A Wedding on Primrose Street (Life In Icicle Falls Book 7) (24 page)

“Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” Roberta said. “It’s different when it’s your daughter.”

“You’re right,” Anne said with a sigh. “I don’t think my husband understands that. He’s trying, but I don’t think he really does. I only want her to be happy.”

Roberta freshened Anne’s tea. “Of course you do. It’s what every mother wants for her daughter. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I should be enjoying this a lot more,” Anne said and helped herself to a lavender–white chocolate scone.

Roberta chuckled. “My dear, I’ve come to the conclusion that anything involving a daughter is a mixture of pleasure and pain. However, you’ll both get through this, and as long as the bride is happy and comes away with good memories, that’s what counts. Sometimes a woman can get so sucked into all the wedding hustle and bustle, she forgets there’ll still be life
after
the wedding.”

Anne nodded. Roberta was so right.

“Go home, take a break and take a deep breath,” Roberta advised. “Everything will turn out exactly as it’s supposed to. We haven’t lost a mother of the bride yet.”

Anne couldn’t help smiling. She’d said as much to a few mothers of brides herself.

She decided it was time to follow Roberta’s advice. She called Cam. “I’m on my way home. I’ll pick up Chinese.”

“Works for me,” he said.

Three hours later she walked in the door with their premade dinner and found Cam had a bottle of wine chilling. “Everything set for the big day?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, it’s going to be fine, and I’m done stressing about the wedding. In fact, I think we should plan what we want to do for our anniversary.”

“Nope,” he said, pouring her a glass of pinot grigio. “Don’t need to. I’ve already got it figured out.”

“You have?”

“Most of it. I have a few details to work out, but don’t make any plans for the weekend after Laney’s wedding.”

Just like that he’d gone ahead and planned what they were going to do for their anniversary? Without asking her? She put down her glass and frowned at him. “Well, don’t you want my input?”

He picked up the glass and gave it back to her. “Now, don’t look at me like that. Trust me. You’re going to like this.”

She put the glass down again. “How do you know?” She was the planner, not him.

“I know,” he said, sounding both mysterious and cocky. He slipped his arms around her. “I know what you like,” he added and planted a kiss on her neck.

“Yeah?” He was doing a pretty good job of showing her right now.

“Yeah.” He touched his lips to her shoulder.

“Prove it.”

“If you insist,” he said and set about doing exactly that.

They abandoned the Chinese takeout in favor of satisfying a different appetite, and this time Anne didn’t worry about her daughter’s upcoming wedding. She did have one moment when she wondered if they’d ordered enough champagne, but she wisely kept that thought to herself.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Roberta, New and Improved

I
t was the second Saturday in June, a perfect day for a wedding with only a few wispy clouds floating in a blue sky. But no wedding was happening at Primrose Haus today. Thanks to a runaway bride, the wedding had been canceled.

This was such a rare thing Roberta almost didn’t know what to do with herself. Daphne suggested a play day.

“We can start by going over to Bavarian Brews and getting a latte,” she said.

“I can’t remember the last time I did that,” Roberta confessed. She also couldn’t remember the last time she and her daughter had gone out and done something fun, just the two of them. It seemed that for the past few years, Roberta had been too busy most weekends to get away, and whenever Daphne had come up to visit, she’d either been with Marnie (always a good thing) or a man (never a good thing).

Bavarian Brews was packed with locals chatting or texting on their cell phones, and tourists wearing novelty hats from the hat shop and armed with digital cameras, ready to shoot pictures of the town’s colorful main street and the surrounding scenery. The place was fragrant with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and looking at the different concoctions the baristas were making with various combinations of chocolate, coconut and caramel made Roberta’s mouth water.

Del Stone and Ed York were there, and after picking up tall orders of coffee, they stopped by to say hello. Del once more thanked Roberta for giving his little girl such a great wedding. “I’ll wager you’ll be hearing from Representative Wattle. His daughter just got engaged. I told him he couldn’t pick a better place.”

“Thank you, Del. That’s very sweet of you.” Del would have her vote in the next election, whether or not those potholes on Pine Street got fixed.

He elbowed Ed. “You and Pat should’ve done it up right and gone to Roberta for your wedding.”

Roberta couldn’t have agreed more, especially considering how many years they’d all known one another and how much business she’d given both of them. She’d hoped to get invited to the wedding.

“Pat’s daughter insisted on us getting married at her house. It was a small wedding, just family.”

At least it wasn’t a case of not making the cut. “You have to do what your children want,” Roberta said. “I’m happy for both of you,” she added to show there were no hard feelings.

“I feel pretty lucky finding a woman like Pat,” Ed said. “What they say is true—love is better the second time around.”

She’d have to take his word for it.

“After my first time around, I’d sure hope so,” Del said heartily.

Roberta shook her head at Del. “You forget I’ve met your wife.”

