The Bride's Curse (25 page)

“I felt she deserved better than a physically lame, mentally crippled husband. Even if she’d accepted me, I was afraid she would have done so out of pity and without understanding what she was taking on.”

Mary was worrying her fingernail, a nervous habit Kelly had never seen her do before. She could see the tears that were threatening to spill again down the older woman’s cheeks. She was struggling not to get weepy herself; what Troy was describing was a severe version of her own experiences, minus the restless spirit visitors. She knew too many good men who had survived the horrors of war only to live a life of misery with the aftereffects. Too many had given up the struggle to regain their former places in society and happiness and had taken their own lives. She shivered. Brett put his arm around her as if he read her thoughts.

“It took me years, literally, but I finally became a qualified accountant and found a job where there was very little interpersonal contact. Years of therapy helped me control the waking nightmares, the flashbacks, the rage, the depression. I no longer thought of suicide, but I did think of Mary, just about every day. By then she was just a dream, something to hold onto but something that I’d never have.”

Troy’s voice took on an edge of bitterness as he recounted how his mother had died in the early eighties without ever seeing her son again. His father had lingered on and when he became ill, he sought out Troy to be his caregiver.

“You remember Dad, Mary? Too proud and stubborn to have strangers around while he was growing increasingly sick. He wanted me to move back to Derry and live on the family estate, but I refused. There was too great a possibility of seeing Mary and I couldn’t bear to see in her eyes the pain I had caused her, or worse, to see her horror or pity at the man I had become.

“Dad’s last lingering illness was awful; his death was a blessing in a way. The man was ninety-five when he passed last week. The elderly woman you met was our neighbor, Mrs. Aylesbury, who’s in her nineties herself. She and her son have been a godsend over these last few months. Because you arrived on the day you did, she just assumed you were coming to my father’s funeral.”

He looked over at Mary, who by now was crying openly. “I thought I had lost my mind again when I saw you standing there, Mary—or maybe that I had died myself and gone to heaven and you were there, waiting for me. I want to spend the rest of my life making up to you the happiness we should have had from the beginning.”

Mary got up slowly and went to him, turning to face her family with a tear-streaked smile. “Troy has asked me to marry him and I have said yes. I don’t care if it bothers any of you because it’s simply time I caught up on my life while I’m still breathing. Oh, and if anyone is thinking Troy is after my money, or worried about your inheritances—” She glared at Sasha, who colored and looked away. “Well, you should know that Troy, despite the modest house he was living in, is wealthy in his own right from his own work and investments, and he will inherit the Matthewses’ estate when his father’s will is probated.”

She took Troy’s hand and they turned to leave.

Brett stopped them. “I have something I want to say, Aunt Mary.” They turned back to the room, their expressions closed.

“Go ahead, Brett. Might as well get it off your chest now. It won’t make any difference.”

Brett smiled. “I just wanted to say congratulations to you both, and I want to be the one who walks you down the aisle, Aunt Mary.”

Mary’s face radiated joy as she went to hug her nephew.

After the happy couple had left, Kelly got up and kissed Brett. “I am so proud of you,” she told him. “You made your aunt so happy just now.”

Kelly was thrilled that Mary and Troy hired Wedding Bliss to organize their wedding, although they’d given her just three weeks to get everything done. Even self-absorbed Sasha forgot about herself and had gotten into the wedding mood. Kelly and Noelia had been run off their feet trying to put together a society style wedding and reception with such little notice and were grateful for Brett’s sister’s willingness to be a gofer. She showed there was more to her than a good-time girl or the bimbo Kelly had first dubbed her.

“Is everything going to be ready?” Mary asked shyly. She was in her elegant green and gold bedroom at the Atwell Mansion, dressing for her wedding with the help of Sasha and Kelly. Mary had been busy rebuilding friendships with people she had shut herself away from after the wedding fiasco. To everyone’s delight, two little girls, the grandchildren of one of Mary’s closest friends from back in the day, were acting as flower girls for her.

Mary’s eyes filled with tears as she watched as the girls, dressed in pink and white dresses, giggled and jumped on the bed. “If everything had gone right, Troy and I might have had grandchildren like these two sweeties.”

