The following summer, on a July day that is sharp with yellow sunlight, I marry Daniel.
The night before our wedding day, Zoe stays with me at the house, sending Daniel away to stay at his best man’s flat for the night. I tell her not to leave me alone for a second and she nods briskly, perhaps thinking I might be worried I’ll get cold feet. Even when we need the toilet, we go together, one sitting on the edge of the bath. She curls my hair into reluctant tendrils and gently fastens each button on the back on my dress. It is tight, the satin straining over the subtle bump that has appeared over the last few weeks. Zoe raises an eyebrow but says nothing. For the last seven weeks or so, I haven’t disappeared once. Pregnancy has given me a different kind of dizziness and nausea: one which fixes me firmly and pleasantly to this world, and pushes the other one away. Already, I have a pleasant difficulty remembering how it feels to disappear, how it feels to watch my other self. But I am taking no chances.
The wedding party is small, the day simple and cheap. My dress is knee length, black – everything a wedding dress shouldn’t be. I broke every bride’s rule when I bought it and showed it to Daniel, who kissed me and told me it was perfect. I have no tiara, no huge train, no veil. But as I walk into the room at the registry office after almost a lifetime of not wanting people to turn and look at me, I realise that it would have made no difference whether there were a hundred guests or just one, or if my dress was white or black, long or short. Because the only person I notice looking at me, as though I am all he can see, is Daniel.
Phoebe wears a dusky pink flower girl’s outfit and squeals with delight as she throws petals on us when we emerge from the registry office into the summer seaside wind. The petals blow onto us sideways, clinging to our faces and hair and making us all laugh. We walk briskly, hugging each other’s arms, to Luigi’s, which we have hired for the evening. Daniel’s parents drink too much red wine and cry and tell me with berry-stained lips that they always wanted a daughter. Zoe pushes chairs aside and dances with Phoebe after our meal; the staff turn up the volume on the speakers and play our favourite songs. Nicholas and Amelia stand up and dance too, and then we all do, even the staff.
It is a day that is vivid with hope and clear, pure happiness. At the end, when the staff are singing along to Lionel Ritchie as they clear up, and our families are swaying together, tired and full and happy, I reach up to Daniel and whisper in his ear that I’m going to the toilet. Up until now, he’s sneaked in with me or I have gone with my mum or Zoe, and he raises his eyebrows. ‘I will stay,’ I tell him. ‘I know I will.’
It is a small risk, but still, I am glad when I return, having been nowhere, seen nothing, my baby nestled firmly inside me, small as a nut.