Chapter 22 - Kiss Me at Midnight

Thursday, December 22nd, 2005.
JC called his father as he and Ellie bought groceries in a service station in Orlando. "Hey, Dad, it's me, Josh."
"Hey, did you get into town OK?" Roy asked.
"Yeah. We're just picking up some things at the store."
"OK. Do you still want to come over for dinner tomorrow night?"
"That's the thing. Ellie's parents fly in on Saturday, and the week has been kind of hectic for us. You know, Ellie's last week at work before the holidays. We were kind of wondering if we could maybe have tomorrow to ourselves."
"OK. I understand," Roy said.
"Also, we're thinking of throwing a New Year’s party at my place. Just a small thing with a few friends and family." JC gestured at Ellie as she shook her head.
"No!" she whispered.
"It's only a party." He covered the microphone of his cell.
"I'm not throwing a fake wedding."
"It'll only take a few minutes. Don't you want your parents to see you get married?"
She held her finger up. "No!"
"You don't want them—"
"Don't pull that shit. Don't try to make it worse."
"We can make it better."
She paused, her lips pursed. "I hate you..." She walked over to the dairy fridge in a huff.
JC returned to the call with his father. "Sorry, Ellie and I were just discussing something. About the party, it'll just be a small thing with some friends and such. Just dinner, you know?"
"I'll talk it over with your mother."
"Great, I'll talk to you later."
"OK, bye."
"Bye." JC flipped his phone shut, putting it into his pocket as Ellie glared at him from the newsstand.

Ellie dialled her parents' phone number into her cell on the way home. "One condition, I'll do it on one condition." She held the phone up to her ear as her mother answered. "Mama?"
"Yes, baby?"
"I was wondering if you and Daddy could maybe stay a few days after Christmas."
"How long?" Emily asked.
"Just a few days, a week tops. We'd like to have you over for New Year’s."
"Ellie, you know your daddy can't stay up past 9:30."
"I know, but it'll be fun. You'll get to meet all of Josh's friends and just be normal for a bit, get away from the farm for a bit."
"Honey, the farm is our normal. What are we going to do with the horses?"
"Josh is more than willing to pay for you to board them."
"I guess Nathan could watch them for a few more days."
"Thanks, Mama. It means a lot to me...By the way, I need you to bring up your dress, you know the one."
"My wedding dress?"
"Yes, Mama."
"Why?"
"I think you know why...We're ready."
Emily choked up. "OK, I'll wash it and bring with us."
"You can't make a big fuss over it. We don't want anyone to know yet."
"I understand...thanks for telling me. Bye."
"Bye." Ellie waited for her mother to hang up and flipped her phone shut. "My mom knows; soon Dad will, too. We'll find a way to inform your parents. I'm not lying to them about anything else."
"OK, we'll do it that way." JC nodded.
"I need to warn you, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm really shit at lying and keeping secrets."
"We're boned."

The next afternoon, JC sat naked in the sun streaming through the blinds on his side bedroom window. He dabbed a small brush into his palette and traced a fern leaf into one of the slats he had drawn in pencil on the piece of board in his lap. He looked up at his subject, Ellie lying naked across the white ottoman underneath the window. He rinsed his brush in the small shot glass filled with water and picked his pencil back up, continuing to draw the curves of his wife's bare form.
"Stop moving your legs," he muttered as he drew the curve of her back.
"Get over here and make love to me."
"Again?"
"I could go again." She rested her chin on the back of her hand. "Being someone's muse is strangely erotic." She watched him as he drew her. "I don't know how you're not horny right now."
"I am, sort of. Men have different levels of turned on: there's not turned on, kinda turned on, and raging hard on. I'm a little in between the second and third right now." He placed his pencil down and continued to paint the foliage outside his window.
"I can't believe you're painting me naked as a Christmas present," she commented.
"I can't believe you're accepting it as a Christmas present."
"You married me; that's the best Christmas present you ever could have given me."
"I'm happy we're in love now." He rinsed his brush and placed it on the paper towelling next to him. "I know a few guys who married the wrong women as a last resort to save a failing relationship. I'm happy we still like each other."
"Granted, I've seen a lot of relationships tested by the planning of the wedding. Maybe we sidestepped something just by eloping."
"Yeah."
"I don't know why you want to complicate things by holding a fake ceremony." She turned over onto her back.
"Think of it as my Christmas present." He turned the picture around to show it to her. "What do you think? I still need to paint the wall and curtains, plus your skin tone. I also want to do the window and blinds in white acrylic. I'm then going to redo the lines in either ink or pencil."
"Cool...are you going to make love to me now?"