Kelly put her arms around her. “The past doesn’t matter now. This is a day for celebrating that you and Tory have found each other, not a day for sadness.”

“We’ve had to be innovative in a few ways, but you’re going to have a wedding that will get people talking for more reasons than the obvious Matthews-Atwell romance,” Kelly assured her. She’d been delighted when Mary chose the small Marina Grove church of St. Christopher’s for her wedding rather than having the ceremony in Derry.

“It was here in Marina Grove that Peter first contacted you, it was here that my old bridal gown landed after Sasha sold it … and I certainly don’t want to marry in the old church where the first service was to take place.”

“Oh, Auntie … ” Sasha was blushing a deep red.

Mary surprised her with a rare hug. “It’s okay, dear. It’s all water under the bridge now.”

Her niece sniffed. “If you think about it, if I hadn’t sold your wedding gown then none of this would ever have happened.”

“Don’t push it, Sasha—what you did was wrong and you can’t wrap it up as anything else,” Kelly murmured, getting a dark look from the other young woman.

The wrongs and rights of the story soon fled from her mind as she and Sasha helped Mary into the beautiful pale pink brocade afternoon gown with its matching deeper pink jacket. Her silver gray hair had been skillfully restyled into a modern easy-care cut which fell softly around her ears and framed her pixie face.

Between the new style and the old love, Mary looked radiant and years younger than when Kelly had first met her.

“Is the limousine here yet?” the bride asked for the tenth time, admiring her wedding regalia in the long cheval mirror.

“Most brides want to follow tradition and be fashionably late,” Noelia said as she brought the bridal bouquet and attendants’ flowers into the room. Sasha was to be Maid of Honor

“Not me,” Mary declared. “After all, I’m over forty years late already. Is that fashionable enough for you?”

“Plenty,” Noelia answered as she handed the little girls their pretty flower baskets and stood back to admire the cute youngsters in their pink gowns and white ribbons. She gave Sasha her bouquet, which was a miniature version of Mary’s pink roses, trailing ivy and white Baby’s Breath.

Confident that everything was in order, Kelly slipped out to poke her head into the room down the hall where Brett was helping a nervous Troy to fasten his tie. He looked handsome in his formal white tie and tails, but Kelly’s eyes were fixed on Brett. She’d only ever seen him in jeans and shirts or sweaters and to see him in such elegant formal wear made her pulse race.

Tearing her eyes away, she asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Fine, except that Troy has the worst case of wedding nerves I’ve ever seen,” Brett replied. Kelly smiled. Brett had got over his suspicion of Troy in the three short weeks since Mary and he had announced their intention to marry. In fact, he’d been very supportive of the older man.

“Oh, Troy, you are going to show up at the church, aren’t you? Because I won’t be responsible for what Mary will do to you if you don’t. Especially now she’s learned how to use computers to hunt people down.” Troy went so pale that Kelly regretted her teasing.

He gave a weak laugh. “I wouldn’t be half so nervous if I was sure she won’t change her mind. Is she okay? She isn’t going to back out, is she?”

“No, there’s no chance of that,” she assured him. “She’s very sure that this is what she wants to do and that you are who she wants to be with. Stop worrying and get yourself over to the church so you can be waiting at the altar. Remember, it’s a bit of a drive to Marina Grove.”

“I’ll make sure he’s there,” Brett said.

“You’d better, or Mary will hold you responsible, too. Remember her threat to turn us into frogs?”

• • •

Now that everything seemed to be going smoothly, Kelly slipped out on a special mission of her own. She drove to Marina Grove and checked in at the church where she was surprised and delighted to see that people were already arriving. This was certainly going to be the wedding of the year. It was a day for resolutions.

First, Mary and Troy had finally found each other again and were going to swear to love, honor and cherish each other for the rest of their lives, which Kelly hoped would be long and happy.

Early that morning, at Mary’s request, Kelly had invited Daria and her fiancé, Drake, to the Atwell Mansion for breakfast. It was the first time Kelly had met Drake and she liked him immediately. He was a tall, distinguished looking man with silver streaks at his temples and a confident bearing. When he smiled, his whole face lit up. He seemed the perfect match for Daria.

