have a plain and boring life. Both individually and especially together.”

Wow, Larissa thought, and tried to absorb that. Julian was quicker off the mark than she was. “Wow! Right now, I’m specially excited to have lots of parents – we can totally pick the story we like!”

Everyone laughed, and then Larissa said, “Seriously, though, it really is lovely for us that we have multiple people that care for us so deeply. I really feel so lucky this year, and you’ve all been so unexpectedly loving and wonderful.” That got lots of smiles, and then she said, “It’s nearly a year to the day since I met Sal and Kat at that café. All of you have made just so much difference to me, and for us.” She heard Julian grunting his agreement and saw him nodding.

That started a round of recollections, and aligning of memories, and then James guided everyone back to the subject, and started going round the table so that each couple could talk about their marriage. Lem and Sal went first. Interesting – Larissa knew more about the private pain in their marriage than any of the others except her own mum, and the way they told it – glossing over the depth of the pain, but making the actual issues very clear ... that set her expectations for the others. And there were very strong lessons for Julian and Larissa, from what Lem and Sal said – constantly being willing to re-examine one’s decisions, beliefs, actions, and really meaningfully committing to being together. And also, there is forgiveness and reconciliation, and it can be genuine.

Then it was Dave and Kat’s turn, and Larissa was deeply surprised to hear Kat’s story of her teenage years – way wilder than hers, way wilder than she could believe. Yes, she understood Kat’s mother’s expectation that Kat would die young – and then her sudden redemption by Dave, and then having children early, to her surprise. And then she was totally surprised to hear that Dave and Kat nearly fell apart when their kids were young ... and how hard it was for them to recover. She shook her head, listening to that. If it was hard for them ... but recover they did. Still, the same issues, they kept cropping up, she heard. More lessons, she understood, and by this time she had her phone out making notes. Keeping a relationship alive takes hard work at every level, and keeping forgiving the same things.

She’d wondered, when James said ‘couples’, what exactly the status of her mum was, and then Bob and Mary talked about their own relationship, with no mention of her mum – the difficulty of Mary transiting from famous socialite to struggling mother, all while Bob gained wealth and importance, and Bob struggling to choose between family or money and everything that went with that. He’d repeatedly needing reminding about family, but then he’d chosen to invest deeply in Mary, to pay her back for her trust in committing to him and having his children, and that had lifted her back up to feel like his real partner. Wow, Larissa understood that dynamic – and then they talked about the way that their sexually adventurous marriage helped Mary but then almost blew them up twice ... dangerous stuff, since it seemed like almost any woman would jump into bed with Bob.

Suddenly their story changed, and her mum was in the picture. She’d thought to herself that their relationship was all one way healing for her mum, but no, it was way more reciprocal than that – she healed them just as much. And her mum’s terrible back story, her own life, about trust that wasn’t rewarded, and faithfulness in the wrong thing – interesting, because Dave and Sal both commented to her and Julian after that: they wanted Julian and Larissa to be faithful, and happy, but don’t get trapped in a downward spiral just to be faithful. But her mum’s choices ... hard ones, she understood. At least she was happy now.

Then James and Sophie ... happy always ... only, not that deeply happy; easily stuck in a rut and taking each other for granted. And Sophie’s feeling of being trapped and jaded that had grown over the years until Larissa’s arrival had turned the family around. Interesting ... Larissa hadn’t picked up on some of that, and realised that she still had a long way to go in terms of her own emotional intelligence; it wasn’t just Julian who needed to work on that.

Finally, they were done. Larissa looked at Julian and could see that he was as affected as she was. “Wow,” she said. “We got the marriage talk from Tim and Vicki, but I think we just got our real marriage talk right now. You’ve given us both a lot to think about, and I think that I have a much deeper perspective into the journey we’re on. Thanks so much.”

Julian agreed. “Yes, very much so. We really appreciate your openness, and we’ll talk a lot about what you’ve said while we’re on holiday. I really hope that we learn from all that and build something as good for both of as we can.” And then, since he had looked at Larissa nodding her head when he said that, “Yes, we both do. I joked before about choosing the story that we liked, but we both know that we need to live the best out of all those stories.”

They stopped serious discussion and had some more food, and Jenna served them coffees or whatever, and then Julian asked Bob whether he’d had any follow up about the whole incident with dumping chemicals in the river. Bob got a predatorial grin on his face, and said, “I sure did! It took them about a week, and then that CEO called me on my unlisted private number. I was in a meeting so I made him call back. So when he did, he ... well, he didn’t find out why I was supporting you guys at all, just launched into how we corporate interests needed to stick together against the radical leftie greenies, and he had a whole lot of business to send my way if we could align our thinking on this, and he ran through a list of it.” He got a reflective look on his face. “Guess he talked to someone who only knew what I was thinking early last year. For sure, I’ll never give him a job ... poor prep work on this part. So then I explained why I was supporting you – both the principles part, and then also the family bit. Which meant that I pointed out to him that his goons attacked the man who will be my son-in-law next week. That got a long silence, I could just about hear him swearing to himself, panicking. Then I told him I was feeling it, too. What was he thinking? Well then he didn’t know what to do, so he suddenly lost signal. I mean, really?”

