Straightening up, Elizabeth Bennington grimaced and put a hand to her aching back. She was too advanced in years to be crouched over and kneeling on the floor like this for long.

“You know baby, this would have been a lot easier if you’d just made the appointment yesterday.”

“I know; I’m sorry.”

“At least it’s not too bad.”

Nadine had picked up the dress and dropped it off at the Bennington house. What small amount of nous Reese still possessed after the events of the past few days told her that it was a good idea to go try it on and check it was okay. She’d given up her lunch break to see her mother; it was a good thing that she had. She’d been laced in, and the second she stepped into her shoes it became clear that the hemline was uneven. One side sat perfectly, the other was gently brushing the floor and would drag all day. It wasn’t terrible but enough to notice – exactly the kind of thing nobody could notice until she put the dress on. That was of course what the missed fitting was for, in case of such an eventuality.

So now they were out in the conservatory where there was the most room to lay out the skirt. Her mom was trying to fix it for her. She was no master seamstress but she could at least do a simple hem, so all was not lost. She’d had to re-pin it a few times but she was at last happy with the results. The CD player was going in the background and Elizabeth was humming along to Phil Collins’s greatest hits as she worked (much to her daughter’s protestations). Feeling very old and creaky she pulled herself off the floor and peered up and down Reese’s body. Her joints no longer coped with getting up and down like that.

“Okay. Look in the mirror and be sure you’re happy with it before I go near it with a needle.”

Reese turned around and checked herself out. The other alterations had gone well and the gown was masterfully hiding any less toned parts. The hem now looked better. Still she felt more like a small child playing dress up than a bride - everyone assured her that once the hair and the veil were on it would feel more real.

“All good.”

“Okay then.”

Elizabeth moved behind her and was about to start unlacing the back, but they were interrupted by the entrance of her father.

“Well look what we have here.” John folded his arms across his chest and his head tilted sideways, taking in his daughter. “Don’t you look spiffy?”

“Just what every bride is going for on her wedding day - spiffy.” Her mom pulled a face of mock offence at her. Reese giggled.

“Hey now, it’s the highest compliment I got!” He said. “My baby’s going to do me proud as always, and she’ll look mighty spiffy doing it.”

“Vocabulary like that, you can tell he’s a lit professor huh?” Reese nudged her mother with an elbow.

“You know, the men in this family outnumber the women two to one yet somehow I’m still outgunned. How did I wind up with such a spiffy little smart ass?”  He clipped her affectionately around the back of the head before slipping a warm arm around her waist. Reese gave him a quick squeeze around the middle and he kissed her temple.

 “Well if you will go and raise your daughter in your own image that’s just what you got to expect,” Elizabeth said airily as she put the spare pins back in her kit. “She gets it from you.”

“You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” he replied. “Well, shall we take this dress for a spin, check it works okay?”

He turned towards Reese and picked up her hand, taking her into a dance hold. Jigging on the spot he gently shuffled them around to the upbeat tones of Phil. His wife would lynch him if he got too enthusiastic while the dress was still pinned rather than stitched, but he dared a few twirls and a little fancy footwork. Reese, who had never been taught to swing dance, was having trouble keeping up. She just about managed to spin around under his arm when directed, but she was too conscious of accidentally stepping on the train. By the time they got to their father-daughter dance at the reception she’d no longer care. Ceremony and photos would be long since done and it wouldn’t matter if it got a little grubby or had a mishap, but until then it needed to stay pristine.

“The dress is doing fine but we need to work on your skills, honey.”

“Not until Mom’s fixed my outfit,” she joked.

“Well fine.”

Her father let out a huff, and then much to the surprise of both women deftly swapped his daughter for his wife. Liz let out a little laugh in surprise but allowed it. Reese smiled as she watched them, toying with the ring on her left hand. There was a practised ease to their movement, and she could imagine what they’d been like in their heyday.

“We’re two hearts, living in just one mind…” John crooned along with the music, spinning her in time to the lyric.

“Hey Mom, where’s… geez!”

Clark popped his head around the door to ask his mother a question, only to be accosted with the sight of his folks being embarrassing. He considered it distasteful for them to be dancing to old fogey music in the middle of the conservatory. Hopefully they wouldn’t do it in public on Friday.

“Lame,” he said.

“Well you better learn to love it ‘cause you’re going to owe your big sister one of those at the reception. Don’t think you’re weaselling out of it.” Reese ruffled his dark hair before mischievously yanking the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head.