Saturday, December 24th, 2005.
Ellie slowly pulled out of the pick-up bay of the airport, her mother next to her and her father in the backseat.
"That's a pretty ring," Emily commented, pointing to Ellie's wedding ring.
"Thank you."
"I guess that means everything's official then—"
"What?" Ellie snapped her head to face her mother.
"I mean, he must be serious about marrying you if he bought you an actual diamond."
"I don't know. He gave it to me a month ago. We're not really following a definite plan of how things should occur."
"How do you know if you're ready to get married then?" John leaned forward to interject.
Ellie squeezed her hands on the steering wheel, grunting as another motorist overtook her. "Maybe that's for us to decide."
"I just don't think—"
"Look, I had to go to a mall on Christmas Eve trying to chase down a certain kind of photo frame. I also had to buy enough groceries to feed four people for a long weekend, including trying to get what ingredients I know you would want to bake an out-of-season pie. I had to drive half an hour in a city I'm unfamiliar with to pick you up at the airport, and now I have to drive another half hour home. I have to plan a...fucking New Year’s party and frankly, I'm not in the mood for you to berate me because...I don't fucking know. The big white wedding, it's not happening, it's gone, poof, vanished. I'm sorry if you wanted that, but we don't."
“What’s wrong?” John slumped back into the middle seat.
“I don’t know. I’m just stressed, OK?”

Ellie stormed through the front door, throwing the keys at JC as he entered the foyer from the studio. “Here, they’re your parents now. You can deal with them. The groceries are in the trunk. I’ll be upstairs.”
He walked out to the driveway, hugging Emily as he greeted her. “Hey, Mom.”
“Mom..?” Emily furrowed her brow in confusion.
“We don’t really use ‘Mama’ where I’m from, at least I don’t.”
“OK? Is this a thing the kids are doing…or?”
“Well, since I’m marrying Ellie…You have realised that we would become in-laws, right?”
Emily turned to her husband. “I guess so. I never really thought of it until now. I guess we don’t have as much time as I thought. That is, if you’re doing what I think you two are doing. Are you?” Emily turned back to JC, an inquisitive look in her eyes.
“I can neither confirm nor deny anything.”

JC knocked on the bedroom door, slowly opening it as Ellie sat staring out the window. “Are you OK?”
“I can’t do this.” She turned around to face him, kneeling on the bed. “I can’t hide the fact that I’m already married from them, nor can I hide your plan to throw a surprise ceremony. Can’t we just tell them?”
“Baby, I’m as scared as you are, OK.”
“Then why are we doing this?”
“I don’t know, OK? I…” He walked over and sat on the bed. “I can’t completely let go of the idea of having an actual wedding. My parents have done so much for me, our parents have done so much for us, I feel like we’re…I don’t know…cutting them out of the situation by eloping.”
“It’s selfish to want two weddings—“
“It’s selfish to say to the people who raised you, in your case spent thousands of dollars putting you through school, that they can’t be part of one of the most important moments of your life.”
“My parents chose to pay for my education. I easily could’ve worked my way through college.”
“Don’t change the subject.” He exhaled in frustration.

"Don't try and guilt me into doing something incredibly shitty."

“Did you ever stop to think about how shitty it was that we invited Maurice and Craig and not our parents?”
“We needed witnesses. They were the only two who could do it on such short notice.”
“We only needed one witness—“
“Are you regretting the way we did it?” she interjected.
“Yes…kind of.”
“Why?”
He sat for a moment, thinking. “I don’t know. I just…feel…”
“What do you feel? What are you struggling with?” She inched closer to him.
“I just…I feel shitty about the fact that we did it the way you’re not supposed to do it and that it feels right. I feel shitty about the fact that we did it when we wanted to, on our own, and it feels wonderful that we did. I feel shitty about the fact that we’ve denied your parents of something they won’t get to experience any other way. I feel shitty about the fact that my mom, both of them, would’ve wanted to be there. I feel shitty that my dad was right about us eloping. I’m thinking that maybe if we hold a little thing down here, we won’t offend anyone.”
“Then why can’t we tell them?”
“Dad will try to talk us out of it. Do you remember the night we got engaged? How he pulled you into the kitchen? He will tell us in every way he can that it’s a mistake. We eloped to avoid that.”
“And you’re not opening up any opportunities to allow that negativity back in?”
“Yeah.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissing his ear. "OK, but, BUT, if anything starts to go wrong, I won't do it. We're not spending anything more than we would on just the party, and if anyone figures anything out, we tell them. OK?"
"OK."

