Impossible (19 page)

"I'm the size of an elephant," Lucy blurted.

"No, you're not. It's been a big surprise to me, watching you. You look pregnant, yes, and you look wonderful, Lucy. Truly. More beautiful than ever. Your hair—and your skin. It's just amazing. And you've kept working out too. That's amazed me, that you're still doing yoga and weights and stuff." Sarah's voice was unmistakably sincere. "You'll be a gorgeous bride tomorrow."

"Hormones," Lucy muttered. "Your body snaps into this super-healthy place because of the baby." She did not mention that she had another reason to keep as fit as possible: just in case she was going to plow a field using a goat's horn.

"What I'm saying is, it seemed to me Zach likes how you look. Pregnant or not. And I happen to know that you can have sex when you're pregnant. So I figure you're going to, with Zach. Right?"

Lucy squirmed again. "Well," she said.

"Lucy, this is me. And you. You were frank enough with your opinions back when we were talking about me and Jeff."

"Uh," Lucy said.

"So? Have you already? You and Zach?"

"No," Lucy whispered.

"Okay, right." Sarah blew out a breath. "Here's the thing. I don't know a lot about sex, Lucy, but I know more than you do. I know it ended badly for me, but for a while there, I did love Jeff, and he loved me. In his way. And, and, you were raped.

"I know you have Soledad and that counselor and everything. But I'm your friend, and I just wanted to talk with you a little bit. I thought—maybe there'd be things you'd be more comfortable talking about with me than with your mom or that counselor."

Oh, Lucy thought. Oh, Sarah. You are a good friend. The best.

She hesitated. Then: "Well," she said. And then was surprised—shocked—amazed—by the many questions that she wanted to ask her friend.

And could.

CHAPTER 44

Lucy's bedroom was crowded, with Lucy, Soledad, Carrie Greenfield, Sarah, and Pierre in it. All of them—except Pierre—were fussing about Lucy's wedding dress, or Lucy's hair, or Lucy's shoes, and checking that Lucy was wearing something old, new, borrowed, and blue, which she was.

Lucy didn't mind. She caught Sarah's eye in the mirror. Sarah looked remarkably fresh for someone who had been up until after two a.m. talking. So, for that matter, did Lucy. They exchanged grins.
Be in the moment
was one of the things Sarah had said last night.
Focus on what's happening right now.

Lucy had decided that would be a good philosophy for her entire wedding day. It was interesting, how her mood could change so fast. She felt wonderful right now. Calm and floating and ecstatic all at once. Maybe it was the long talk with Sarah last night. Maybe it was the silent, emotion-filled look she had exchanged with Zach when she'd run into him in the kitchen at six a.m., both of them barefoot and in pajamas. Or maybe it was simply a reckless human desire to run rather than walk into the inevitable. For whatever reason, her doubts had slipped away. She was getting married today. Yes, she was. In half an hour.

Inside her, the baby moved. She saw the other women notice as she put a hand on it. By agreement, they were all wearing blue dresses, though there had been no attempt to match colors or fabrics or styles.

"Okay?" said Soledad.

"Yes," said Lucy. "Just fine."

"Lucy's dress is perfect," Zach's mother, Carrie, said to Sarah. Carrie had kept up a constant stream of chatter for the last hour in the bedroom, much of it stuff she'd said multiple times. "When she told me she'd found something on eBay, I was so worried. The pictures are forever. And a good cut makes all the difference when there's, um, a tailoring problem." Her eyes shifted toward Lucy's stomach but then veered sharply off. "But with the empire waist on this dress, you can hardly tell. And ivory was the right choice, with Lucy's coloring. Also, it's a lovely silk. Sumptuous." She smoothed the delicate lace that clung to the slope of Lucy's shoulders. "Now, calf-length might have been better for an afternoon wedding, but I guess there wasn't time to get it shortened. Hemming might have ruined the line anyway." She smiled at Lucy.