He smiled good-naturedly, then wished them a nice morning as he and Ed moved off to stake out a table by the window, which offered a view of the street and its various shops as well as Sweet Dreams Chocolates, the town’s pride and joy and source of all things chocolate.

“Mother, have you ever thought about dating?” Daphne asked when they settled at a table with their lattes.

“Oh, goodness, Daphne. Why would I want a man at this point in my life?”

Daphne shrugged. “Companionship?”

“I have plenty of companionship with you and Lila and my friends at the chamber of commerce. Besides, no real man ever measures up to the ones in my Vanessa Valentine books. You’ve learned that firsthand. Although there may be a few out there who come close,” she mused, seeing Hank walk up behind Daphne. A shame they hadn’t met earlier, before they’d both messed up their lives.

“Hello, ladies,” he said, making Daphne jump.

Roberta would’ve liked to shoo him away, but that would be rude, so she forced herself to ask, “Would you care to join us?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He seated himself next to Daphne, whose face was suddenly flushed. “I’m surprised you’re not at Primrose Haus getting ready for a wedding.”

“The wedding got canceled,” Roberta explained.

“Uh-oh. Did the groom have cold feet?”

“Nope, the bride did,” Daphne answered. “She’d been married before. She probably decided not to jump off the cliff again.”

“You can’t fly if you don’t take a leap,” said Hank.

Roberta could see where this conversation was going, right into three’s-a-crowd territory. What to do? Her first inclination was to stay at the table like a two-legged guard dog, make sure Daphne didn’t do anything foolish.

But she’d resolved not to interfere in her daughter’s life or tell her what to do, and Daphne had assured her she wasn’t going to rush into anything, that she was learning to be happy on her own. Was it really so foolish to have coffee with a nice, hardworking man, a man who, like Daphne, had gotten a raw deal on love? Anyway, if the two of them were going to wind up together eventually, there was nothing Roberta could do to stop it.

So, no guard-dogging. “I think I’ll go back to the house. My foot is hurting.” Actually, her foot felt pretty good these days. She was off the heavy-duty painkillers and down to ibuprofen, fitting in her morning walks again. She hadn’t taken a walk yet today. Maybe she’d do that.

Daphne nodded and began to get up.

Roberta waved her back down. “Stay put, darling. Finish your latte.”
Start your new life.

“We were going to spend the day together,” Daphne reminded her.

“We can do that tomorrow.” Then, before Daphne could say anything more, Roberta slipped out of the coffee shop.

It was around ten in the morning and by now downtown was buzzing with visitors checking out the various shops. It made Roberta happy to see so many people in town. She could remember when she’d first arrived and the place was almost a ghost town. Thanks to the cleverness and hard work of its people, Icicle Falls had come back to life in a big way.

She caught sight of a couple around her age, holding hands as they entered Gilded Lily’s women’s apparel. Their easy familiarity suggested they’d been married for years. The woman had probably said, “Look at that cute dress in the window,” and he’d most likely replied, “Why don’t you go try it on?”

Roberta sighed. If she hadn’t been so bitter, so unwilling to give love another chance, that could’ve been her. But after two bad experiences she’d given up.

Ah, well. She’d still had a good life, a satisfying life. She’d made something of herself, something her mother should have been proud of. Sadly, her mother never got past her disappointment, valued her pride above her daughter’s feelings. Roberta had her faults as a mother, but at least she’d never done that.

She’d done other things wrong instead, always pushing Daphne to do more, be more. Sadly, no one offered parenting classes back when she was raising Daphne. Roberta hadn’t had any help. She’d been completely on her own. And she’d stayed on her own, never hearing from her mother, never seeing her again until the end.

2004

Roberta’s old friend Nan had kept in touch over the years, mostly with Christmas cards and a few phone calls. One day she’d called to tell Roberta that her mother was dying. “I know you don’t care if you ever see her again,” Nan had said, “but she’s all alone in that place. It’s pathetic, really. I think she’s sorry she never mended fences with you.”

She’d had her chance. Actually, she’d had more than one. Roberta’s grandmother had known where she was. Anytime her mother wanted to contact her, she could have. But she hadn’t. So let her die alone, choking on her pride.

And what will you choke on someday?
came the thought.
Resentment? Bitterness?
Roberta had tasted enough of those emotions over the years. She had to admit that now, at sixty, she’d lost her appetite for them.

And so, on a mockingly beautiful spring day, she made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Seattle. She didn’t tell Daphne she was coming or why. Daphne would’ve wanted to accompany her, to meet the woman she’d never known and offer Roberta her support. But Daphne still knew very little about her grandmother, and that was for the best. The woman had poisoned Roberta. She hadn’t been going to let that poison touch her daughter.

The care facility smelled like a nasty combination of urine and disinfectant. A couple of ancients sat in wheelchairs at the side of the hallway, one a grizzled man who was muttering to himself, the other a woman with sparse gray hair and a caved-in chest, who held out a beseeching hand to Roberta. She had blue eyes and a button nose and in spite of the wrinkles Roberta could tell she’d been pretty in her younger days.