Sunday, December 25th, 2005 - Christmas Day.
"Merry Christmas." Ellie lightly kissed JC after she woke up. He grunted and turned over, soon falling back to sleep. She put on a pair of pajama pants under the oversized t-shirt she had slept in and quietly tiptoed out into the hall.
"Baby." Emily whispered from the second bedroom.
"Merry Christmas, Mama."
"Come here." Emily motioned for Ellie to join her. "Your father's downstairs making breakfast."
"Do you know what he's making?"
"No idea. You know him, he’s always up by 0600 hours and if he doesn't have anything else to do, he starts cooking. Do you know when Josh is going to be up?"
"Not really. He isn't as set in his ways as Daddy. Sometimes he's up before me; sometimes he sleeps in. He'll get up when the food's ready."
Emily carefully unzipped her suitcase. "I thought, since your daddy's busy..." She slowly lifted a white lace dress with pink satin trim around the bust, waist and hem out and laid it on the bed. "If you still want to wear it, it's OK, but if you want to get married in another dress...it's your day."
"It's beautiful." Ellie carefully lifted up the dress and held it against her body, smoothing the sweetheart neckline over her chest. "Every dress I've looked at has in some way resembled your dress. I thought that I might as well cut to the chase and just wear yours."
"Do you know what you're going to wear with it?"
"Only the shoes. I've brought down some pieces I could wear with it, in regards to jewellery, but nothing that really sticks out."
Emily dug through her suitcase, taking out a old flannel pillowcase. "This might seem presumptuous, but I brought down my flowers. The ones your grandmother made me with the scraps from the material Eliza used for the dress." She presented Ellie with a small posy of silk pink roses and white magnolias. "You would not believe what the security officer asked me in the airport; she wondered if I was going down to Florida to get married." Emily dug through the pillowcase and got out the very last piece, the large white silk magnolia bloom she had worn on her own wedding day. "I explained to her that my baby was getting married instead." A small smile came over her lips. "Baby, you know your father and I just want you to be happy, right? We're OK if you don't want some big wedding."
"I just thought...since...you know..." Ellie delicately placed the dress back on the bed.
"I remember when all of my school friends and sorority sisters got married. They always had these huge weddings, these giant church weddings where their daddies would rent these big tents for the receptions. I always felt those weddings were more for the pomp and circumstance than to actually celebrate the event. I always enjoyed the weddings where they'd have a small ceremony and then throw this big party, like a barbecue or a crab boil. Your granny made the most amazing crab boil for our wedding...Do you think we can convince your father to do one next Saturday?"
"We'll have to ask Karen. Apparently, Josh's family is very particular about how their crabs are done, and even though Josh would have them either way, I'm not sure about the whole family."
"I don't think they would mind."
"Mama..." Ellie grabbed Emily's arm. "I don't think you get it. They don't do their boils the way we do. They steam them...with beer."

John carefully balanced the pie dish on his arm as he knocked on the Chasezes’ front door. Heather answered.
"Hey. What's that?"
"Cherry pie."
"It's Christmas."
"Ellie's family has cherry pie at Christmas," JC explained.
"Why?"
"My parents got married on Christmas Eve. It's the only thing my mama would eat afterwards."
Heather pursed her lips in confusion.
"She was pregnant...with me."
"Well, I guess that's a thing we do now." Heather walked through to the kitchen.
"What do we do now?" Karen came out of the kitchen wearing a homemade apron printed with holly and Christmas baubles.
"They brought cherry pie."
"And ice cream," Ellie interjected.
Karen looked over to her husband and youngest son, sitting watching an old movie.
"It'll do, Karen," Roy grumbled.
"It's Christmas."
"We're lucky they're not deep-frying anything in our backyard. It'll do."
"We agreed that you make the dinner, I'll do the dessert. We have cherry pie in our family." John placed the pie on the counter.
"No, it's fine." Karen tried to calm her breathing. "I'm just trying to cook for eight people on a holiday and I just wasn't expecting cherry goshdarnit pie."
"I can make something else."
"It's fine...it's fine."

