Kissed in Paris (41 page)

“It’s going to be okay,” she said in the most soothing voice I’d ever heard come from her lips.

I laid my cheek on her shoulder and sighed. “How? How is it going to be okay? The wedding was supposed to be in two days. My life is a mess.”

Sophie laid her hands on my shoulders and squared her face in front of mine. “That’s why you have us. You’ve cleaned up our messes our whole lives. Now it’s our turn.”

“But you can’t possibly—”

“Chloe, just stop. We’ll handle everything. All we need is the list of people to call, and it’s done. You’re not getting on that phone today.”

“Really? But what about Dad? He’s going to flip out. All that money he paid, there’s no way we’re going to be able to get it all back.”

“He’ll live,” Lily said, taking a step toward me. “And we’ll deal with him
and
his anxiety. It’s not your job today.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering how my sisters had grown up so much without me noticing.

“Now, come on,” Sophie said, grabbing my hand and pulling me up from the couch. “You need to take a shower because you stink. What were you doing last night? Rolling around in the mud?”

Well, maybe they hadn’t grown up quite that much.

***

After showering and eating a big plate of fluffy pancakes drowned in maple syrup that Sophie had made for me, I gave the girls the guest list and phone numbers of all one hundred and eighty-four people, the contact information for the photographer, the videographer, the florist, the DJ, and so on, and so on, and they closed themselves in the office with their cell phones without so much as a peep.

I tossed and turned in my huge, lonely bed for about a half an hour, unable to think of anything but the fact that, at that very moment, per my request, my sisters were dismantling my wedding, promising friends and family members that their gifts would be returned, saying things like, “They just weren’t meant to be, you know?”

But then, after a little while, after I forced myself to stop worrying about my failed wedding, a new feeling crept into my chest.

I was free
.

On the plane ride home, I’d told myself over and over again that I would feel relief when I saw Paul. That I would find comfort in the stability our relationship had always provided for me.

But I hadn’t felt relief or comfort. Instead, sitting at that dinner table with his uptight mother, his overbearing father, and Paul not caring that he’d just taken a job in a place I never wanted to live, I’d known that if I sat there for one more second, I would suffocate.

And now, like a storm cloud that passed through in the night and was gone by morning, that suffocating feeling had disappeared. And in its place, I found freedom.

I’d been with Paul for
so
long, and before this week, I’d never examined our relationship. I’d never stopped to think about the fact that at times, it was exhausting—
he
was exhausting. His incessant need to clean, his perfectionism, his predictability, his stability. These characteristics were originally the reasons I’d chosen to be with Paul, but now, as I lay alone in my bed, with the future a blur of the unknown, I knew that they were the last things in the world that I wanted.

Suddenly, I felt an opening in my chest, like I could breathe again. I could fill my life with whatever I wanted now. I didn’t have to be limited to the kind of life I was going to have with Paul.

Just as I began to ponder what I
did
want to include in this new, untouched future of mine which lay ahead of me like a blank page waiting to be filled up, my bedroom door creaked open. My big, burly dad filled up the doorway, the worry etched into his brow like a tattoo.

He let himself in and sat down on the edge of the bed near my feet. And just as I expected him to start in on his usual diatribe about how all of us girls were going to give him a heart attack, the wrinkles in his forehead dissipated, then he softened his brown bear eyes and smiled at me.

“I’m so proud of you, you know that?”

“Proud?” I asked, thinking my sisters must’ve drugged him because I’d never seen him this calm in the face of a crisis.

“Yes, proud. I never thought Paul was the right man for you. And I know your mother wouldn’t have either.”

“What do you mean?”

“He just didn’t make you glow.”

Okay, Sophie had definitely slipped Dad whatever she used to take in college. Where was my father?

“He didn’t make me
glow
?”

“Yes. Like your mother did, when we were together.

And then, before I had a chance to say anything, my dad pulled me into one of his rare embraces, the scruff on his cheek scratching against my face, his massive arms swallowing me up.

“So you’re not mad? About all the money? About telling the whole family that there isn’t going to be a wedding?”

My father placed his warm hands on my shoulders and smiled at me.

“Chloe, you are the most caring, responsible young woman I’ve ever known, and after your mother died, you sacrificed your teenage years and your young adulthood to take care of this family. When your friends were out meeting boys, having their first drink and getting into trouble, you were home with me, taking care of baby Magali, making sure I took my anxiety meds before bed every night, waiting up with me every time Lily was late for her curfew, and flushing Sophie’s pot stash down the toilet before I could find it.”

I chuckled at the memories, but also felt relieved that it was all over.