“Yeah, good luck getting me to do that.”

She went to swipe at him with her hand but he’d already ducked away and was pounding back up the stairs. He was quickly replaced by Oliver, who’d come to see what all the laughing was about.

“Nice dress, sis. What’s the occasion?” He asked with an innocent grin.

“Shut up Ollie.”

Mirroring his father before him, he hung his arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss on her head. “You look great, sweets. So who let the parentals out of their cages?”

“I don’t know but I wish they’d quit because I’m stuck in here until she unties me. I got to get back to work soon.”

On hearing this, her father finally released her mother and sidled towards the door. “She knows there’ll always be a special place in my heart for her…” He crooned along with the music, kissing Reese once more on the cheek and clapping his son on the back as he walked past them and back into the house.

“Sometimes I can’t believe we share DNA with these people.” Oliver addressed his comment to Reese.

“Right?”

“God save me from the disapproval of my insolent offspring.” she laughed, a little breathless as she moved back to the sewing kit to select a suitably coloured thread. “Y’all will get to my age and realise you gotta grab your fun where you can get it.”

“And on that optimistic note, I’m going to Dean’s. See ya!”

Elizabeth fondly watched her son’s retreating back before turning back to the task in hand. Clark was enough of a handful by himself but she did sometimes miss the hustle and bustle of having all her children around. “Okay baby, let’s get you out of there.”

She untied the bow and started tugging at the corset strings to loosen them up. The dress wasn’t uncomfortable but still Reese let out a little sigh of pleasure as it slackened off. An entire day in the thing would be an interesting prospect.

“Oh. Can you pass me my phone Mom?”

It had beeped and she assumed it would be Drake (or Nadine for the fiftieth time since she’d hung up on her yesterday). When Elizabeth handed her the phone she could immediately see the text was from Sarah.

‘Hey hon – they’re being tight lipped but I think it’s down to you and some girl they saw after you! x’

There was a sharp intake of breath. Being at such close quarters, her mother couldn’t fail to miss it.

“Something up, sweetheart?”

“Umm… maybe. We’ll see.”

“Sounds mysterious.” Reese couldn’t see but Liz’s eyes were boring into the back of her daughter’s head, watching the way she’d twitched.

“Not really. Can I ask you a question?”

“Is it related to this not a mystery you just tried to dodge?”

“Haha, Mom.” She turned and poked her tongue out childishly. “It’s not a mystery; I just might have a job opportunity coming up.”

“Oh really?” She said. “Sounds interesting, what is it?”

“Well that was kind of what I wanted to ask. It would mean moving back away again and I’m just not sure whether Drake and I are going to want to do that with everything we have planned right now.”

“Oh, I see.” Now her gaze had taken on a shrewd intensity as she started pushing the dress back down around Reese’s hips and directing her to step out of it. “So what’s your question?”

“How did you and Dad know you wanted to settle down here?”

“Well actually we didn’t, I did,” she replied. “Your father wasn’t so sure. Arizona was looking like the only place he’d get a research grant and I didn’t want to go there. We got lucky that something opened up in Tennessee.”

“Really?” That struck an immediate chord with her.

“Yep. I didn’t want to move that far away from your grandparents knowing that Pops was going to need more care as time went on, but your dad wouldn’t have been happy without being able to pursue his work. If Pops had been fine or it had been a more reasonable distance then I would have been okay to follow him, but it was complicated.”

“It worked out though, obviously.”

“Yes.” Liz moved to gently scoop up the dress and take it to the table, smiling at her daughter. “A job opened up for him here and solved the problem. He would have been happy anywhere so long as he got to do what he loved, I think, but I wouldn’t have felt right leaving. What are you thinking, baby, you’re not sure you want to go if it comes up?”

She sighed. “I do but I’m not sure Drake will.”

“Well…” This was the problem with your children having whirlwind romances and giving you no time to get to know your prospective son in law. If they’d been talking about Justin she could have given her a pat answer, but Drake still had the potential to be a dark horse. “I may joke about him raising you in his image but you are very like your father. Question is I think whether Drake is really set on staying here or if he’s happy to just follow where you go.”   

“I don’t know, I…”

The sentence tapered off. Reese wondered how much she really wanted to confide in her mother. The depths of her deception certainly weren’t going on the table, and neither were the events of yesterday. The last thing she needed was anybody panicking that she was about to call off the wedding.