"What's this?" Roy pointed to the ring on JC's finger as he sat down on the couch.
"It's a ring..."
"Why is it on your ring finger?"
"Uh...Ellie and I thought it was time to buy my wedding ring. It's a bit tight, so I haven't taken it off since we bought it."
"Where did you get it?"
"Tiffany's, on Fifth Avenue," Ellie stated as she placed the bag of presents by the tree.
"Can't you get it resized?"
"Roy...you don't resize Tiffany's. It either fits you, or you don't wear it."
"Then get another ring."
"No, I chose that ring. I bought that ring for my husband."
"Why?"
"We were in the area; it's a New York institution."
"She wanted to, Dad."
"ROY, YOU'RE RUINING CHRISTMAS! I DON'T GET A LOT OF DAYS WHERE MY BABIES ARE IN THE SAME ROOM AND YOU'RE NOT RUINING IT FOR ME!" Karen yelled from the kitchen.

"Does anyone want to say grace?" Karen finally settled down at the dining table.
"Would you mind if I said it, Mom?" JC asked.
"Um...sure."
The eight of them joined hands, JC clearing his throat. "Lord, we thank you for this day, we thank you for this meal and for sending your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save us. We thank you for bringing our families together and we thank you for everything you have blessed us with this year. Amen."
"Amen." The eight of them put napkins in place and passed dishes around.
"Wait..." Tyler set the stopwatch on his cellphone. "OK, JC...3,2,1, go."
"Does he do this every year?" Emily asked.
"I'm timing him to see if he’s getting slower or faster," Tyler responded.
"Mama, you've seen how Josh eats like a duck. I've revised the Heimlich manoeuvre just in case," Ellie stated.

"How long are you staying in Orlando?" Karen asked.
"Until the first of next month," John responded. "Emily has gotten this idea that these two are getting married over New Year’s."
Heather dropped her fork on her plate. "Holy shit!"
"Heather!"
"That's not what I heard." Roy leaned back in his chair. "I got a call from Adam saying that he got a call from some Hector person saying that he was sending him down a final and signed copy of the prenuptial agreement. Is there anything you two need to tell us?"
"Um...sur...surprise." Ellie awkwardly smiled.
"We did the legal stuff up in New York before we flew down, just to save any running around. We're holding the ceremony on New Year's Eve. You know, do a surprise thing," JC explained.
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Heather spit out.
"Wait...are you two married yet or not?" Tyler asked.
"Eh." JC shook his hand. "Technically yes, technically no."

Ellie threw her napkin on the table, storming into the downstairs bathroom. JC followed her in.
"TECHNICALLY YES, TECHNICALLY NO? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?"
"Calm down—" He reached out for her arm.
"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME. YOU EXPECT ME TO KEEP THIS KIND OF SECRET AND LIE TO EVERYONE AND THE MOMENT YOUR LITTLE PHIL COLLINS LOOKING BROTHER ASKS YOU, YOU FUCKING TELL THEM EVERYTHING?"
"They're my family."
"WHAT ABOUT MY FAMILY? HUH?"
"I don't know, OK. Can you please lower your voice?"
"NO! I WANT THEM TO FUCKING KNOW! I WANT THEM TO KNOW THAT WE GOT MARRIED ON TUESDAY. I WANT THEM TO KNOW THAT WE ARE LEGALLY, SPIRITUALLY AND BIBLICALLY HUSBAND AND WIFE." She paused for a moment.
"It was Wednesday."
"Shut the fuck up." She ripped open the door, sitting back down in the dining room. "Anything you want to ask?"
"Why?" Roy inquired.
"We got sick of waiting. We got sick of everyone telling us that we shouldn't or can't. We got sick of trying to find ways to reconcile everyone's wishes and constantly meeting obstacles."
"OK, if that's what you want. Do you still want your reception thing?"
"I have a friend coming down from New York who's ordained...apparently. Because of the nature of the way we legally got married, we never said any vows. We were thinking that maybe he could preside over them next Saturday."
JC sat back down. "It'll just be a little five-minute thing. If you guys want that, we can do it for you."
A silence fell over them. "I'd like to see it," Heather commented. "It'll be nice."
"Is this friend a man of God?"
JC chuckled. "No."
"He's my editor," Ellie explained.
"Wait...the gay one?" John swallowed his bite.
"His name's Maurice."
"Oh, so he got ordained so he could marry his gay friends when no one else would," Heather said. "Smart."
"Then he's not—"
Heather cut off her father. "And the civil servant who officiated the civil ceremony is? As our society changes into a more secular society, our definition of marriage needs to change with it."
"I don't look like Phil Collins, do I?"

The eight of them sat around the living room after dinner, handing around presents.
Tyler tore open the rectangular parcel Heather had gotten him out of the fridge.
"Oh my God, cheese! You got me a block of cheese."
"American cheddar, too. Finest in the world."
Tyler made a little squeak as he hugged his present. "Best sister ever." He passed her over a thin package wrapped in newspaper covered in stars drawn in red marker. "Open mine."
"Pantyhose..in opaque white." Heather battered the air. "Fancy."

