One
The wedding: take two The date was May 1st 2006; it was the morning of Harri's thirtieth birthday and the day she was set to marry.
She'd woken up only once the night before, humming the tune to "Get Me to the Church on Time." I'm getting married in a few hours. Holy crap, I think I'm going to cry. La la, la la la. I wish I wasn't losing my mind. She wasn't awake for long, just time enough for a mini freak-out, to indulge in a tear or two, blow her nose and hit her head on the Edwardian mahogany headboard with its checkered stringing. Bastard -- the bed not the fiancé, she loved her fiancé. Harri was just nervous. When she got nervous she got confused, or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, nervousness and confusion usually ended up in minor injury. Don't be all "my left foot" about it, Harri. It will all go beautifully. Everything will be fine. You will not mess this day up. Go back to sleep. She obeyed herself and despite a slight sore head managed to return to the Land of Nod within minutes with no real harm done.
"Big day," her dad greeted her with a wink on the landing.
"Big day, Dad," she agreed sheepishly, rubbing a particularly stubborn piece of crap from the darkest and deepest corner of her right eye.
"Don't pull your eye out, love," he warned.
"I'll try not to," she said, kissing him on his hairy cheek as he passed with his paper heading toward his en-suite bathroom where he would spend what he often described as a well-earned hour on the loo.
Soon after, when she'd emerged from a pounding shower, her mother was waiting in her bedroom with a full Irish breakfast including toast, tea, coffee and a range of croissants and cheese.
"Morning, my darling," she said with a smiling sigh while placing the breakfast tray on the table by the window that looked down on a pretty stone patio and across to an ancient oak tree.
"Morning, Mum." She grinned while holding a cloth up against the eye she'd all but pulled out despite the earlier promise made. She took the cloth away from her face.
"Holy hell, darling, how'd you manage that?"
"Sleep crap."
"Ah," her mother said with a smile, "so you slept." She was nodding her head approvingly. "Good girl. Don't worry, darling. Mona will sort it out. Mona could conceal a baboon's arse stuck out of a white Fiat Uno."
"Oh, Mum!"
Her mum was laughing. Harri's mum, Gloria, didn't curse or engage in conversation deemed to be lewd a lot but when she did she made sure her verbal misdemeanor was for comic effect. Harri joined in, always pleased when her mother allowed herself to participate in what she deemed to be misbehavior. She made her way over to and sat on the chair that accompanied the table that looked down on the pretty stone patio and across to the ancient oak tree. The sun shone a bright yellow against a light blue cloudless sky. "It's a nice day," she commented, hugging herself in the comfortable toweling dressing gown her mother had given her six years before when she'd first left home to move twenty minutes down the road to the University College Dublin college campus. "Always buy quality, darling," Gloria had said. "Anything else is simply false economy."
Gloria was all about quality. She had expensive taste and found it difficult to tolerate anything but the finer things in life. She had grown up as the only child to a wealthy landowner. There was a time when her parents owned a quarter of South Dublin. Harri's granddad died in his late forties, leaving the house to her nana and mum. Nana suffered from epilepsy and because of this Gloria would never leave her. She met Harri's dad when the house was broken into in the early seventies and he came to investigate the crime. They fell in love quickly and were married within a year. Harri's dad, Duncan, originated from North Dublin and initially he was uncomfortable with his newfound wealthy lifestyle. Gloria said he was like a duck in a desert, but his work kept him satisfied and rooted in the familiar gritty reality that his newfound home life shielded him from and so he retained a balance. Also he was fond of Nana. She was a lady but she was also tough as old boots and a whiz at chess, and together they played games that would last up to a month.
Duncan had joined the guards straight out of school. He was third generation and moved up the ranks quickly, making detective in his early twenties. He had worked on some of the most tragic cases Ireland had seen. Harri would often wonder how he managed to leave all that terror at the door. Her mum said he wiped his feet on the mat and there he'd leave his day.
