“Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course I can.”
“We have to fix all of the flowers before Aunt Amy gets here.” I glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Which will be in about a half hour.”
“I’ll help,” she offered.
“Me too,” Eamon added.
And so I issued instructions. Eamon and Fiona sorted the flowers, dividing them up by type and discarding whatever wasn't usable. When they were done with that, they filled the containers with water, like an adorable daddy-daughter fire brigade, and I went to work arranging. With handfuls of flowers in my hand, it was hard not to see a vision of my mother working behind the counter at Taylor & Daughters, humming to herself and happy to be doing the thing she so loved. I didn’t try to banish the thought, nor did I let it wander to other memories of her. I simply let it play in my head while I did my best to do what she would have done if she were here today—I fixed the flowers.
In the end, a few centerpieces ended up being thin, but I figured we'd put those at the back of the reception hall and Amy would hopefully never notice. Fiona helped me tie new bows on the vases while Eamon went to meet up with Luke and keep him away from the floral disaster.
My dad found us just as Fiona and I were finishing. There were flower stems and scraps of ribbon littering the tabletop. There was no escaping what had happened. “What in the world went on back here?” He pulled me into an embrace then greeted Fiona. “There's my princess. I hope we can sit by each other during the ceremony.”
“No magic while they're getting married, Grandpa Mark. It would be rude.”
“But of course.”
I turned and acknowledged the mess on the table. “There was an accident with the flowers, but I think we got everything fixed. Please don't tell Amy. I'll tell her later. After the wedding.”
“Or never. Never works, too.” He took survey of our work while one of the staff began loading the centerpieces onto a cart. “But well done. You clearly learned all of this from your mother. Glad it came in handy.”
“Yes. Me, too.” I sighed happily feeling like a weight had been lifted. Or to be more precise, many weights. “Let's go see if Amy is here yet.”
Fiona and I walked double-time down the hall back to the bride's room.
Amy was just arriving, her massive dress still wrapped up in the garment bag. Talk about cutting it close. “There you are.” She unsubtly eyed me up and down. “Katherine, you look like hell. You're sweating and your hair and makeup aren't done. We have less than a half hour. What have you been doing?”
“Playing with me. It's my fault,” Fiona said.
Amy bopped Fiona on the nose with her pinky. “Nothing could possibly be your fault.”
“Don't worry,” I said. “I’ll get cleaned up right now.”
“I can curl your hair, Katherine,” Fiona said.
“You can?”
She nodded. “I can. I practice on my mam all the time. I curled it that day we met at the park. I’m not half bad.”
I was going for better than half bad, but at this point, I was interested in saving time. “Wow. Okay.”
Fiona followed me into the bathroom and she stood on a chair, spraying my roots with dry shampoo, brushing out sections, and carefully curling my hair. There was no telling what the final product would look like, but all I could think was that the girl had some skills.
I started to put on my makeup, looking into the mirror, blending concealer and foundation. Today, my reflection didn't bother me. I liked seeing a glimmer of my mom somewhere on the other side of the glass, knowing that yes, she was part of me, but she most certainly was not all. I mostly saw myself looking back from the mirror, with Fiona by my side. For as many moments as we'd spent teetering on chaos lately, this was the best I'd felt in a long time.
Still, there was one thing I could do to make things even better.
“I love you, Fiona. You know that, right?”
She unleashed her sweet smile. “I love you, too.”
“I love your dad very much. I want to ask him an important question today. I want to ask him to marry me. But I want to know if that’s okay with you.” I wondered if she'd be confused by the notion of me essentially asking for her father’s hand in marriage, but she didn't bat an eye.
“It's perfectly okay with me. A girl should be able to ask a boy just as much as a boy can ask a girl.”
“That’s what I think, too.”