"Here, for you, Roy." Emily handed Roy the small box. "Ellie said you liked model aeroplanes." She watched attentively as Roy unwrapped the present. "It's a Consolidated B-24 Liberator. It's the plane my dad flew in the war."
"It's very nice." Roy passed over a poorly wrapped horse figurine. "I saw this at the hobby shop and thought of you."
"A palomino."
"I painted her myself. I don't usually do horses, but I saw the thoroughbred figure and I thought I'd try."
"She's beautiful." Emily started crying. "Shit..."

"Who's next?" Heather went through the pile next to her. "I only have Ellie's left." She exchanged a large, soft package for a small, purple gift bag. "Josh told me that you like oversized sweaters and books."
"You know me so well." Ellie unwrapped the parcel, talking out the large apricot, hand-knitted sweater.
"I made it to Josh's measurements. He said most of his stuff is big on you."
"Is this the one you were knitting over Thanksgiving?"
"Yeah, it took me a while, but it's something to kill the time." Heather carefully opened the box revealing a silver bracelet with a row of flower charms made of amethyst gems.
"Heather usually blooms in purple," Ellie explained. "The charms don't have the shape of a heather bloom, but I thought it was cute."
Heather paused, a small smile coming to her face. "You know, this is the kind of present Josh would've gotten me if he a, knew anything about flowers and b, didn't hate Christmas shopping."
"OK, I'm officially worried about my present." Ellie took a small sip of coffee.

"Are we exchanging presents now?" She handed JC a small box wrapped in Christmas paper as he handed a square-shaped envelope to her. "It's a record," she said as she felt it.
"She got me a slinky..." He opened the blue cardboard box to find a small parcel wrapped in blue tissue paper. "And a dog tag."
"What does it say?" Tyler leaned over trying to read what was stamped into the metal.
JC read out the engraving, "Joshua and Elizabeth: 122105." He got out his car keys and placed the tag on the small beaded chain with the one she had gotten him for his birthday. "It's our wedding date."
"I was hoping you would change your mind about the fake ceremony."
"Why the slinky?"
"The useless fact from our first interview. It was about the government inventing the slinky, then I corrected you saying that it was really invented by a naval engineer. It was a last minute idea when I was at the mall yesterday." She opened the envelope. She turned her head towards him, her lips pursed and eyes squinted. "A 45 record of ‘Something’ by the Beatles." She angled the disc, checking for blemishes in the overhead light. "Great condition, barely any scratches. I can't imagine that this was cheap, especially in New York."
"I bought it off Chris, actually. I told him the situation and he said it was fine. He knows it's our first Christmas together."
"I hope he didn't ask too much."
"No, just enough to buy a replacement."
She leaned over, kissing him on the cheek. "Thank you."

"I guess it’s just us left." Karen handed over what was obviously some kind of toiletry wrapped in paper to Ellie. "If I had know the circumstances, I would've put a lot more thought into it."
Ellie flipped the cap up off the bottle of body wash. "Nah, I love vanilla. Thank you." She handed over a rectangular parcel each to Emily and Karen. "I want you to have copies of these." Ellie had gotten a set of three frames for each set of parents, each connected by a hinge that folded in on each other. From left to right, the photos were of JC leaning against a post in his wedding suit, the middle photo being the two of them, Ellie in only her wedding dress with Central Park sprawled out behind them and the right photo being of Ellie in JC's blue overcoat. She pointed to the pink lace dress in the centre photo. "That's the dress I got married in."
"Why pink?" Emily mumbled.
"I didn't really feel like wearing white. I kind of just fell in love with it when I found it."
"It's really pretty." Karen folded the wrapping paper up. "Is that it?"

John handed over a box to Ellie. "I wanted you to wear these on your wedding day. They were my mother's."
Ellie took out the string of pearls. "Well, I feel shit, now."
"Not as shit as I do." John leaned against his fist. "I find out that I didn't get to see my little girl get married and my son-in-law's mother got me the same baking dish I got her for Christmas."
Ellie placed the pearls into the bag by her feet, taking out two parcels and two brown paper envelopes. She handed one parcel to JC and the envelopes to Karen and Emily. "These are from Maurice and Craig. I'm guessing they're prints of the photos we had done in Central Park."
"Yeah..." Karen flipped through the photos. "What did they get you?"
"North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Maurice thinks there's a similarity here, the scruffy Northerner who earned his riches through hard work falling in love with the refined, educated Southern belle." She found the white envelopes at the back of the book, a Post-it note saying, "If you change your minds," written in Craig's handwriting. "I don't know what these are, but Craig wants you to have them if we decided to tell you, about the wedding."

