Chapter 2

2: 2

I closed my eyes slowly and raised a hand toward the door. "Get out. Both of you."

Eileen burst into tears at once and made to throw her arms around me. "Yvonne, don't do this. If you want to let it out, then hit me."

I didn't answer. I just shoved them both out in one push, and the door slammed shut.

I leaned against it, breathing hard, and made a call. "Come over here."

Then I had someone bring a spare tuxedo to the dressing room and hang it up. It wasn't Gerard's size.

The makeup artist wheeled her kit back in to fix my face, and the photographer lifted his camera to shoot the wedding footage.

It was all exactly the scene I'd pictured. Happy and busy.

Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.

Into the quiet came the small, broken sound of talking from the next room.

Once I could make it out, I knew it was Eileen and Gerard.

Eileen sniffled softly. "It's all my fault for carrying the marriage certificate on me today. Otherwise Yvonne would never have found out."

"You didn't do it on purpose. If it weren't for that baby, none of this would be happening."

Eileen's crying grew louder. "So you blame me too, don't you. Let's go get divorced today. I already booked the abortion for this afternoon. It should never have existed in the first place."

I couldn't make out a single word after that. A ringing filled my ears, like a thin film had come down between me and the world, and every sound outside was stopped on the other side of it.

The other two exchanged glances. The makeup artist's hand hovered with the brush, neither up nor down, not sure whether she should go on.

The photographer coughed lightly. "Miss Henson, we'll step out for now. We'll come back in a bit."

I only offered a pale explanation. "There's no need to feel awkward. He isn't the groom today."

No one believed it. They only thought I was clinging to what was left of my pride.

The room fell silent again. I covered my face and cried quietly, and my hand drifted without thinking to my lower belly. There had been a baby here once too.

The night my stomach hurt so much, I slumped in a chair and called Gerard. "Come home, please. My stomach hurts so bad."

He answered, distracted. "Eileen took in a stray cat. I'll get it settled and come right back."

Half an hour later, his call still hadn't come. I forced myself up and drove to the hospital.

On the way I only felt the wetness below, something running out of me. I only learned later that it was my unformed child.

The baby was lost before three months. Ever since, the thing has stayed lodged in my heart like a needle driven in deep.

I looked up at the mirror. The bride who should have been radiant now had her makeup cried into ruin, the skin around her eyes smudged into a dark blur.

I wiped the tears off my face and, with shaking hands, tried to fix my makeup.

But the harder I wanted to get something done, the worse my hands shook.

How on earth had it all come to this.

Back then, when Gerard brought up Eileen, he only thought of her as a spoiled child, his voice full of pity.

"Yvonne, keep your distance from her. That princess act of hers wears everyone around her to death."

But later, in the things he said, the disgust and distaste of the beginning gave way, until a few lines of genuine praise slipped in.

"Yvonne, you really ought to learn from Eileen. She turns down what she doesn't like without a second thought."

Later still, the two of them grew even closer to each other than to me, and Gerard worked Eileen into everything he said.

"Eileen loves roast chicken. Make a little extra, Yvonne."

"Eileen's light is broken. I'm going over to fix it. Don't wait up for dinner."

Even when Eileen and I talked, she kept steering the topic back to Gerard.

If we saw a nice watch while we were out shopping, she'd tell me to buy it and have Gerard try it on. It would look great on him, she was sure.

Now and then she'd say a line or two. "Yvonne, you found yourself a good man. When will I ever meet one like that."

At first it only made me happy. The two of them, once like fire and water, could finally sit at the same table and eat a meal in peace.

Only now do I see how wrong it was.