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Beth raised a hand. ‘Mum, calm down.’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down!’ Connie paced the room, enraged beyond belief. ‘Nobody in the history of calming down has ever calmed down because someone has told them to calm down!’
‘I just meant—’
‘How dare you suggest inviting that… that…womanto the wedding. Are you deliberately trying to wound me?’
Megan blinked back tears. ‘Of course not.’
Connie grabbed hold of the mantle, needing the support. ‘Isn’t it bad enough that your father’s caused me such pain, ruined my life and discarded me like a bag of rubbish.’
‘Yes, Mum, but—’
‘But nothing!’ Connie stamped her foot. She wasn’t having it. She wouldn’t be persuaded to be rational, or calm, or tolerant. This was the final straw, this was not happening, not while she still breathed. ‘She is not… I repeatnot… coming to the wedding! Do you hear me?’
Megan’s face crumpled. ‘But Dad wants her there.’
‘I don’t care what your dad wants.’ And then she stilled. They’d already spoken about this? She turned to her daughter. ‘What did you say?’
Megan swallowed awkwardly. ‘When I told Dad about the wedding, he asked if Tiffany could come. What was I supposed to say?’
‘NO! That’s what you were supposed to say. NOT BLOODY LIKELY!’
Her three children cowered.
‘But…’ Megan wavered. Her super-confident daughter was now floundering.
‘But what? What else does that son-of-a-bitch want now? My kidneys? Come on, tell me. Spit it out. What does perfect bloody Kenneth want that he doesn’t already have, eh?’
Megan’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘He wants her on the top table.’
Oh, that did it.
That was the final indignation that tipped Connie over the edge.
Any noise was blocked out by a hissing sound filling her head, like expanding foam. An explosion of hot pain rendering her unable to form coherent words.
He wanted that… floozy… thattarton the top table at their daughter’s wedding? Over her dead body.
It was too much. Too torturous to contemplate. Not only had she endured the humiliation of being left for another woman – but thatwomanwas now about to replace her as her husband’s ‘significant other’ at their daughter’s wedding. And what was more, her children didn’t think it was such a big deal.
Well, it flipping well was.
No way was she about to stand by and watch them play the happy couple, canoodling throughout the ceremony, raising their glasses in a toast, usurping her starring role as mother of the bride. She wasn’t having it.
She returned to the table and faced her children head-on.
They looked downcast. Guilty. Uncomfortable.
Good. So they should.
‘Then I won’t be there,’ she said, aiming for an air of calmness, even though her insides were vibrating with rage.
‘Mum, no—’
‘I’m sorry, Megan.’ She raised her hand, stopping her daughter in mid-flow. ‘If that woman is going to be there, then I won’t be. It’s her… or me.’
A hush descended.