Roy took the envelope addressed to him and his wife from Ellie, opening it and flipping through the black and white candids Craig took of the ceremony. "I'm guessing Craig's your photographer friend that I met in April, the photojournalist?"
"Yeah..."
"He's very talented."
"I tell him that." Ellie pulled down on her skirt, a tense silence falling over the room.
"What did they get you, Josh?"
JC flipped open the card taped onto the front of the brown paper parcel. "Josh, wishing you all the love and safety this Christmas, Maurice and Craig." He undid the red ribbon wrapped around the box, unwrapping the paper. "It's a box of condoms."

JC stared up at the Christmas night sky, never having come in once they had returned back from dinner. Ellie crept out to the driveway, climbing into the convertible's backseat with him.
"You look like James Dean in that jacket," she commented as she snuggled into the bright red hoodie he was wearing.
They sat in silence until he finally spoke. "I think we fucked up."
"I want this, I want to be married to you, but I didn't think I would break our mothers' hearts doing it. Your mom seemed really cut up by it."
"How's Emily taking it?"
"She's crying upstairs and Dad's baking, which means he's fucking pissed off."
"Dad had that resigned silence he gets when he's disappointed at something."
"We were being really selfish when we decided to elope." Ellie ran her nails along the zipper of his jacket.
"What was our reasons again?"
"We got sick of having to wait, of people telling us we couldn't."
"Is that reason enough?"
"The fact that we're in love and that it's what we chose to do should be enough."
"You know, I was kind of expecting Maurice to give you a copy of Romeo and Juliet. The whole star-crossed lovers who elope thing."
"I think he can justify it. He's not as close to his family as we are to ours. Plus, I think he just wanted us to be caught up in the romance as long as we could."
They sat for a moment, just thinking to themselves. "I'll go see if I can talk to Mom." Ellie climbed out of the car.

"Mama..?" Ellie slowly opened the door of the guest bedroom.
"I shouldn't have become a mother."
"Don't say that." Ellie carefully sat at her mother's feet on the bed. "You're a wonderful mother."
"I never should've had you. The doctor told me to get my uterus removed after I lost Hannah. I should have."
"But you didn't. You didn't want to, so you didn't."
Emily sat up, crossing her legs so she could face her daughter. "Do you know why I called you Elizabeth?"
Ellie nodded.
"When my father died, my mama put everything she could fit into the bed of his truck and drove all the way to Baton Rouge from Lawton. As you can imagine, there wasn't a lot we could take. We moved into my granny's house and I hated it. I hated the city. I hated everyone at school. I was fucking miserable. I just wanted to go back home and live with Daddy again. But every time I asked my mama, she said we couldn't...I forgot what I was like to be happy." Emily picked at her nails as she stared into the green-striped bedspread. "That Christmas, my grandmother got me the most beautiful doll. She had golden hair and the most beautiful pink dress. She looked just like the dolly I had back in Oklahoma. I named her Elizabeth after my grandmother, because she found a way for me to be happy again. I know it sounds stupid, but I was just seven. When I fell pregnant with you, I felt the same way, like I was learning to be happy again after being so sad. I swore if you came out a girl I would name you after my grandmother.
“You were the best Christmas present I ever got. And to think you would get married behind my back on the very day I found out I was having you."
"I'm sorry. I was being stupid. I've been stupid about everything regarding Josh. I...I've never been in love like this before." Ellie nervously played with the hem of her skirt. "I feel like I need to experience everything as quickly as I can. I'm scared it's going to end too soon. I don't want to lose him."
"Do you think—?"
"I don't know." Ellie sputtered into tears. "I'm not sure. I think he loves me; he sure acts like it, but I'm scared one day he just won't any longer. Even if it's for a week, I want him to be my husband."
"I know. You want the fairytale."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. If I wanted you to be sensible, I wouldn't have let you read all of those books. Do you know what Margaret does in that book Maurice gave you? She learns to follow her heart and marry for love, not do the sensible thing."
"She buys half of Thornton's mills so she has owner's share," Ellie pointed out.
"She still marries him because she loves him."
"Are you saying my Darcy's not a Darcy but a Thornton? Josh is too sensitive to be like John Thornton."
"Maybe he's more of a Wickham and you're more of a Lydia," Emily suggested.
"Considering the red coat he's currently wearing, possibly." Ellie laughed.
"Come here, baby." Emily reached out her arms to Ellie. "You're the greatest thing I ever did, you know. All I ever wanted was to have a little girl and I reckon I got the best one out." She lightly kissed Ellie's crown. "I don't care that you two got married. It's up to you what you do, not us."
"What about Josh's parents?"
"They'll come around."
"What about Daddy?"
"We'll make it up to him."