“So, you are the young woman who is going to wear my wedding gown to the altar,” Mary said, holding Daria’s hand and smiling. Then she reached out and held Drake’s hand, joining the two together. “And you are the young man who will be waiting for her in the church.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I know there has been a lot of fuss about this wedding gown and I admit that, in the throes of a terrible grief and abandonment, I did curse those yards of silk and lace. I know it sounds horrible, but I never wanted another bride to be happy in that dress.”

Daria leaned forward to give Mary a one-armed hug. “I am so sorry for what happened to you, and very glad it’s been resolved. I don’t really believe in curses, but … ?”

“But we’d like you to lift it from the gown, anyway,” Drake spoke up.

Mary smiled. “I think the deep love you both obviously have for each other is enough to defeat any curse. Still, if you feel you need a ceremony … ?”

The young couple looked at each other, their faces radiant with love. “No, ma’am. I think your good wishes for our wedding will be more than enough to end this dress’s strange history.”

Then Mary had kissed them both and wished them well. Kelly had wiped away a surreptitious tear from her eye, and she was pretty sure both Mary and Daria did, too.

She smiled at the memory.

Time was passing and there was still one more thing to cross off her list. She rushed away in the direction of Wedding Bliss.

Sure enough, he was there.

Peter Arnt’s ghost was sitting in his usual spot on the street bench at the side of the park across from the store. He seemed to Kelly to be even paler than he had been, as though he were fading away from this earthly plane.

“So, you know that Mary and Troy are together again and getting married today?” she asked as she sat down beside him.

He turned to her with a huge smile on his ghostly face. “Yes, and I have you to thank for that. You went above and beyond the call of duty to find Troy and bring the two of them together and I will be eternally grateful. I can leave now, knowing that they are together and happy. It doesn’t erase the wrong I did, but it does restore the balance.”

“The balance?”

His smile grew larger. “Yes, there is a balance in all things, including human relationships. People are meant to find each other, fall in love, and be together. When that happens, it’s balance. You should know that.”

“I’m not sure … ”

“Yes, you are. You deserve some happiness yourself, my dear. That nephew of Mary’s, he’s a good man. The two of you are in balance.”

“I think it’s too soon … ”

“No, don’t say that. Don’t wait too long to allow yourself to love.”

“What happens now?” She had to speak around a lump in her throat. With a small shock, she realized she was actually sad to know that she would probably never see Peter the Friendly Ghost again.
At least not in this life.

As if he read her thoughts, he said, “I am leaving now, it’s time. And there’s someone I love waiting for me … can you see them? My lovely Elizabeth and the child? My daughter?”

She could. A beautiful woman she recognized from Mary’s photograph stood some distance away, her arm around a little girl. They cast that eerie glow that all ghosts have. She was smiling and holding out her hand and, as Kelly watched, Peter walked toward his wife and daughter. As he took her outstretched hand in his, they shimmered for a moment and then slowly faded away completely.

Kelly’s cheeks were wet with tears. “Safe journey, Peter,” she whispered. “I hope you find your balance again with Elizabeth.”

• • •

The church was packed with well-wishers, including some old friends of Mary’s with whom she’d lost touch when she went into her splendid isolation after Troy’s disappearance.

There were quite a few townspeople there too, people who’d heard the story of the lovers who’d finally found each other after all those years, and had come along to support the couple. Daria and Drake were in the crowd. Daria, dressed in another of her designer outfits, waved as Kelly joined Noelia for a last-minute check of flowers and seating. Susie Lamont and her fiancé, Mark Turner, were also smiling from one of the pews. It seemed that the curse had truly been lifted.

She took a few moments to speak reassuringly to Troy as he stood at the altar, and then slipped into a pew just as the organist began the Bridal March. Mary Atwell appeared at the entrance to the church, Brett tall and handsome beside her. She walked slowly and proudly down the aisle on her nephew’s arm. Mary looked radiant in her dress of palest pink underneath a matching fuchsia pink coat, her white hair styled and sporting a jaunty little fuchsia hat with a small net veil. She carried the bouquet of pink roses and trailing ivy and baby’s breath, and glowed with love as her eyes focused on the dignified man waiting at the altar.