I certainly didn’t expect it to be, but the day that David married Olivia was actually one of the happiest days of my life. I focused on it as an important milestone for my son as a man, rather than thinking too much about the significance of the day for their relationship. I wasn’t losing my son to Olivia. Nothing was going to change, this was just a token gesture to formalise that things would stay the way they were, and a huge party for all of our friends and family.
Olivia helped me pick a soft pink suit.
‘Beautiful,’ she smiled when I modelled it for her.
‘No one cares if the mother of the groom is beautiful,’ I muttered, and Olivia hugged me.
‘Of course they do.’
She had two bridesmaids with us at the boutique that day trying on dresses – both friends from university. While the girls were in having a fitting, I remarked with some surprise to Olivia that she hadn’t asked Louisa to be part of the bridal party.
‘Ah, we’re not so close any more,’ Olivia said awkwardly. She put a dress back onto the rack, and reached for the next. Her jaw was set hard and she hadn’t so much as looked at me since I asked the question, so I knew she was hoping I wouldn’t press any further, but I was too curious to drop the subject.
‘Did you have a falling out?’
‘We just grew apart,’ Olivia said, and this time the stiffness in her voice was evident.
‘But your family will be at the wedding?’ I frowned.
‘Yes, they’re coming.’
‘And Tom will give you away?’
Olivia shook her head.
‘No, we’re not doing that,’ she said. ‘We’re not much for tradition.’
‘Oh? Well, how’s it going to work then? The father of the bride always gives her away.’
‘David and I have been to plenty of weddings in the city that skip that part. I’ll just walk down the aisle myself. It’s going to be fine.’
I imagined the faces of my friends when Olivia appeared at the end of the aisle, and how confused they’d all be… how judgemental of my son’s wife-to-be’s funny, modern ideas. I frowned. That wouldn’t do it all. What on earth was she thinking? Another selfish decision from this woman my son had chosen. Why couldn’t she just do the right thing by him, without needing to pushed all of the time? It was maddening.
‘But, someone has to give you away, Olivia. It’s just not right for you to walk down the aisle alone. Won’t you feel awkward? Lonely?’
She hesitated, then shrugged. ‘I’m sure it will be the least of my concerns on the day,’ she flicked me a glance at last, and a tight smile that I couldn’t bring myself to return.
‘In a town like Milton Falls, it’s very important to do things the right way – particularly for someone with a high profile like David. If you don’t let Tom walk you down the aisle, everyone will wonder why and the rumours will start. It’s a matter of appearances more than tradition. You know he wants to be mayor one day.’
Olivia swallowed, then cleared her throat, and said weakly, ‘I’ll think about it.’ She turned away from me then, and ruffled among the gowns again for a moment. I was getting ready to press on – to insist that she let her father her give her away – but then she held up a hideous purple gown.
‘What do you think of this dress?’ She laughed softly at my mortified expression. ‘I’m kidding, don’t worry. But… so many to choose from… ’ This time she flashed me a genuine, hopeful smile, and she asked, ‘Do you think you could you help me pick? You always look so stylish… ’
I had no choice but to drop the subject that day, but I raised it with David himself a few weeks later.
‘Olivia doesn’t want to ask him. It’s not a big deal. They’re coming to the wedding; we need to leave it at that.’
‘But everyone is going to wonder why, David, surely you can talk some sense into her?’
‘Mum, her family is really weird. I know they seem like nice people, but there are good reasons why we don’t spend time with them these days. We have to drop it, okay?’
At least everything about Olivia’s look on her wedding day was perfect, and no wonder, since I’d helped her pick her outfit myself. Her dress had a simple beaded bodice but a huge hooped skirt and she carried an enormous bouquet of lilies. She looked beautiful – but I had to steel myself against a pinch in my chest, because despite the perfect appearance, I couldn’t help but wish it was someone else in that gown, walking towards my son with shining love in her eyes.
As she walked down the aisle, I looked across to see Tom and Rita – both their faces pinched, Rita’s arm through Tom’s elbow. I assumed at the time that Tom was upset that Olivia hadn’t asked him to give her away, and I felt so sorry for them. I caught her eye and offered Rita a smile, but the one she returned to me was hollow. This was bewildering, but also… infuriating.