Ellie quietly watched as her mother talked things over with her father. "I think that you should look at it from their point of view instead of yours."
"Why?"
"They're in love. Maybe that's enough to justify it, maybe it's enough to excuse their stupidity."
"But I don't want my girl—"
"If she stayed in Baton Rouge, she would've been stupid. If she married Miles, she would've been stupid. She's just trying to figure out her way to be happy."
"She shouldn't need a husband to be happy."
"Tell me, would you be happy if you had to wake up everyday knowing that I wasn't going to be in the bed with you?"
John let out a dismayed sigh. "No."
"What?"
"No." John slumped down at the kitchen table.
"That's right. Think of it this way, we got a son for Christmas, and I didn't need to spend the last eight hours in labour for it to occur."
"What about his parents?"
"I don't know." Emily sat next to her husband. "You know what I think is weird? I was watching some television program about that group he was in, and Roy told him that he would regret it if he didn't at least try to make a career out of singing. How is being married to our daughter any different?"
"Music won't break his heart."

Saturday, December 31st, 2005 - New Year's Eve.
"Do you want this?" Ellie tapped the pregnancy test on her hand as she sat on the edge of the bathtub. During a squabble regarding the angel food cake her father was making for the party that night, JC had pulled her aside, asking her to calm down.
"I fucking can't calm down. I've been stressed so much these past few days that I'm nearly two weeks late." This issue had been dwelling on her mind since Christmas. The stress of the holiday and keeping such a secret like the elopement could've easily delayed her period by a few days, but she had never been this overdue. When JC realised what she was referring to, he grabbed her and drove her to the nearest drugstore, nervously tapping on the console as she bought the test.
"I don't know. If it happens, it happens. We can't change anything, and I don't think you're willing to...do anything about it. How long would you be?"
"About five weeks, going from my last period. I was due the day we got married."
"Imagine that, same day."
"It would've been the week...earlier."
"Isn't ovulation usually two weeks before—"
"Oh, thank God. I really didn't want to explain to you how I got pregnant whilst you were away."
"I think sperm can survive that long sometimes, anyway."
"I guess, if it's at body temperature. I don't know. They told us a lot of weird shit in sex ed."

She waited longer, ignoring the timer on her phone. "What do you want?"
"I don't know. I guess I'd be OK with it either way."
"It's not a great time for us to have a baby. You've got that deal thing to work out. Plus, it'll make it look like we had a shotgun wedding."
"If anything, it'll excuse our behaviour more. 'No, it wasn't because we're stupid; we're having a baby.'"
"I don't want to know...I kind of don't want it to be positive, but I also don't want it to be negative."
"Do you want a baby?"
"We could just get another cat. Rescue a kitty when we get back from Scotland."
"What if we are pregnant?" He tried to take the test out of her hands.
"It's got my pee on it."
"Really, now?" He turned the test over. "What does the leaflet say again?"
"One line means it's done; two means it's positive," Ellie read off the box.
"I think it's negative." He showed her the test, only one line appearing in the smallest of the two windows.
"OK then."
"Is that what you wanted?"
"I don't know...I kind of just feel blank. You know, it is what it is."
"Yeah." JC placed the test back into the silver wrapping and the box it had come in. He folded the leaflet back up and threw it all into the bin under the sink. "Everyone will be wondering where we are." He washed his hands, leaving Ellie alone to gather her thoughts.

At 11:30pm, Ellie shook her father awake. "I think it's time for the cake, Daddy."
Everyone had been sitting by the pool after the crawfish boil John had hosted. Heather and Catherine spoke of life in D.C., Tyler recounted his plans for the next school year, and Derek and Craig told stories of their day at Disney World whilst Claire and Maurice looked on. Emily, Karen and Roy simply sat and listened whilst Chris, Joey and Lance recounted stories of the holiday with their families, JC explaining that Justin had already made plans for New Year’s.

Ellie and JC quietly followed John into the house, Lance calling for them to use protection. They sneaked up to their room and changed into the suit he had worn on the 21st and Emily's wedding dress.
Ellie tucked a pink pocket square into his jacket, starting to softly sing: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away."
JC kissed her, a tear running down his cheek. "Worth it."
He helped her put on her grandmother Jean's pearls and placed the magnolia her grandmother Rosemary had made for John and Emily's wedding. "Do you know what you're going to say?"
"Maybe. I haven't really written anything down. You?"
"I don't know. I might have something though."

