If Only Forever

After the twenty-minute drive to Aubrey, they arrived at the venue. Chantelle seemed the least nervous of them all. She bounded up the stone steps, exclaiming with delight at the hanging baskets and the stained glass windows. Emily thought the venue looked beautiful from the outside; it was old and very classical looking. There were large swaths of grass surrounding it also, with apple trees which would look lovely in the wedding photos.

They were welcomed at the door by a smartly dressed young woman called Laura. She led them inside.

Emily gasped as she observed the grandeur of the place. She could just picture it now, the ceremony, the guests, the dancing. For the first time she got a mental image of what it might look like to marry Daniel, to wear the beautiful dress and walk the aisle with their loved ones watching on. She felt her breath catch in her lungs.

“Would you like to take a seat?” Laura said, gesturing to where the tasting buffet was laid out.

Everyone sat, apart from Chantelle, who paced around the venue assessing its size and dеcor, everything from the carpets to the artwork.

“Don’t mind her,” Emily said to Laura with a grin. “She’s our surveyor.”

Emily and Daniel tasted the first set of entrees, which were presented in little bite-sized pieces. Emily couldn’t help but feel very strange in this situation. She couldn’t tell if it was Daniel’s nerves or just her own, but it felt odd to be sitting next to him in this formal setting, taking mouthful after mouthful of different flavored dishes. It was like they didn’t belong here, like they were very out of place. Emily could barely meet his eye as they worked their way through all the food choices.

Thankfully, Chantelle eased some of the pressure with her antics. She was in fine form, striding around like she owned the place, making affirmative statements about which foods she liked and didn’t.

“I think you should have this for starter,” she said decisively, pointing at the tomato and mozzarella bites, “then the fish for main, and for dessert…” She tapped her chin. This clearly took a bit more thought. “Go for the cheesecake.”

Everyone laughed.

“But you’ve picked the three most expensive things on the menu!” Emily pointed out, giggling.

Laura seemed to take that as a cue to touch on the subject of money. “Have you decided on a food budget?” she asked.

“We haven’t even decided on a wedding budget yet,” Daniel joked, but Emily couldn’t quite see the funny side. It felt a little too close to the bone. Why hadn’t they decided that yet? Why hadn’t they decided anything yet? Come to think of it, after deciding to make this appointment, they hadn’t sat down again to discuss anything.

“Well, that’s okay for now,” Laura said, giving them a professionally blank smile. “It does take some time to sort all these things out. I don’t suppose you have any idea about how many guests you’ll be having? The venue can take two hundred.”

“Oh, um…” Emily scratched her neck. If they didn’t know whether their own mothers would come, how on earth were they supposed to know about the other guests! “We’re still finalizing the numbers.”

“No problem at all,” Laura said, tipping her eyes back down to her ring binder, which contained glossy photos of food, flowers, and decorations, along with a list of prices and customizations.

Though she still had that robotically professionals smile on her face, Emily could read in her eyes a growing exasperation. She must be wondering how she was going to help them organize anything if they didn’t know even the basics.

“Our suggested layout would be with the head table over there,” Laura explained, gesturing toward the stage area at the back of the room. “That’s usually for the wedding party, so bridesmaids, groomsmen, family. You can have a small table for just six, or a large table for up to sixteen. Do you have a rough idea of the numbers?”

Emily felt her chest constricting. This was a disaster. And Daniel seemed more nervous than her. In fact, he looked downright uncomfortable.

“It’s a bit complicated,” Emily explained. “With our families. Maybe we should move on and come back to that a bit later.”

She couldn’t bear the tension anymore. Laura looked flustered too, clearly realizing she wasn’t dealing with the usual here.

“Yes of course.” She quickly flipped through several pages in her binder. “So we have the large double doors over there. They can be left open if the weather is nice. Are you hoping for a spring or summer wedding, or are you more of an autumn/winter couple? We’re completely booked for spring and summer next year so you’d have to wait, but we have autumn and winter spots available.”

Emily watched Daniel’s reaction to the news that their wedding could take place as early as next September. He went completely pale. The sight of him made Emily even more nervous.

Chantelle seemed to be picking up on the tension. Her goofy confidence was waning. She kept looking from Emily to Daniel, her enthusiasm fading with every passing moment.

“Maybe we should take your card for the time being,” Emily said to Laura. “Rearrange when we know a few more details.” She stood abruptly.

“Oh, oh, okay,” Laura said, taken aback, dropping her binder in her haste to stand and shake Emily’s hand.

Emily did so quickly. Then she rushed out of the venue, leaving Daniel behind to shake Laura’s hand just as swiftly. She burst out of the doors and onto the steps, listening to the sound of Daniel’s distant voice explaining to Laura that they’d be in touch.

Out in the cold, Emily held back her tears. She was shaken to the core. Not just from their lack of plans, or from Daniel’s general quietness over the last few days, but from the micro-expressions he was making and what she inferred from them. Did Daniel actually want to marry her or was the proposal some impulsive moment he’d gotten swept up in? Was the reality of choosing a date in the not too distant future giving him cold feet? What if he took the cowardly approach of pushing the wedding back a few years, leaving her in a state of limbo, dragging out the engagement for as long as possible just as Jayne had warned?