As Rita’s eyes drifted back to the altar where my son waited, I saw the unmistakeable signs of distaste cross her face. Her lip curled and her nostrils flared, and she clutched at Tom’s arm harder. He turned to her, and I saw the grief in his eyes too. He brushed his lips over Rita’s hair, and then his gaze met mine. He didn’t even try to smile, and neither did I – because by then, I was incensed. I thought about David’s comments about Olivia’s ‘weird’ family and my anger surged. Rita and Tom were ungrateful and foolish. How could they not realise how lucky they were, to have their plain, selfish daughter marry a man like my son in an elaborate ceremony like this one? It was exactly the kind of wedding that I had dreamt I might have for myself once upon a time; so contrary to the courthouse ceremony that Wyatt and I had actually shared. David’s wedding gave all the pomp and ceremony the townsfolk of Milton Falls could ever have imagined. Two hundred chairs were laid out on the clearing on the mountain, each one covered in white linen with a big pink bow around the back. There were flowers everywhere; huge bouquets along each aisle and enormous lily displays at the centre near the celebrant.
And Tom and Rita had the hide to look unhappy about it?! Every member of that family should consider themselves lucky to be there at all.
I turned my gaze back to Olivia. She didn’t even seem to be crying; all I could really see was that beaming white smile from behind her veil, and I felt another burst of anger hit me – she should have been crawling down that aisle to kiss his feet. But then, when she reached the front, David stepped forward and he lifted the veil over her face, and they stared at each other. My anger started to fade at the look in his eyes – the adoration, the devotion, and the stare went on and on, until then they spontaneously embraced one another. I clutched Wyatt’s hand tightly in mine, and the minister made some joke about them needing to wait just a few more minutes, and the congregation all laughed. But the gesture spoke volumes – and I set my frustration and anger down. Perhaps he could have done better, but he’d made his choice, and there was no denying that he was sure about it.
The reception was held at the golf club in a huge marquee that David had hired out of the city. The day cost him a fortune – Wyatt and I gave some money to cover the bar tab, but David’s business was doing so well by that stage, that they really didn’t need much else in the way of help. And Olivia, much to my surprise, went out of her way to make sure that Wyatt and I were included, and to make sure that I felt special.
I appreciated every gesture, from our names featured on the wedding order of service, to the seating arrangement she’d chosen – opting to include both her parents and us on the bridal table, although blessedly the bridal party were between us. I did worry that someone might notice the tension between the families, because Rita and Tom kept themselves to themselves the whole night, but I was also a little relieved, because if they had tried to strike up a conversation with me, things might have been ugly.
When it was time for the bridal waltz, David surprised me. He finished dancing with Olivia, and then as everyone crowded onto the dance floor with them, David crossed the floor and took my hand. I leaned into his shoulder, and I rested my head against it, and I whispered, ‘I am so proud of you. Your life is everything I dreamed it would be.’
David kissed my hair then, and the photographer snapped a photo of it. I have that photo on the wall in my bedroom, and I stare at it some days now for hours on end.
That was the David I always knew he could be; a child who had grown into a man so special that his success made my own life worthwhile.
I honestly don’t know when I first noticed troubles. There were tiny things even in the early years of their relationship, but these seemed more frequent after the wedding. There were occasionally odd bruises or sharp words – small things just vivid enough for me to notice and catalogue somewhere deep in my mind, in some list I didn’t ever want to consider too closely. The one time I did ask Liv how she got a bruise on her shoulder, she had such a plausible story. A horse had kicked her in the field, and taken in isolation, that might have been a very reasonable explanation. I didn’t exactly doubt it, but something about it left me feeling uneasy – the same feeling I got sometimes when David and Olivia were having dinner with us, and I’d see him dismiss something that she said.
She’d be talking about work, her face alight with joy, and she’d mention Ryder – and David would scowl – and sometimes he would change the subject in a brutal, completely unsubtle way. I didn’t actually know what to make of all this; I just knew that on some level, something was off.
My consolation was the progression of their relationship. They’d been together for well over ten years by then, and they’d only recently been married. So even if I did sometimes entertain the thought that perhaps David and Olivia had their private issues, I explained those concerns away easily to myself – because she stayed, and not only did she stay, she’d chosen to become even more committed to him. She was an independent, intelligent woman – why would she do those things if he was treating her badly?
She wouldn’t.
But then again, I told myself, nor would he treat her badly at all. He positively doted on her. She was his whole world, and he’d never do anything to risk that.
Ryder was seventy-four years old when he decided that he was finally ready to retire from the Milton Falls Vet Clinic. I heard on the grapevine that Olivia was going to buy the practice. David had recently been appointed to the town council, and Wyatt and I went to see his inauguration. It was a typical Milton Falls event, held in the park in the centre of town, attended by an embarrassingly large percentage of residents – because there’s so little to do, and everyone tends to go to everything. I clapped and cheered when David was given his badge, and then the ceremony was over and we walked across the street to have lunch at the pub.