They kissed at the top of the stairs, JC going down before her. He stopped before he went outside, noticing the Mickey and Minnie wedding cake topper Craig and Derek had brought back from Disney.
"Is that what I think it is?" he asked as John carefully placed it onto a glass in the hollow centre of the cake. John shrugged his shoulders.

JC stepped into the backyard, turning on the Christmas lights Derek and Craig had strung up the day before. "Who the fuck bought me a Mickey Mouse cake topper?" he yelled as he walked down to where everyone had congregated by the lake.
"We thought it would be funny, ‘cause you're a Mouseketeer and you're getting married," Craig explained.
"Is this what this is?" Joey pointed around at the lights.
"Yeah, Maurice is going to officiate."
"Why?"
"We wanted someone who was close to the two of us. Maurice is the only person we know who's ordained that we're both close to."
"That's mighty flattering, Josh," Maurice commented.

Ellie slowly walked down the stairs. "Daddy."
"Oh shit," John said as he realised she was in the kitchen. "You look just like your mother did."
"I think she wore her hair out, though," Ellie said, referencing the bun Claire had styled her hair into that afternoon.
"Yeah." John sniffed, chuckling as he started to cry. "I thought I wouldn't cry, ‘cause it's not your real wedding, but I guess I was wrong."
"Daddy." Ellie went over to her father and hugged him.
"Do you really think Josh is the right one?"
"I do, Daddy. I've never met a man so good in my life."
"Except for your mother," he joked, kissing her cheek.

They stepped outside, locking arms as they made their way down to the lake, Chris starting to sing Handel's bridal waltz, the rest of the guests joining in. Ellie walked through the crowd, taking JC's hand as she passed her bouquet to Claire.
Maurice cleared his throat. "We are gathered here today to witness Joshua and Elizabeth declare their love for each other. They have asked you here to celebrate this love and accept them as husband and wife. Tyler, the rings."
JC took the same three rings out of his pocket and handed them to Tyler, Tyler handing them to Maurice. "Here you go."
"Do you, Joshua, take Ellie to be your wife? To love, honour and cherish her as long as you both shall live?"
"I do."
"Great, wedding ring on first, engagement ring on last." Maurice handed JC Ellie's rings. "Anything you would like to say?"
"Knowing I had to say something, I scoured everything I could to find words that could represent what I want to say to you right now, and frankly I couldn't. I went through every book I own, every lyric I knew, those I've learnt and those I have sung and written, and I still couldn't find any. I couldn't find any that could exactly describe the blue in your eyes or the warmth I feel when we kiss. No words that have been written describe the safety I find in your arms or the yearning I feel in your absence. I could live as long as every star could live and die, but I would never find any word that could perfectly encapsulate what is in my heart for you. I can only hope that you'll one day know and beg that you feel the same."
"I do," Ellie whispered.
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
Maurice continued, "Ellie, I mean Elizabeth, do you take Joshua to be your husband? To love, honour and cherish for as long as you both shall live?"
"I do." Maurice passed her JC's wedding band, to which she carefully slipped on JC's finger.
"Anything you would like to say?"
Ellie paused for a moment. "I don't have any. I tried to find them; I tried to write them, but I couldn't. I scoured every source you did, and I found everything you found: nothing. I only wish I could've used that experience to say something as beautiful as you just said. I wish I had some story about when I realised I loved you or some letter I wrote when I was twelve. I wish I had some quote from some author or bible verse that I could roll off to express everything I feel for you. But I can't. I can only say that I love you and that I would move every star to show you that I do, write Joshua in the sky, or something. Then, I'm going to hug you, and kiss you, and I'm never going to be able to let you go."
"Pour vous."
"Pour vous, mon bien-aimé."
"Are you two done?" Maurice asked.
"Yeah." Ellie nodded.
"I guess that's it. In the power invested in me as your editor and the Church of Everlasting Peace and Salvation, I now pronounce you, for real this time, man and wife. You may now kiss the bride."
"Wait..." Lance yelled out as he held his watch up. "...13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8," the crowd joined into the countdown, "7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Happy New Year!"

Everyone started singing, all except JC and Ellie. They intertwined their fingers, smiling at each other. He took her into his arms. "I must warn you, I'm going to hug you, and kiss you, and I'm never going to be able let you go."
She stood on tiptoe as she kissed him. "But, that's what I want."