Carrie was trying hard, and Lucy appreciated it. She smiled back at the woman who would very soon be her mother-in-law. "Thank you."

It helped, she knew, that they had such a long history. That, when Carrie looked at her, she didn't just see a pregnant teenage girl who was selfishly stealing her son's future. She also saw the little girl whose hair she had braided in childhood, the girl she had given old clothes for dress-up, the girl she had sat down at age twelve for a long talk on how important it was for girls to express themselves strongly and not be too quiet and shy. Because of this shared history, they were now capable of at least seeing each other across the gulf of their different self-interests. In fact, Lucy thought, if she weren't going to lose her mind and leave Zach holding the baby, then surely within two or three years—or possibly much sooner, if the baby worked the kind of soothing magic that babies were supposed to—the gap between them would have been bridged.

That wasn't going to happen, of course. Zach had told his parents the full story, but they had not believed it. There had been strong words about duplicity and taking advantage and, of course, insanity. Nonetheless, on this wedding day, the Greenfields had chosen to be kind and to say welcoming and polite things. Above all, they were here. Carrie had even come upstairs to help Lucy get ready, and was praising her dress. She was loaning Lucy a veil to wear. And soon she would stand with her husband in the living room beside their son as he said his marriage vows.

It was really quite a feat of generosity and courage. Lucy wished that she had the years ahead in which to honor her in-laws for it properly. But all she could do now was chatter warmly in response to whatever Carrie chose to say, to help her get through it.

"The power of the search engine," Lucy told Carrie. "I entered
maternity wedding gown, size small
, and just like that, I had two dresses to choose from. This one looked the best, and it said it was new, and it had a buy-it-now option for ninety dollars. Better not to ask why it was available new and so cheap, huh?"

Oops. Carrie had winced. Her sense of humor and Lucy's had never been the same. Lucy moved on quickly. "But I can't take credit for choosing ivory instead of white. I just took what was there. Actually, for a while, I was thinking that I ought to wear, I don't know, red." She stopped talking, aware that she was verging on danger again. Maybe she was less calm than she had thought.

Then it was Soledad's eyes she was meeting in the mirror. A wave of déjà vu swept over Lucy. The last time they'd been together while Lucy put on a full-length dress, posed before a mirror, and discussed wearing non-standard options and accessories, had been—

The prom. Twenty-two weeks ago.

Lucy bit her lip. She wondered if Soledad was thinking about this too. She hoped not.

"I'm glad you decided on traditional today," was all Soledad said.

Carrie nodded vehemently.

Sarah approached with a pile of lace in her hands. "Keep your head still," she said, breathing on the back of Lucy's neck, where the triple strands of the pearl choker borrowed from Soledad were fastened. "But bend forward."

"At the same time? Sarah, the laws of physics—"

"Like you could even pass physics without me tutoring you. Just do what I say."

Lucy leaned slightly forward. Sarah placed the veil on her head, fastening it with three ebony combs that dug securely into Lucy's hair. She adjusted the fall of the lace over Lucy's shoulders and back. Then she stepped away. The veil framed Lucy's face and then hung down in the back almost to her knees.

The women looked at Lucy. Even Pierre lifted his patient, blue-beribboned head from the carpet to stare. Soledad reached out one hand as if to touch Lucy, but then didn't.

"There," whispered Sarah. She blinked, and then grinned broadly. "Pretty amazing."

Carrie too was blinking away tears. The veil was the "old" item. It had been Carrie's wedding veil, a family heirloom. It was a long fall of thick lace from the 1930s, once pure white, now darkened with age to a soft yellow ivory. It shouldn't have looked good with the newer, V-necked dress that Lucy had bought so cheaply. But against all odds, it did. Lucy's dark hair gleamed beneath the veil. Her dark eyes took on a mysterious depth and power.

Then, from downstairs, came the sound of the string quartet composed of Leo's friends.