Harri only ever witnessed her dad cry once. She could have been nine, maybe ten. He was sitting at his desk in his attic office. Harri was holding a tray with his lunch and so she didn't knock. He was looking at a photograph with his hand held up to his face and tears flowing. He shoved the photo into the file that had been opened out on his desk, closing it quickly, hugging it to his chest, and then he spun toward the window, wiping his eyes obviously in the hope that she hadn't seen. In Harri's house they never really made a habit of talking about anything anyone felt uncomfortable about. Duncan's job ensured that he was obligated to be silent on many matters and so it became his habit. Gloria was far too ladylike and, unlike Nana, too fragile for any kind of confrontation, and Nana, when she was still in the land of the living, didn't believe in discussing anything that verged on boring. Feelings, she had once decreed, were boring. George and Harri grew up in a house that was all about being lovely. Crying had no place in this home and so Harri pretended she hadn't witnessed her father weep on that day, but years later if she closed her eyes she could still see those fat tears splash on white paper.
"It's a fabulous morning." Gloria smiled and kissed the top of her daughter's head.
"I'm never going to be able to eat this," Harri said, surveying the ridiculous amount of food placed before her.
"I know." Gloria nodded before moving toward the end of the bed and bending over to pull out a blue box from under it. "For you," she said, smiling. "Happy birthday, darling!"
"Thanks, Mum." Harri grinned. She was thirty but still got giddy around presents. She opened the box to reveal a beautiful art deco pendant. Gloria loved art deco and Harri did too. Duncan used to say they were two peas in a pod. She held it up against the window. It was beautiful, gleaming in daylight with stones that glistened. "I love it!" she said with a kiss.
George was in and lying on the bed before Harri's lips had left her mother's head. "So, Mum, where's my present?"
"Under your bed."
"Aah!" he said with a disappointed sigh.
"What's wrong?"
"That's two floors down."
"Don't be so lazy, darling, it's a staircase, not blooming Everest."
"So what is it?"
"I'm not telling you," Gloria said, smiling.
"And how come I didn't get breakfast in bed?" he queried while examining a strand of his hair.
"Because you're not getting married. So happy birthday, Nuisance. Now please be an adult." She often called George "Nuisance" and was smiling as she said it because if the truth be told she liked it when he acted like a child. It made her feel needed. "My twins." She smiled. "Both so grown up but deep down and where it counts you will always be my babies." The end of her little speech had a touch of mad old dear menace about it but the sweet sentiment was there.
George jumped up and kissed Harri on the head. "Happy birthday, Harri!"
She hugged him tight. "Happy birthday, George!"
Harri idolized her twin brother. He was everything she wasn't. George could stand center stage and hold any room while Harri could only ever be found in its corner. He was adventurous, having traveled around the world, spending summers in the snow and winters in the sun. He surfed, skied and dived and did so, well. He loved to paraglide and was considering helicopter lessons. Harri was not much of an explorer. She hadn't managed to move farther than twenty minutes down the road from her parents. Hot sun brought her out in heat rash and the one time she skied she broke her wrist. He was athletic, she was bookish. He was loud, she was quiet. He was a playboy, she was a worker. He was gay, she was straight. They didn't even really look alike aside from both having thick wavy brunette hair. He was tall, she was average. He was broad, she was petite. He had a square-shaped face while hers was oval. They were so different in so many ways and yet they didn't need to use words the way others did. They understood each other. They knew one another. George would have jumped any bridge for his sister. The Ryan twins had always been extremely close.
"Time to let go, little sister," George said, pulling away from her grip.
"I'm older." She smiled.
"You're smaller!" He grinned.
And really, between the sunny morning, the new shiny jewelry, the big breakfast, Gloria's tasteful décor, her warmth and kindness, Harri's bridal jitters and George's playful neediness, that moment if captured would have been considered Rockwellesque, in that it depicted a picture-perfect family life. The only thing spoiling it in Harri's mind was the impending nuptials.
Stay calm, Harri. Don't mess this up.
But unbeknownst to her there was a far greater menace underlying this ideal family on this ideal day.
The dress was slightly too tight and Mona's perfectly coiffed up-style was bringing on a headache, but even Harri was forced to admit that she had done a fantastic job despite a broken finger.
"What happened?"
"Desmond happened."
"I need more."
"I had a child who turned into a teenager who turned into an asshole who thinks nothing of leaving a skateboard at the top of a staircase."
"You're lucky you didn't break your neck."
"He's lucky I didn't break his neck! Seriously, Harri, think before you c...
