Epilogue

Maggie hummed as she rearranged the flowers on one side of where the bride and groom would stand. They didn’t really need rearranging, but she was full of nervous energy and had to occupy her hands with something. The ceremony was due to begin in two hours, and she was quite sure she’d be a mess by then if she didn’t keep busy.

She would have gone to the bride’s dressing room, but the bride wasn’t even there yet, and probably wouldn’t be for another hour. She was getting her hair and nails done, no doubt relaxing in a comfortable chair while her mother worried about everything being perfect.

She wandered down to the hall where the reception would be held. The tables were gorgeous. She saw Hank and two of his friends playing cards at one of the tables close to the kitchen. She started to warn them not to mess the table up, but held her tongue.

An hour later Julia arrived, her dress safely secured in the dry cleaner’s plastic bag. Bob was carrying a box with her shoes and other things in it. He was already dressed in his tux, and she worried that the box might leave a mark on it. She hurried towards them to relieve him of the box.

Julia stopped. “Mother,” she said, her voice firm. “I love you. You know that. But Bob is going to help me get dressed. You need to be out here to greet the guests.”

“Oh,” said Maggie, obviously dejected. “Of course.”

“Don’t be like that,” said Julia, smiling. “You got to choose the dress. Bob gets to put it on me.”

Maggie’s cheeks were suddenly tinted pink. She habitually thought of her youngest daughter as her little girl, even though that little girl was going to give Maggie her first granddaughter in only a little over a month.

“All right then,” she said.

Julia smiled. “I think I saw the limo coming down the street. You could be a sweetheart and intercept them, because they’ll probably want to help me too.” She glanced at Bob. “And I have all the help I need.” The look on her face made Maggie think of her own early married days, when Hank was always after her ... and she had loved it. She had a sudden vivid image of Julia’s sisters rushing through the door of the bride’s dressing room and finding Julia and her husband engaged in something other than dressing the bride.

“Good idea,” said Maggie, and hurried away to meet her other daughters. She saw the limo through a window, already disgorging well dressed people. George, who had married Heather, her eldest, had offered a limo to the happy couple. When he found out they had to return home right after the ceremony, he decided that every wedding needed a limo, so he hired it for all of Julia’s brothers and sisters to arrive at the ceremony in. That would also allow them all to drink freely at the reception as well, since it would deliver them back to their homes or hotels.

The girls, as sisters will do, had already separated themselves into a group, while their husbands formed their own gaggle by default. Julia’s brothers herded their wives towards the front doors of the church. Maggie went to intercept her daughters, since they were more likely to make a nuisance of themselves. They were invariably noisy when they got together like this.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she announced, her voice firm and matronly. “Let’s get you seated before you get your gowns mussed.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Always our mother,” she sighed.

Elizabeth took her mother’s arm. “You look tired, Mom. I think it’s you who needs to sit down and rest.”

“Nonsense,” said Maggie. “I just need to keep you girls out of trouble. A mother’s job never ends.”

“Uh oh,” groaned Heather. “I smell another lecture coming about how we’re wasting the best, most fertile years of our lives.”

“Nah,” said Linda. “Jules got us off the hook for a while.”

Maggie sniffed. “This time next year I’ll probably still only have one grandbaby.”

In the bride’s dressing room, Julia pushed her sensible cotton panties while she lifted a foot. It was awkward to bend forward these days. She paused, standing naked, knowing that Bob wanted to look at her. He did, in fact, make appreciative sounds in his throat.

“Too bad it takes me so long to get into this monkey suit,” he said.

“Yes ... it is,” she murmured, looking at him through lowered lashes.

She did what she had made a habit of doing every time he saw her like this. She cupped her gravid belly.

“Look what you did to me.” She had the pout down perfectly now.

“I know,” he said, grinning, full of pride. He had that look down perfectly too.