"It's time," said Sarah. "Lucy, are you ready?"

Lucy nodded. She still felt calm. A little breathless, maybe. "I just need the flowers." She was to carry three long-stemmed white roses, which had been carefully stripped of their thorns and tied with blue ribbon that matched the confection fastened to Pierre's collar.

"We'll see you downstairs, then." Carrie left, almost running.

And then, at the open doorway, was Leo, in his formal, threadbare tuxedo jacket, the one he'd been wearing for many years for New Year's Eve gigs.

"Hi, Dad," Lucy said.

Leo didn't speak. After a single second of staring, he held out his arms. Lucy ran into them and got her dress thoroughly smashed. She hugged hard, but Leo hugged harder, and it seemed like a long time before he let go. "Well, then," he said. He shuffled his feet and cocked his head toward the music. "Joey forgot his reading glasses," he whispered. "That's why the viola part's a little off. Sorry."

"Jazz man playing Vivaldi, what else would we expect?" Lucy whispered back. "I like it."

Soledad interrupted. "We have to line up," she said tensely, her voice equally low. "Sarah? Ready?"

Sarah looked at Lucy. "Ready?"

Lucy gazed into the three—no, four—pairs of eyes that were fastened on her. For a moment she imagined that Miranda was there too, a ghostly presence. If she could have wished for one more thing, that would have been it. But Miranda had disappeared again, a few days ago. Right off the grounds of McLean Hospital. It made Lucy feel horrible.

But there was nothing to be done about it.

"Yes," Lucy said. "I'm ready."

They assembled on the landing. First Sarah, led by Pierre. Then Lucy, with her parents on either side of her.

The music below changed. "See you in a few minutes," Sarah whispered. Lifting her long blue velvet skirt, she was gone, moving as gracefully as possible down the staircase, given that Pierre was yanking at his leash.

Lucy could hear her parents breathing on either side of her. She stole a glance at each of them. Soledad's profile was pale, her mouth a little shaky. Leo was looking at her. Then both of them were.

"I've invited some extra people," Soledad whispered suddenly. "Just so you're warned. Just a few more people."

"That's okay, Mom. I told you that you could have whoever you want."

"Just so you're not surprised when we get down there, that you don't know everybody."

The music altered again. A single cello played. This was music that Leo himself had written, and it was jazzy, joyful. It had a beat. Hearing it made Lucy feel even calmer, more serene.

She was marrying Zachary Greenfield. Her friend. Her lover?

Her lover.

She was ready.

She grabbed Soledad and Leo on ether side of her. "Thank you," she whispered. Soledad swallowed a sob. But then Lucy's grasp was returned. And Leo's grip never faltered.

Together, they started down the stairs to the music.

CHAPTER 45

The Markowitzes' living and dining room area had nearly thirty guests crammed into it, not counting the string quartet, which had set itself up in the alcove before the bay window, or the people from the caterer, who had taken over the kitchen. Most of the guests were already seated on the borrowed folding chairs that had been placed in lopsided rows before the lit fireplace.

Not one more chair could be squeezed in, Zach thought. He tried to talk sensibly to one of Leo's musician friends while his little sister, Gina, clung to his pants leg. With her other hand, Gina clutched her basket of pink and white rose petals. From time to time, she looked ecstatically down at the basket or at her pink taffeta skirt. Gina was seven. Being in a pink dress with a petticoat and given the commission to scatter rose petals on the floor, while music played and everybody looked at her, was simply a dream come true.

At least he'd made one member of his family happy.

"And do you know Father Costas?" said Leo's friend, as a tall, thin man in a clerical collar approached them. "He's from my church. Greek Orthodox," he added helpfully.