Everyone was laughing, but James and Dave most of all – they found that bit particularly funny. “So then I sent him a message saying that I was interested to hear what he had to say when he found signal again, and pointed out that Telstra have pretty good coverage these days.” That really set James off in particular.

“So then he called back later, and said, ‘what did I want?’ And I said, that I didn’t want anything at all, and I had a task force looking across all my businesses seeing how we could not do business with any of his businesses.” He grinned at the surprise in Julian and Larissa’s faces. “Not really. I mean, I did have a business analyst making a list, in case he called, and we’d found that they’d do a lot worse than us. So then we had a short and sharp business negotiation and the upshot is that I’m getting all the business he was going to offer us in the first place, and I’m going to jack up all the contracts of the existing work on top of the routine CPI increase. And they’re going to buy power from Thomas too. And if he doesn’t find a similar Youtube channel to Layna to sponsor, then I’ll mention why all that’s happening in my annual report. Which will destroy whatever’s left of his bonus.” He laughed and shrugged. “I’d say, poor CEO, but you play with the big boys, get to play big boy games.”

Wow. While everyone else laughed, Larissa looked at the smug expression on Bob’s face. Yeah, that was all quite funny, but she also realised that there was a reason he was well on the way to being a billionaire. He sure belonged with the ‘big boys’, and no matter how nice he was to her and Julian, treating them like family, he very much had the skills and killer instinct he needed, and she better be really careful around him. And no doubt he’d just made a handsome profit on supporting Julian’s project too.

Then Bob said, “Enough of that. Julian and Larissa, your rules around wedding presents are very practical and reflect your principles really nicely.” Where was this going, Larissa wondered? “But we talked about that amongst us and discovered that all of us felt that we, as your parents, shouldn’t be so constrained as your other wedding guests, and had planned accordingly. And one of the reasons for our lunch today is so that we can give you our wedding presents now without embarrassing your other guests. We’ll give you something within the rules tomorrow, but we each have something different for you today.”

Wow! Larissa looked at Julian, who was just as surprised as she was. But duh, it should’ve been obvious that Bob, in particular, wouldn’t accept being bound by their rules. And just what was Bob going to give them? She glanced at Julian – he thought the same, clearly. She took his hand and pulled it under the table so they could signal each other – she just felt a bit uncertain about what was coming. Still, they were going to get given stuff, so it couldn’t really be a problem? Could it?

“So we’re going first for this too,” Sal said, with a smile. “Julian and Larissa, you’re such a gift for us, priceless. And so Lem made a little something for you that expresses how we feel.” Lem stood up and picked up a box from the corner, and both Sal and Lem came and stood behind them and jointly gave them the box. Julian took it and opened the top of the box and presented it for Larissa to look inside. Stunned, she reached into the box and pulled out a wooden carving and showed it to Julian.

She’d heard about this, Lem’s carvings. And this one was truly amazing – about fifty centimetres high, a carving that had no fine features but was still recognisably the two of them hugging in their safe space, entwined, kissing, and tied together. “Wow,” Larissa said. “I don’t know what to say. This is literally the most incredible piece of art I’ve ever seen – so wonderful. And it’s totally us! Lem, I heard that you were gifted but this...” she shook her head.

Julian jumped in, and said, “Lem and Sal, thank you so much for this, it really speaks to me about us.” He lifted it up so that Larissa was showing it to everyone at the table. Yeah, their faces, they were all as stunned as she was. She carefully put it on the table and jumped up into Lem’s arms and gave him a huge hug and kiss. Julian was doing the same to Sal, and then they swapped.

“Thank you, my angel,” Larissa said to Sal. “I owe you so much, and this is just amazing. We’ll treasure it always.”

Sal gave her a beautiful smile. “We’re glad you like it. When you get back from New Zealand, we’ll come around and Lem will figure out with you where we can put it in your place.”

When Larissa was prepared to let go, they sat back down, and took a deep breath. What next?

Dave spoke up and said, “Well, our turn. We noticed, when we were at the beach with you, your phones.” Julian laughed – they were pretty old and beaten up, and they’d actually talked about breaking into Bob and Mary’s money to do something about it, but hadn’t decided yet. “And then I asked James and Sophie and they told us about your laptops.” Yeah, they were a problem too – old and slow, and that was particularly a problem for Julian, and Layna and Chez had been trying to decide whether the project could afford to upgrade it – he didn’t do a lot of heavy editing work on it, but enough that it was a problem. “Well, Apple released better laptops, and all my people wanted the new ones. So we were shuffling around, and, well, these fell out of the system...” He smiled and stood up and handed them his own box.