A heavy weight had lodged in the pit of her stomach and its name was Justin Timberlake, but she didn’t know exactly what that meant. There were unresolved feelings, that was for sure, but they were amorphous and hard to define. When you were with somebody that long of course a residual flame would still burn, and the way they’d broken up hadn’t left a lot of room for resolution and closure. That didn’t necessarily mean you should go back. Some part of her was always going to love him but for some time now she’d been ignoring it in her anger. As a result, the transition from romantic to platonic was being pushed upon her with more haste and force than it otherwise would have. That was confusing.

What she did know for certain was that she loved Drake. She wasn’t going to hurt him on a whim, so unless her gut really started telling her otherwise she was sticking to her commitments. In the past twelve months she’d made a bad habit of following whims. She was swearing off it.

“What, baby?” Curse her failing eyesight; she swore she used to be better at threading needles. The thread decided to co-operate at last and she took the needle to the hem, painstakingly making her first stitch. This was her little girl’s wedding dress so she was determined to be more careful with this than she’d ever been in her life.

“I guess I can’t help comparing it with Justin, a little bit.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows shot up and she peered over her glasses at Reese, who was yanking her sweater back over her head. That was the first time she’d heard her voluntarily bring him up in a very long time. “Oh?”

“Well, you know me and Justin have kind of called peace?”

“No I didn’t. Good to hear, though.”

“It’s just that we’re starting to be friends again, and even after everything it’s pretty easy. Me and him tended to agree on most stuff, or at least the major stuff, and even now after all this crap we’ve started falling back in like nothing happened. I usually had a good idea of what he’d say before I told him anything, whereas Drake… I guess I’m just not used to not being sure how my boyfriend’s going to react to something. I know that sounds dumb.”

“No, sounds natural to me,” she said. “You know, what you had with Justin was actually pretty unusual, so try not to compare it too much. Your dad and I were married with several children before we’d known each other as long as you had before you even started dating. What you’re going through with Drake now is the normal aspect of, you know, navigating a relationship. You work out where your compromises are. You just did that with Justin long before it had adult consequences like where you live and what job you take.”

Her mother’s words spread as a soothing balm on her skin. It sounded far less scary when she said it like that. There were all kinds of logic in it.

“What if we can’t compromise, though?”

“Well.” Liz’s eyebrows shot up once again. “Some things there’s no middle on, so you have to figure out when you’re prepared to give in and when you’re not. Marriage can withstand a lot of differences but there are some things you just have to agree, otherwise it’s a recipe for regret down the line.”

“Like you and Dad?”

“I think so,” she said. “Can’t know for sure what would have happened, but I’d wager he’d have wound up resenting me if he’d felt forced to give up his research. I wasn’t going no matter what, but if the job here hadn’t come up… I don’t know. Maybe he might have felt he had to, and that would have been the end of that.”

“Well phew. Lucky for my existence it worked out.”

Reese was smiling now and appeared to be standing less rigid, so Liz took that as a sign she’d assuaged her fears. That was good. For a moment she’d wondered if she should start to worry.

“It just comes down to what you need to be happy in yourself. Long as you got those things you won’t care where you live.”

“You don’t think you’d be happy anywhere doing anything so long as it was with the one?”

“That’s a very romantic notion, baby, but I never really thought there was only one person in the whole world you could be compatible with,” Elizabeth said. Tying off the thread, she cut the last of it away and started scrutinising the hem for any mistakes. “I think for the right fit a lot of things are negotiable, though. Trick is finding somebody who meets you on the important points and who you love enough not to sweat the small stuff.”

“And you think there’s more than one of those in the world? Man, better not tell Dad.”

“Hey, I only needed to find one. Who cares how many more are around?” She laughed as she stood up and delicately picked up the dress to put it back into its garment bag.

“Well, I guess it’s comforting for if you outlive him.”

“Impudent child!” She reached over and swatted her on the arm. “You’d definitely better not tell your dad that one!”

Any other time Reese might have laughed or poked her mother in retaliation, but she was too busy trying to ignore the voice in her back of her brain. It was an evil voice. It was a voice reminding her that as the scores stood, Justin met her mother’s criteria while the jury was still out on Drake. There would be further evidence to present when she suggested the small matter of abandoning their current plans and moving to California.

It could be worse, she supposed. At least this had come up before rather than after the wedding. And at least her ex was the other side of the country where he and that annoying soulful expression he was so good at couldn’t confuse her further.