"No, we haven't met before," said Zach. "Uh, welcome. Thanks for coming." He shook hands with Father Costas. He sneaked another look across the room. Yes, the justice of the peace, Mrs. Pamela Benoit, a mature woman in a sensible suit, was right there, chatting with Soledad's friend Jacqueline and with another tall guy, a very handsome dark man with blue eyes and a certain arrogance, who Zach in his distraction couldn't quite place but knew he had met before, somewhere, sometime.

Mrs. Benoit was performing the civil ceremony. Zach and Lucy had decided together on a civil ceremony instead of a religious one. Zach wasn't sure what he believed, while Lucy hadn't been raised as a formal member of any religion, due to the fact that her foster parents had two different sets of beliefs and nobody knew what, if anything, Miranda thought.

This Father Costas was the seventh member of the clergy that Zach had been introduced to in the last twenty minutes. Three of them made sense, sort of. Like Leo inviting his rabbi, and Zach's parents having asked the minister from their old church, and Soledad bringing a Catholic priest who was apparently a chaplain at the hospital and a friend of hers. Okay, so nobody in either family had ever been particularly religious before. Still, he could understand those three guests.

But who was that swami guy who was now sitting calmly in a chair at the back? And there was an Episcopal priest, a woman, around here someplace too; Zach wasn't sure who had brought her. Someone else again had brought an imam, a short fellow with quiet, deep eyes. And now the Greek Orthodox guy.

Had the parental units told all their friends to bring whatever members of the clergy they could hunt down, lasso, and drag along?

Now that swami guy was looking straight at Zach as he stood in his new gray suit, with the seamless vest thing that Lucy had made hidden underneath, and a blue tie around his neck that was maybe a little tight. The swami was nodding and smiling. Zach nodded and smiled back. What else could he do?

He could feel another set of eyes studying him steadily. It was the tall dark man, the one that Jacqueline Jackson had brought, the arrogant one who looked familiar. This man was not smiling. Could he be yet another minister or rabbi or priest or mullah or yogi or whatever? Zach looked away uneasily. He did know that guy. He was sure he had met that guy before. He just couldn't remember exactly.

He was suddenly feeling a little lightheaded. The seamless shirt itched. And it was hot. He'd known it would be; he'd decided on impulse to put it on anyway. Call it superstition, but Lucy had made it on the day he'd proposed to her, and it had been made using the classic Red Sox T-shirt he'd given her when she was seven, and he wanted to wear it. He hadn't told anyone, even Lucy, but if she was going to make anything for her true love, it was going to be for him.

Now he wondered if it had been a mistake. Would he start sweating during the ceremony? Should he run upstairs and take it off?

No. Something in him rebelled. The seamless shirt thing was staying. He was going to get married in it, even if he poured out a river of sweat in the process.

With that decision made, he felt a little steadier. No, much steadier. He looked over again at the strange guy whose name he ought to know, and nodded and waved as if he did remember him. He tugged at his tie to get another half inch of neck freedom. The musicians were tuning their instruments now, and people were taking seats. It must nearly be time.

Yes. He felt a hand on his upper arm. It was Leo, who didn't say a word, just patted him, and moved on, mounting the stairs. And here came his mother, passing Leo on the stairs as she descended, and collecting his father on the way. They came up to him.

All the guests were now seated. Mrs. Benoit had moved into position in front of the fireplace. It was suddenly extremely quiet. You could hear the crackling of the fire.

"Well," said Nate Greenfield to his son. He looked grim but determined. "Ready?"

Zach said simply, "Yeah."

And then the musicians were playing.

Gina was like a cork released from a champagne bottle. She bounced around the living room, gloriously out of rhythm with the music, scattering flower petals with the force of a pitcher at Fenway Park. She did not stop until her basket was empty, and then she threw herself into her chair, beaming.

Next was Sarah Hebert, who was pulled precipitously down the stairs by Pierre. Pierre had been professionally groomed in a classic poodle cut the day before and looked positively Parisian; a ripple of amusement went through all the guests as they saw him. Sarah's eyes too were laughing, and she waved at Zach as she crossed the room to stand just opposite him.