She stopped and took the woman’s hand. “How are you?”

“Have you seen my daughter?” the woman asked. “She’s supposed to come and see me. It’s my birthday.”

How many of her own mother’s birthdays had Roberta missed? If this woman had been her mother, she wouldn’t have missed a single one. “I’m sure she’s coming,” she said in an effort to comfort the woman.

The sweet face changed into a mask of anger. “She never comes.”

The accusation and bitterness hit Roberta like a red-hot poker. “Maybe there’s a reason.”
Maybe you’re like my mother, a selfish, judgmental shrew.

Or maybe this woman was simply lonely and unhappy. Roberta softened her voice and gave the woman’s hand a squeeze. “I’m sure she’ll come,” she said again. Daughters did. Eventually. Even when their mothers didn’t ask for them.

The woman on duty at the reception desk pointed her down the hall to a different wing. Room 27, which her mother was sharing with another patient, a woman in the throes of agony. Roberta could hear her groaning from outside the room. When she entered, she had to catch her breath at the sight of the shrunken form in the other bed. This slack-jawed, sleeping cadaver hooked up to a morphine drip couldn’t be her mother. Her mother had been plump, with carefully maintained brown curls and polished manners, always dressed to the nines.

But this was how it ended if you lived long enough. You found yourself riding out your last days in a rickety shell of a body.
This will be you someday.
Except she’d have a daughter who’d come to visit her and comfort her. She’d have a daughter who cared.

She could have been a daughter who cared. She should have tried harder to forge a new relationship with her mother, should have brought Daphne to see her. Guilt overrode the resentment as she pulled up a chair next to the bed and laid a hand on her mother’s arm.

“Mother?”

The cadaver slept on.

Roberta tried again, gently tapping the arm, wrinkled and spotted with the bruises of age. “Mother?”

The eyes opened and the head turned. The woman squinted at her as if trying to place her.

“It’s me, Roberta.”

“Roberta.” The sound came out faint and raspy. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”

“I’m dying.”

“I heard.”

The lips turned down at the corners. “Did you come to see if you’re in the will? There’s nothing left, you know.” The cadaver let out a tired breath and shut her eyes again.

“I didn’t come for anything other than to see you and tell you I’m sorry.”

The eyes stayed closed. “After all these years?”

“I’m sorry you could never forgive me. I’m sorry we never had a relationship, that you never got to see your granddaughter grow up.”

A tear leaked out of one eye. “It could have been different.”

“Yes, it could have,” Roberta agreed.

“If only you’d listened to me.”

So the fault was all hers. Even now, on her deathbed, her mother would bear no blame for those many years of estrangement. “All I wanted was your love.”

Another tear slipped out. “I always loved you. You...disappointed me so.”

She had; there was no denying it. She took her mother’s limp hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you say that...years ago?”

“Perhaps I was waiting to hear that you still loved me.”

Her mother gave no indication of having heard. A breath seeped out and she turned her head away. “I’m tired.”

So am I
, thought Roberta. Yes, she’d disappointed her mother but her mother had hurt her deeply. What a sad mess. They should have had a relationship all these years. Her mother should’ve come to Icicle Falls to spend weekends and see Daphne performing in the Sunday-school Christmas pageant or watch her graduating from high school. She should’ve been there for Daphne’s wedding, should have held her great-granddaughter. Roberta should have come over to Seattle to take her out to lunch. So much they could have done, so much they’d missed. “I wish it could have been different between us,” she said.

Too late for that now. The only thing it wasn’t too late for was forgiveness. Bitterness was exhausting, and she’d carried hers long enough. “You were never there for me, but I forgive you. I learned from your rejection. My daughter isn’t perfect and we’ve had our problems, but at least she knows I love her.”

The eyes stayed shut and the mouth pressed together in a tight, thin line. Her mother obviously had no more to say.

But that was okay. Neither did Roberta. This time the tears were hers. She couldn’t help crying for what they’d lost all those years, but she also felt like a woman who had just survived a deadly disease. The fever had finally broken. Now she could truly heal. “I’ll do whatever I can to make you comfortable.”

“Thank you.” The words came out so faintly Roberta almost wondered if she’d imagined them.

She gave her mother’s hand one final squeeze. “You’re welcome.”

Before she left, she made arrangements to have her mother moved to a private room. She lasted another two weeks and then she was gone. Roberta saw to it that she was buried at Washelli right beside her father.

“I hope you rest in peace,” she said to her mother when she stood at the graveside. She knew now that she could live in peace.

* * *

Roberta gave herself a mental shake. This was such a lovely day. She had no intention of wasting even a minute of it revisiting the past. Instead, she decided to enjoy the moment at hand and take a walk up Lost Bride Trail. She might not make it all the way to the falls, but the scenery would be beautiful and she could look for lady’s slippers. She’d bring her walking stick, a bottle of water (and an ibuprofen) and take her time.