Everyone hurried to a window facing the street and we all stood laughing at the boys.
“Have I forgotten at all to tell any of you how very much I love you?” I asked.
“No,” They replied more or less together followed by a chorus of we-love-you-too.
We made such a masterpiece in the kitchen that holiday. It was wonderful, as Ana had said, having everyone under one roof again. No one fought, no one got angry, no one complained or took anything personally. We just sat snowed in at Grandmum and Granddad’s house and enjoyed the company of the people we loved the most. We were there for three days and two nights. What an absolute blessing that was.
Oliver and I slept in his old bedroom in his old bed. It was really too small for two people, but it didn’t matter. I liked having to be too close to him. He lay there on the second night awake and much too quiet. I waited for him to tell me what he was thinking, but after an hour or so when he didn’t I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Ollie, what’s up?” I rolled over and put my hand on his chest, “Talk to me.”
“I’m just thinking.”
“About what?”
He drew a breath, hesitated, and then spoke, “Did you notice Adam pull me aside after we had supper?”
“No. Was I in the kitchen?”
“I think so.” He answered quietly, and then said, “He wants to marry our daughter.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes,” I couldn’t see him in the dark, but I could tell he was staring at the ceiling, “He loves her. I could see it in his eyes. It was in his voice. He asked me for my blessing. Can you believe that?”
“Wow. Old fashioned of him.” I said. Ollie nodded. He said nothing. I moved closer and laid my head on his shoulder, “She loves him, too. She has for a long, long time. He’s good to her. Do you see the way they look at each other?”
“She looks at him the way you look at me,” He answered.
“I know. It’s a dead giveaway, isn’t it? I’ve always tried to pretend that I’m not mad about you.”
“Yes, me, too. Wouldn’t want anyone to know, yeah?” He pulled me close, “God, I’m glad I’m married to you.”
“Me, too, Sweetie. Me, too.”
It was a week later when Carolena called and told us on speakerphone that she was getting married. Oliver stood with an odd grin on his face and listened to her tell the story of how Adam had proposed to her spontaneously in the middle of Trafalgar Square. “We were just walking through and suddenly he stopped and dropped to his knees. You know how nasty Trafalgar Square is with all the birds. I honestly thought he’d fallen down or something, but what had happened was he’d been fingering the ring and he’d dropped it! So he was on his hands and knees crawling around and I was standing in front of him asking him if he was all right and he looked up suddenly and said, ’Carolena Mariana Dickinson, I love you! Will you be my wife?’ He was holding out the ring! I was a bit surprised, but I said yes, of course! And the moment I did a group of tourists came the square from the other side and they sent the pigeons into flight! They came right at us and we had to run!” She giggled, “It was so unromantic! It was terrible! One of them shit right on my coat!”
“Well,” Oliver consoled, “You won’t ever forget it, will you?”
“No, I won’t! You know, I’ve thought about it and I don’t want a big wedding. Adam doesn’t have a large family and most of our friends are just casual. It seems like a lot of work and a lot of money for one day having a big fancy do. We can keep it small and simple, I reckon, if we keep our wits about us.”
“You can,” I told her, “Lucy’s wedding was beautiful and it was just a couple of people.”
“I remember bits of it,” She was quiet for a second, “I was wondering…well, I was thinking…do you think it would be all right if Adam and I were married in the wood?”
“Really?” Oliver’s eyes widened. “You’d want to do that?”
“Well, yes. I think it would be pretty right by the lake, yeah? At sunset maybe. You know, right when the sun goes down and the lake is so still the water looks like a mirror reflecting the trees?”
I smiled and took Oliver’s hand, “Yes, it’s beautiful then.”
“I’m thinking, if it’s all right, too, that I’d like to have a dinner in the garden afterward, lit by candlelight. It makes only eighteen people, including all of us Dickinson’s and Adam’s family and the few friends we’d invite.”
“That would be lovely, Carolena. That would make your father and I both so happy.”
“It would,” Her father agreed. He rubbed the back of my hand gently with his thumb, “That would be very special, Muffin.”
Later that evening I caught Oliver standing in the nursery staring at the mural of the children and the lambs. I came beside him and rested my cheek against the flat of his arm.
“Alexander and I painted all of this for her,” The look in his eyes was far away, “It was one of my inspired moments. I called him up and told him what we were going to do and he was over in a flash. I was so excited about her, Love. A baby. A wee little chocolate dipped cherry muffin. You knew I was wound up about becoming a dad, but the truth is I dreamed about her long before she was born. I did it with all the children.” He paused, “I knew she was a girl. I wanted her so badly. I made so many plans and so many promises to her and she wasn’t even out of you belly. We waited a long time to meet her. And then there she was, Little Carolena Mariana, my only daughter. You were both so beautiful the day she was born.”
“Are you crying?”
“So what if I am?” He put his chin on the top of my head, “When I put her in here the first night, it was in this crib right here.” He put his hand on the side, “I carried her in one arm. She was so tiny and warm all wrapped up in that fuzzy little pink blanket Mum gave her.” He was quiet for a very long time. “She grew so fast. She was only ours for a little while, yeah?”
“She’s still ours.”
“She’s still ours, sort of. She’s grown into a woman, she has. She’s an excellent and lovely woman like her mum. She’s got the Cotton brains and the Dickinson nerve. I know she’s all right. I know she can handle herself, mind, but my heart still worries for her. In my heart, she’s still that little muffin wrapped in a fuzzy pink blanket and I’m just her dad hoping and praying she’s OK. I guess it never ends, does it?”
“No, loving them or wanting to protect them never ends.”
“I know Adam will take care of her.”
“He will.” I agreed, “She couldn’t have found a better man to spend her life with.”
“They all grew so quickly.” He sighed.
“In a breath.”
“Sometimes I miss them being small. I miss all the noise and the chaos and the garden being littered with toys. I miss how we used to all get together on Sundays,” He paused, “I don’t know if I ever really thanked you.”
“For what?”
“For my children. For being my wife. For putting up with me all these years. It was because of you that we were the family we became. You know that? You were really the glue that held it all together.”
“Oh, I think you had something to do with it. Lucy and Alexander, too. We raised all the children together. It was a community effort.”