Here, things went a little off-kilter, as Pierre, though instructed to sit, did not. Instead, he strained at his lead, apparently wanting to take off into the chairs toward Jacqueline Jackson and her handsome friend. Pierre was growling a little in his throat. But Sarah set her teeth, reached down with one firm hand, and somehow forced the dog to sit, though he remained alert and tense.

Then Zach forgot all about Pierre, and Sarah, and even about his parents beside him.

There, on the staircase.

There she was.

Suddenly it was as if he had a fever, as if everything he was seeing and hearing was happening at a distance or through smoke. As if nothing that was happening was entirely real. He even felt slightly deaf. Afterward, he knew the music had continued, but he couldn't remember hearing it. What was in his eyes filled his ears as well. Filled all of his senses.

Luce. Lucy. Lucinda.

He knew that Soledad and Leo were beside her, as his parents were beside him. He could see them, but also he couldn't. It was only Lucy that he saw. And yes, she was in some billow of an ivory gown, with lace falling over her hair and shoulders, and yes, she looked … well. He couldn't say. He almost forgot how to breathe. She was simply more Lucy than ever. There weren't any words that could describe her.

Just her name.

Even in his stupor, he knew what was supposed to happen next. They had rehearsed. The Markowitzes would come down the staircase, in time with the music, escorting Lucy across the room to the area before the fireplace, where the wedding ceremony would take place.

But as Zach looked at Lucy, he saw the tiniest of frowns appear on her forehead, and the smallest bit of confusion cross her face. Then she swayed, even though her parents were on either side of her, holding her. Her eyes began to wander around the room below, scanning the guests …

Panic gripped Zach. Then blind instinct took over. He had to—had to—quickly—

He shook off his parents. He crossed the room in three strides. Then he was halfway up the staircase, reaching both hands out to Lucy. He said her name.

Her gaze snapped back to him. Their eyes locked. Then Lucy gently shook off her parents' hands, as Zach had his. She reached down to him. The roses she'd been carrying fell unheeded to the steps.

Her hands were bare, ungloved. Their hands were skin on skin.

The world steadied. The mist on both their minds cleared.

Zach could hear the music clearly now. It was a single cello. It danced and throbbed like a heart. It was filled with glee.

From two steps below her, Zach looked into Lucy's eyes, and Lucy looked right back into Zach's.

She grinned. It was a lopsided grin, a little shamefaced. "I got dizzy for a second," she whispered. "I don't know why."

"I know. Me too. It's all right now, though."

"Yes."

Their hands stayed clasped. Zach didn't think he could let go. Rehearsal or no rehearsal. Plans or no plans. He could see Lucy having the same thought. She cast a little look over her shoulder at her parents.

Leo cleared his throat and nudged his wife. They went back up a stair.

The ceremony moved on, almost as smoothly as if the change had been planned. Lucy came down two steps to stand beside Zach, taking one of his arms while their other hands remained clasped. Behind Lucy, Soledad stooped to retrieve Lucy's lost flowers. Then she and Leo regrouped themselves into a couple.

The music altered as the musicians hastily improvised a bridge. Two violins played as Lucy and Zach walked, together, across the room to stand before the justice of the peace and become husband and wife, in accordance with the law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and witnessed by their family, friends, and assorted clergy of various denominations.

Plus one large black standard poodle, who, a split second after the handclasp between Zach and Lucy, had suddenly relaxed and chosen to lounge contentedly on the warm tiles before the fireplace, seeming to watch and listen as attentively as anyone when the ceremony began with Soledad and Leo reading aloud together from I Corinthians:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."

No one noticed that, at the same point at which Pierre relaxed—the moment on the stairs when Zach and Lucy clasped hands—the tall, dark, handsome man who had been sitting with Jacqueline got up and walked out. He was in none of the pictures, and later on, nobody, not even Jacqueline, ever remembered that he had been there at all.