My dad’s voice grew softer. “But it wasn’t fair to you, Chloe. You grew up too fast. You missed out on all those years of being irresponsible. Of making mistakes. Of running around and getting into trouble. Instead you were at home, saving your family. And
this
. . . this is the first time something has happened that you couldn’t fix. So no, sweetie, I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself for not being a better father. For not being there for you the way I should’ve been.”

“Dad, I—”

“No, Chloe. It’s true. I haven’t been the best father to you and your sisters. And you’ve stepped in every time I wasn’t pulling my weight. But you need to know now that we’re all okay. I’m okay. Your sisters are okay.” My dad reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his eyes glazing over with tears. “And it’s all because of you. Your mother would be so proud of the woman you’ve become. But she would also want you to live your life. And as your father, that’s what I’m
ordering
you to do now. Live your life, sweetie, because God knows it goes by fast, and I don’t want you to spend the rest of it worrying about me. Besides, don’t you know your sisters at all?” A grin popped onto his big, burly face, causing a tear to bubble down his cheek. “They get everything they want. Getting most of the wedding money back will be no exception.”

I giggled and wiped a tear from my own eye as my dad pulled me into another warm embrace. “Thank you, Dad. Thank you so much.”

After the tightest bear hug ever, I asked, “Why didn’t you say anything to me earlier, about Paul?”

“It wasn’t my place.”

“But you’re my dad.”

“You know yourself, Chloe. You had to come to this realization on your own. I have no idea how in the hell it happened, but I’m just happy it wasn’t too late.”

I glanced past my father to the shopping bag I’d stuffed in the corner of the bedroom—the bag that still held my mother’s letters and her beautiful photo. And I realized that I hadn’t exactly come to this realization
solely
on my own.

“Dad, there’s something I want to show you. It might help all of this make a little more sense.”

“Oh?” He arched an eyebrow, reminding me of Julien.

I lifted my exhausted body from the bed, crossed the room and picked up the one bag I’d managed to bring back from France, hoping that maybe,
just maybe
, it held a glimpse of those sunnier days I was so desperately hoping were on the horizon. 

***

That night, after every last call had been made, after my family had, for once, helped
me
through a crisis, instead of it always being the other way around, I stretched out on my bed and spread my mother’s letters out before me.

I’d let my father read them in privacy earlier that morning, but I hadn’t yet summoned the courage to read through them myself. Tonight though, on this eighteenth anniversary of the day we’d lost her, I knew it was time. My clever mom had found a way to come back to me through these words she’d written so long ago, and I knew that somehow, wherever she was, she’d led me to this point. I only hoped her letters would give me some clarity as to where I should go next.  

And so, over the next hour, I poured over my mom’s bubbly, cheerful handwriting—her words making me laugh, making me cry, making me feel alive again. My mom had only been around for forty years, but she hadn’t played it safe. She’d lived—
really lived
. She loved my father more than I thought anyone could ever love another person, and when my sisters and I came along, she cherished every minute with us. It was all there in her letters to Magali—she traveled, she never passed up an opportunity to have a good glass of wine, she was adventurous, and most of all, she was never afraid to take a risk.

She wouldn’t have wanted me to waste my entire life playing it safe while running everyone else’s lives. And that’s exactly what I’d spent the past eighteen years doing.

It was time to change, time to move on. And like my dad had ordered me to do, it was time to let my sisters and my father live their own lives and fight their own battles. And it was time for me to follow a new path, because the old one wasn’t looking so great anymore.

Just as I was folding up my mom’s letters, being careful not to tear the thin, yellowed paper, the bedroom door swished open. My three little sisters stood in the doorway, clad in T-shirts and baggy pajama bottoms, reminding me so much of the way they used  come to me when they were little, looking for a hug, a bedtime story, and comfort after Mom had gone.

But that wasn’t why they were knocking on my door. They were all grown up now, and tonight, they were here for me. I smiled at them, feeling overwhelmed with warmth at how much I loved them.

The three of them shuffled into the bedroom and climbed onto the bed with me.

“We just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Magali squeaked, all traces of her teenage attitude gone as her innocent brown eyes met mine.

I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Mag.” Then I looked to all of them. “Thank you guys, for everything.”

“Well, it’s not every day that your big sister calls off her wedding,” Lily said.

“Hopefully this is the last time we ever have to call off a wedding,” I responded with a sigh. “
Please
don’t take my example.”

“Dude, no offense, but since when have we copied anything you’ve done with your life?” Lily retorted.

“Very true,” I said, not minding her snarky attitude after everything she’d done for me today.

“What are those?” Sophie asked, nodding toward the stack of letters in my hand.

I gazed down at the old letters filled with my mom’s words, a gift that unbelievably found its way into my hands, and I knew it was time to tell my sisters. Time to tell them the details,
the juicy details
, as Sophie had put it, of what I was beginning to see as my French adventure.

***