Despite the past week, we all beamed with tears cradling our eyes on Saturday morning as Carmen stepped up on the platform in the middle of the bridal shop. Surrounded by me, her mother, Leesa and Jocelyn, Carmen spun around in her floor length fitted dress. Every curve well defined, the material glittered under the shop’s bright light.
While her face appeared strained, Carmen’s smile broke through as she repositioned the veil around her bare shoulders.
Carmen’s mother, Frances Alpine, had tears streaming down her round, peachy face. The more I saw Carmen and Frances together, the more I noticed how hard it was to tell that Carmen was adopted. She really looked like Frances’s biological daughter.
Frances patted her hands together and exclaimed, “Carmen, you’re beautiful. Just beautiful.”
The mother and daughter connected with their eyes across the room.
This had been worth the effort for all of us to meet this morning.
I felt a tug on my pants and peered down at my granddaughter who was grinning. Keesha wore her flower girl dress along with shiny black patent shoes. “Carmen is pretty,” she said.
I bent down. “She sure is and you look pretty in pink too.”
Keesha scrunched her face. “My shoes don’t feel so good though.”
I peered down at the shoes, not sure why Leesa insisted on the stiff shoes. They were the same shoes Leesa despised when I made her wear them to church as a little girl. “We will talk your mama into getting you another pair of black shoes.”
I stood and looked over at Leesa and Jocelyn, both wore the same shade of pink as Keesha. The younger women’s dresses were not for a little girl. They were similar to Carmen’s dress, showing off their curvy figures. Not a bad selection for bridesmaid dresses. I’d seen worse in my sixty-one years. The wedding planning had come together well.
With the exception of the lingering murder that sat like an elephant in the room, that is. The girls headed to the dressing rooms to change, and I looked at Frances. I really didn’t want to ask, but Frances knew more about Carmen’s first marriage than most.
“Frances, you mind if I ask you some questions while Carmen is out of earshot?”
She turned to me, her eyes filled with questions. “You want to ask about the first marriage, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m sure Carmen marrying my son has been a completely different experience. And with recent events…”
Frances shuddered. “I can’t believe that man. How did he think he could walk back into her life again?”
“I heard he’d been married before Carmen. Did she know that before she married him?”
Frances shook her head. “No.” She turned around to make sure the girls were still in the dressing room. “You know Carmen was pregnant. Carmen thought it was the right thing to do, but she had her own reasons. You know so many young girls get pregnant and the dad is never in the picture. Darius was so much older. It was like he took over Carmen’s life. She had barely graduated high school, and now she was going to be a mother. He was, or appeared to be, a wealthy man, so we knew the baby would be taken care of. That was until Carmen called us one night. She’d fallen. First, she said he pushed her. She kept changing her story. Anyway, after that night, we wanted her to leave him.”
Frances caught her breath. “We hired an investigator. We should have done that in the beginning. He told us about Darius’s first marriage. When they divorced, the first wife claimed Darius had hit her.”
My eyes shot up. “So he had a history of domestic violence?”
Frances’s eyes fluttered as if to hold back tears. “Yes, we should have looked into his background sooner, but it all happened so fast. Carmen was shy. You know we adopted her when she eight. Quiet girl who like to read, even back then. She was a tall, pretty girl. People expected her to play basketball, but she was no athlete. Academic though. She didn’t blossom like other girls. Darius caught her while she was vulnerable.”
I shook my head. “What happened to this first wife? Did you find anything? Her name perhaps?”
Frances sighed. “I don’t recall offhand, but I can find the paperwork. I’m sure Steven kept it. We never told Carmen. She finally started to see the real Darius on her own, thank God. She realized she’d made a mistake and came to us for help. We moved her back home and then to school. Got her a lawyer to help with the divorce.”
A smile crossed Frances’ face. “She loves Cedric and she adores you, Eugeena. Your entire family. You have no idea how much it means to have her married into a loving family like the Pattersons.”
I wasn’t prone to public emotions, but Frances almost had me wanting to do an ugly cry. Thank goodness Keesha opened the dressing room door and ran towards me. “Look, Grandma, I have another pair of shoes.”
I looked into the shoe box Keesha had opened. A nice soft pair of black leather shoes peeked out from the tissue paper.
My daughter approached and gave me a side eye. “I couldn’t stand those hard shoes when I was a little girl.”
I laughed and reached for my daughter, and then my granddaughter, grabbing them in a bear hug. The Pattersons were by no means a perfect family, but I loved my children and grandbabies.
I peered over as Carmen reached down to embrace Frances. The warmth in the bridal shop felt good, just like it was supposed to feel.
In the crevices of my mind, I knew the feel good moment wouldn’t last. I prayed for strength because I had no way of knowing what was coming next.
I just knew it was coming.