‘I heard you two might be buying a vet clinic?’ Wyatt remarked, and David shot him what could only be described as a scowl.
‘Where on earth did you hear that?’
‘Everyone in town is talking about it. Livvy here’s the most popular vet in the district. It makes sense.’
‘We don’t think now is the right time,’ Olivia said, but the words sounded hollow, as if she didn’t quite buy them herself. She pushed her food around her plate, avoiding our gaze.
Even Wyatt wasn’t going to miss the tension between them after that. David barely spoke as we finished our lunch, and my hasty change of subject did nothing to dispel the awkwardness. We managed to get through the meal, but as we parted ways to go back to our cars, I glanced back at David. I saw the look on his face – the boiling sense of thunder – and I saw the way that Olivia was walking beside him, her whole body tucked up. Her shoulders were slumped, her arms were wrapped around her waist; she was almost cowering – but cowering close to him, as if yes, there was a threat – but David certainly wasn’t it; in fact, he was going to protect her from it. All that was missing from the moment was for David to slide his arm around her shoulder, and tell her everything was okay.
But he didn’t do that. He walked stiffly – his face set in that scowl, his gaze dark. I wondered what Olivia had done to cause his anger. I called into the dealership a few days later under the guise of looking at a new car, and I asked him about it. I kept my tone mild as I asked, ‘You were so upset at lunch the other day… did we say something wrong?’
‘I’m just pissed off with the way that rumours swell in this town. Of course Olivia isn’t going to buy a bloody vet clinic. What would she do with the business while she was off having babies and raising children? If we bought it now, she’d just be selling it again in no time.’
It was not at all difficult to pluck the silver lining from that particular cloud.
‘So you are thinking about having children soon, then?’ I asked, trying to hide my glee at the idea.
David’s smile was almost secretive. He laughed and pulled me close for a hug.
‘When the time feels right – of course we are, a whole football team of them, most probably. All right?’
We heard not long after that that Sebastian McNiven had purchased the vet clinic. He was an out-of-towner – and when people moved to Milton Falls, there was always this awkward period where they weren’t quite friends, but they weren’t quite strangers. A close-knit place like our little village doesn’t readily absorb new residents, but with Sebastian owning the vet clinic and in contact with so many farmers and pet-owners, he wiggled his way into the community much quicker than most.
Sebastian had been at the clinic for several months before I had cause to visit. That first consult, he waived my bill because I was Olivia’s mother-in-law, which endeared him to me immediately. He was quiet and reserved but exceedingly polite; vastly more pleasant than Ryder had ever been to deal with.
‘I met Sebastian last week,’ I remarked to Olivia over our Sunday night roast dinner. ‘How’s he settling in?’
‘He’s a nice change from Ryder, that’s for sure,’ she laughed, and David sighed heavily. I glanced at him, and I could almost feel the tension emanating from my son. This was different to David’s dislike of Ryder. This was intense.
‘You don’t like him?’ I said, eyebrows high. And suddenly I was reconsidering every aspect of that interaction I’d had with Sebastian McNiven. He did have an odd way of speaking with his hands, and he seemed eager to please – too eager, in hindsight. Even the gesture of the waived bill seemed suspiciously generous now that I really thought about it. Just what was he trying to prove?
‘I don’t trust him. There’s something off about him, I can’t put my finger on it yet,’ David said, shrugging. I glanced at Olivia, and saw the irritation and defensiveness in her eyes, and that’s when it hit me: was Olivia interested in her new boss?
I was aghast at the idea, but once it had risen in my mind, there was no avoiding it. Sebastian was about Olivia and David’s age, reasonably good looking in a bookish way… and he did spend all day, every day working alongside her. There was no denying that since his arrival, the tension between David and Olivia had seemed to increase exponentially. Over the following months I kept waiting to hear that Olivia had resigned – David certainly seemed increasingly determined that she should. But she hung onto that job so stubbornly, I started to wonder what the appeal really was for her.
‘She should just leave. David wants her to, I don’t understand why she doesn’t.’
‘David is just a traditionalist, like me,’ Wyatt sighed. ‘I did sometimes wonder if maybe he shouldn’t have married a career woman. Liv loves that bloody job, but I do understand why Davey wants her at home. I love that you’re at home.’
I looked at him in surprise. ‘You do?’
‘Of course I do. Why do you think I never wanted you to work?’
