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“I was remembering the flowers I carried for our wedding. Kevin got them for me—otherwise I wasn’t going to have any flowers.”
“You? Not have flowers at your wedding?”
“I know, crazy, right? And it had made me so sad, because even back then I loved flowers. But all the money for the wedding went basically to my ridiculously lacey and poofy dress. After that the tiered cake that was all important in an eighties wedding. So no money for flowers. At the rehearsal, I was acting off, and Kevin asked what was wrong. I told him I didn’t have a bouquet—which wasn’t entirely the whole truth of what was actually wrong. He ran to the store in between rehearsal and dinner and bought me flowers.”
“What was actually wrong?”
Having just cut stems on another bouquet, Helen paused and looked at Kenzie. “I was scared to death.”
A thoughtful, and perhaps somewhat surprised look, passed over Kenzie’s expression, and it occurred to Helen that though it had been a decade since Kenzie had married Jackson, perhaps Mackenzie didn’t know the whole story of Kevin and Helen Murphy. Did any of her sons’ wives?
Certainly the boys did, didn’t they? It wasn’t like Helen and Kevin had kept it a secret from them. But it also wasn’t something that they spoke about often.
“You were nervous about the wedding or about getting married?”
Helen finished wrapping the bouquet and then gave Kenzie her full attention. “I was pregnant, Kenz.”
Lips parted, Kenzie’s brows lifted. “You were . . . oh.” Rose colored her cheeks. “I didn’t know . . .”
“You aren’t the only one—though I’m sorry if it seems like we hid this from you. We didn’t—not intentionally. I’m sure the boys all know our story. I think.” Helen paused, biting her lip. “Anyway, I was nearly a month pregnant with Matt when we got married. It was a rushed thing, and we were both very young. I was quite frankly terrified out of my mind.”
“Did your parents force you to marry?”
“Oh no. They weren’t in favor of it at all. They didn’t like Kevin.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, I’m not. And I don’t think Kevin would mind me telling you that they had good reason tonotlike him. He drank back then. A lot.”
Kenzie blinked. Clearly she’d known nothing about this. Hadn’t they told the boys? Maybe some of them, but perhaps not all? With seven children, it’d be easy to neglect certain things—especially in the middle of the chaotic business of living.
But they hadn’t intended to hide their past. Honestly.
“I’m sorry, Helen.” Kenzie simply stared at her in shock. “I am just trying to imagine this. I can’t picture it. You and Kevin have always been so . . . so steady. Happy. Such good Christian people.”
“Not always, sweet girl. Not even close to always.” Helen gripped Kenzie’s hand and drew her to the deep windowsill where they could sit. “And I thought Jackson knew our past. I’m sorry if this seems like we’ve been lying to you. It wasn’t intentional.”
“Perhaps he does and it’s just never come up.” Kenzie shrugged. “Anyway, I doubt it would make a difference to him. Or to me, really.”
“Hmm.” Helen looked over her shoulder out the window and into the late-afternoon sky. Scattered clouds dotted the light-blue canvas, but nothing that should prevent the evening walk Kevin wanted.
Glad of it, she turned her attention back to Kenzie. “Just to clear the air, let me just tell you all of it. I wanted, more than anything, to have a storybook romance. I wanted the fairy tale that back then it had seemed Princess Dianna had. I wanted my very own prince to swoop into my life and change it. Make it special and lovely. And into that longing of an eighteen-year-old girl swooped a twenty-year-old guy who desperately longed for his life to matter to someone. So there we were, two broken, empty people hoping the other could fill the void.”
“That sounds like the beginnings to a not-good end.”
“Exactly so.” Helen pressed her lips together as she remembered the hopelessness that had marked her days long after her marriage. How it had seemed such a massive mistake, but there had been no way out. There had been crushing disappointment in it, but also so much brokenheartedness—because even in her ignorant youth, she had loved the man she’d married. And he’d loved her. But they couldn’t seem to figure out how to make each other happy. How to be whole together.
“But for the grace of God.” Helen borrowed the old Bradford quote as she squeezed Kenzie’s hand. “Life could have easily looked so much differently than it does now.”
With a gentle smile of understanding—that from her own story of grace and salvation—Kenzie nodded and followed Helen back to the table so they could finish the last of the bouquets.
“What would you have rather carried for your wedding?” Kenzie asked.
Caught off guard, Helen sent her a quizzical look.
“I mean for your wedding bouquet,” the younger woman clarified. “Now that you’re a professional with flowers, what would you have chosen?”
Seemed such an odd and random question. Then again, Kenzie had adopted Helen’s love for all things floral, so perhaps it was a natural curiosity. Helen paused, midmotion of tucking in a stem of hypericum.