“Emily,” Daniel tried as he and Chantelle joined her.

She felt his fingertips brush her hand but she pulled away, not wanting his touch at this moment in time.

Daniel didn’t try again. She heard him sigh. Then, silently, everyone piled back into the pickup truck.

The mood on the drive home couldn’t have been more different from the mood on the way there. It was almost as if the air was permeated with anxiety. Chantelle’s cute outfit suddenly seemed like a fa?ade, like they’d dressed her up in order to trick Laura into viewing them like any other happy, uncomplicated family when they were in fact anything but. Their pasts – hers, Daniel’s, even Chantelle’s – complicated everything. And worse than that, their pasts complicated their very beings, their personalities, their abilities to deal with pressure and stress, their abilities to relate to one another.

For what felt like the hundredth time since he proposed, Emily wondered what was really going on inside Daniel’s head.

CHAPTER SIX

When Emily had first told Daniel about her desire to adopt Chantelle, they’d contacted their friend Richard Goldsmith, who was a custody attorney from town. An informal chat had taken place in the inn over coffee and cake. But this time, their meeting was taking place in his office in town. This time it felt serious and very real.

Emily nervously smoothed down her skirt as she and Daniel entered the plush office, which looked like something out of a story book, set in an old red brick building covered with climbing ivy. Emily couldn’t help her feelings of apprehension. What if Richard had bad news? What if she would never be able to become Chantelle’s real, legal mother like the little girl seemed to desire as much as Emily herself?

The receptionist, a young woman with fiery ginger hair, welcomed them with a sweet, reassuring smile.

“Mr. Goldsmith will be with you shortly,” she said, without them even needing to introduce themselves. “He’s just been held up with another client.”

Emily squirmed and chewed her lip. Client. It felt odd to think of herself in such a way. But that’s what she was, and what she must be to achieve her goal. Taking legal custody of Chantelle wasn’t just a matter of chatting with an acquaintance on her porch over coffee anymore. It would involve lawyers and courts, judges and legal documentation. This was real and she needed to get used to it.

Emily steeled herself. She could handle this. She had to; she loved Chantelle too much to fail, to wilt under the pressure. But there was another part of Emily that was still reeling from Saturday’s failed trip to the wedding venue and the way Daniel had clammed up at the mere suggestion of selecting a season during which they would be wed. If he was changing his mind about this, he needed to be brave and tell her before things got serious, before contracts were signed and hearts were too much on the line to turn back. The words of her family and friends still repeated in Emily’s mind, that Daniel was using her because he wanted someone to raise Chantelle for him, that Emily had made it too easy on him. She’d let him live rent free on the grounds of her property, she’d taken his child in without question, and had forgiven him so quickly for those long six weeks during which he’d prioritized his child over her. But what they didn’t accept or understand was how all those things made her love him more: his resourcefulness and resilience during the years he’d lived in the carriage house, the care he’d shown the property during the decades it had stood empty, keeping it on life support in case Roy Mitchell returned, and the fact he’d stepped up for Chantelle without question, proving himself to be a real man, the sort that didn’t shirk his responsibilities, that put his child’s needs over his own.

The door to Richard’s office suddenly swung open, making Emily jump out of the thoughts she’d been absorbed in. Richard stood in the doorway as he shook hands with a petite, blond woman sniffling into a tissue. She reminded Emily instantly of Sheila. A wave of guilt crashed over her.

Emily couldn’t hear Richard’s hushed words but she picked up on his reassuring tone. Then he bid goodbye to the woman and she shuffled past them, heading out the door in a flurry.

Once she was gone, Richard turned to Emily and Daniel. “Please, come in.”

“Is she okay?” Emily asked as they followed him into his office.

She was concerned for the woman he’d just shown out, but also curious about the reason for her tears. Perhaps she was about to enter a court battle like them, only she was on the flip side of the coin, the side where she was having her legal guardianship revoked. Was it fair? Had she done anything to deserve it, drugs, abandonment? Did anyone ever deserve it?

But then she remembered Chantelle. No, it wasn’t fair. But this wasn’t about what was fair, it was about what was right.

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that,” Richard said, putting an end to Emily’s wild flight of fantasy. He settled into his large leather chair and adjusted the pant legs of his crisp gray suit. “I have to show the same level of confidentiality to all my clients. I’m sure you understand.”

Emily’s unease abruptly returned on hearing that word again. Client. It reminded her how serious this was. They were paying for this meeting, for Richard’s expertise and his time. Everything had become suddenly very formal. Emily wondered whether she should have worn a suit.

Daniel seemed just as uncomfortable beside her. She could tell by the way he kept fidgeting and fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. They were both very much out of their comfort zone in Richard’s plush office.

Richard removed his glasses and looked up from their file. “So there are two options to consider here. It partly comes down to semantics, but there are some crucial differences between the two courses of action we can take.”