‘I didn’t give it much thought. Of course I had to stay home when David was young, but ever since… ’
‘There’s just something really comforting to a man about knowing that his wife is going to handle the house. It means that I can really concentrate on my job, and being a good husband to you. I know that I don’t always get it right… but I try, you know? I think David is like me. He wants to know what Olivia is doing during the day, and fair enough – she is his wife.’
I was confused by Wyatt’s comments – both gratified by his surprising appreciation of the role I’d played in our household over the years, and somehow irritated by the implication that he had a right to know what I chose to do with my days. He’d never actually shown much interest, as long as dinner was on the table by 6.01p.m. I sat back in my chair to ponder this, then peered at him curiously.
‘What would you have said if I’d wanted to get a career?’
‘You wouldn’t have, love. Back in our day, women didn’t have to bother about working except where the husband wasn’t doing his job right. Things were simple for us. We both knew exactly what we’d each bring to the relationship, and it made everything easier. That’s what David is looking for, too.’
‘Well, what do you think will happen with them?’ I frowned.
‘The obvious solution seems to me that he should knock her up and take the job out of the equation.’
‘Women tend to work these days even once they have babies,’ I pointed out, and Wyatt grinned and shook his head.
‘Trust me, Ivy. David’s woman won’t.’
Soon, whenever the subject of Olivia’s work came up, David would tense. I found this fascinating. I made a point to ask her about it every time I saw them, just so I could study the odd tension between them.
‘How’s work, Olivia?’
David tapped his fingers impatiently against the table before she had a chance to answer.
‘I am so sick of hearing about that bloody clinic. They’re fucking pets, for God’s sakes. Does any of it really matter?’
‘It’s going well, thanks,’ Olivia said carefully to me, as if she hadn’t even heard David speak. My gaze narrowed on her.
‘What’s the point of me working my arse off to build a business to support us if you’re determined to spend the rest of your life working for Sebastian Bloody McNiven anyway?’ David asked, and Olivia turned towards him.
‘Can we talk about this later please?’ she whispered, flushing.
‘Let’s talk about it now,’ David leant back in his chair and scooped his beer up in his hand, bringing it to his mouth to down half of it before he said sharply, ‘Why don’t you look at my mother and tell her why you don’t want to make her a grandmother, Liv? You know we’re her only chance to be one, right?’
‘Ivy,’ Olivia said, with forced politeness. ‘I will make you a grandmother, one day soon. I’m just not ready to leave my job yet, and since we’ve decided that we won’t have kids until I’m ready to leave work, it might be another year or two.’
‘Don’t leave it too long,’ I said pointedly, and I flicked a reassuring glance to David. ‘Women these days so often put their career first then moan about how hard it is to have a baby. It’s tragic, and I’d hate to see it happen to you. You’re not getting any younger, you know?’
‘That’s right, Liv,’ David said, latching onto my points with enthusiasm. ‘You’re not getting any younger. Did you hear what Mum said?’
‘I did,’ Olivia said weakly. Her smile faded all the way to nothing as she looked back to her meal. She’d flushed from her hairline down to her neck, and guilt was vivid in her gaze. I glanced at David, who winked at me. I was actually pleased at how uncomfortable Olivia seemed at my comments. I hoped I’d given her something to think about because David was clearly ready for children and it was cruel of her to make him wait.
And after seeing the impact my comment had on Olivia that night, I decided I’d actively look for other opportunities to help David get what he wanted.
I took my car in for a service one day, and David happened to be free so invited me into his office for a coffee. He was so busy by that stage that it was rare for us to steal a quiet moment alone together, and I was delighted for the chance to speak privately.
‘I was thinking about Sebastian McNiven,’ I said quietly between sips of coffee. ‘I really don’t want to meddle but… there’s something… I don’t know… off about the way Olivia speaks about him, don’t you think?’
David’s gaze was guarded. He sat opposite me in the spare chair in his office but leant forward to lean on his knees as he asked,
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s really hard to say. Call it mother’s instinct,’ I shrugged. ‘Just watch that one, won’t you?’
‘I am,’ David said, and I saw the beating of a tic at his jaw and the slight flare to his nostrils.
‘She really needs to leave that job and have a baby, don’t you think?’ I said quietly. David sighed and shook his head as he sank back into the chair.
‘You know I want that too, Mum. She’s just so stubborn.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’ll talk her round,’ I said brightly. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’d noticed too.’ I took a sip of my coffee, then added quietly, ‘I really didn’t want to see them making a fool of you… you know, if something was going on.’
‘That won’t happen,’ David said abruptly, but then his expression eased suddenly and he flashed me a soft smile. ‘Thanks for calling by, Mum. I really appreciate it.’
‘Of course, Davey. Absolutely any time.’