A Life More Complete

---Chapter 18---

As soon as I pull into the parking lot of the state park where the wedding is being held, I scramble from the car full of nervous energy. For the first time in my life I’m so excited to see my sisters. I want to make things right. I have a longing to fix what was lost and broken so many years ago. We have just minutes to spare as the two of us briskly walk hand in hand to the rows of white wooden folding chairs. I pull Tyler into the first available row and slip into the seats without even looking around. He runs his finger over my ring absentmindedly and looks around. The music kicks up and Rachel appears at the end of the white runner. I suck in a breath and after that I remember nothing.

She’s standing alone. The image pulls tears from my eyes and they fall soundlessly down my cheeks. No one to walk her down the aisle, no one to give her away, this is our life. I didn’t expect to have this reaction, yet my sentimental side supersedes control. Tyler clutches my hand more firmly and brings it to his lips, placing a chaste kiss before returning it to its resting place. Rachel moves slowly down the white plastic aisle runner, a smile displayed on her face while her eyes seek the only thing she can focus on—the man standing in front of her. She is in his enthralls and his look tells me that there is not a single woman on the planet that could ever compare to her.

Rachel looks like only Rachel can look. How she was never tracked down and recruited for a reality TV show or some ridiculous modeling call is beyond me. She looks straight out of a magazine. Her dress off-white tulle and lace, gives her the look of a teacup turned upside down. Her skin is flawless and her blue eyes set off by her tan and exquisite makeup. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bride look as beautiful as she does. I’ve been to far too many weddings and most of them were for clients who could afford to buy the best of everything. Rachel puts them all to shame.

Tyler leans over and whispers in my ear, pulling me from my thoughts. “Rachel looks amazing. I forgot how beautiful she is.”

“I know. She’s so pretty.”

“Soon this will be us and there is no way she will ever top you. Plus I have always been partial to brunettes.” He winks at me and I can’t help but smile at him.

The ceremony is completed in less than twenty minutes and Rachel and her adorable new husband, Paul make their way to the tent that is adjacent to the ceremony site. Tyler and I hang back to give her space. The last thing I want to do is bombard her on her wedding day and although the number of guests is small, I still know there are people in attendance who have more interaction with her in her day to day life than I do. The ache to see and hug her is strong, much more apparent than I expected. I have a newfound sense of family and with it comes the urge to right everything wrong in ours. In addition, watching Trini destroy her life with drugs and alcohol, it has only added to the fact that I need to make things right. I want to create a relationship with my sisters that we should’ve had when we were young.

Just as the seats are clearing out I notice my sister Maizey rise from the front row. She looks completely different than the last time I saw her. At that time drugs had taken over her body and she looked nothing like the girl I grew up with. But now she’s gorgeous, long dark hair, nearly the same shade as mine, beautiful blue eyes and immaculately dressed. Before, Maizey had been sloppy, unkempt and disheveled, her hair always dirty and her skin flawed with acne. The same can’t be said for her today.

We notice each other at precisely the same moment and her face mirrors what I feel mine must look like. We embrace and I can feel her tears fall onto my bare shoulder. I can’t let go of her; just having her in my arms lets me know that she’s okay. Seeing her only solidifies my thoughts. When we finally pull away I notice that Tyler and the man who was standing with Maizey have now moved quite a distance away from us and are chatting. I take her face in my hands.

“Oh my God. You look wonderful. Do you have any idea how great it is to see you?” I pull her into another hug and she comes willingly.

“I’ve been sober for three years now,” she manages to force out through her sobs.

“Three years?” I question as I push her away from me. It’s been three years. Why hasn’t she tried to contact me is all I can think. In the last three years, I’ve called her cell and left countless voicemails only to find out now that she was fine is a bit hard to take. She’s obviously been in touch with Rachel, but not me. For some reason I’m hurt when I know I have no right to be. I didn’t try to find her. I just always assumed she followed the route our father took and to be honest I really wanted no part of that again.

“Yes, three years,” she says softly. She looks at me sadly. “Are you mad?” Her left hand moves to her face as she wipes away the residual tears left on her cheeks. And there it is, a wedding ring and matching band. My baby sister is married and I had no idea. My anger turns to sadness. Sadness for everything in her life I missed, for what we’ve become.

“Why didn’t you return my calls? How could you have let me think that you were...” I don’t finish the sentence. My words are accusing and harsh and judging by the look her face, she’s appalled at my audacity to question her choices.

“It wasn’t like that. Let me explain. I really wanted you to...” she trails off as she begins to cry again. “You were the closest thing I had to a mother and I’d made such a mess of my life with Kevin and the drugs and all the other shit that went down, I couldn’t face you, let alone hear your voice. It killed me. You’ve done so well on your own and I was a total failure.” She begins to cry harder. It’s difficult to decipher her words through her ragged breathing and cries. “I needed to make it right before I could face you. I want you to be proud of me. Your opinion of me is the only one that matters.”

I’m stunned into silence. I had no idea that she felt that strongly about me or my opinion of her. It’s almost embarrassing how highly she regards me, because let’s face it; I’m just as messed up as she is. The same parents with the same terrible genes, and we all lived through the same closed off miserable childhood. I want to hate my mother for forcing me into the role of parent, for allowing us to grow up alone and most of all, for making Maizey feel like she was unworthy of my love and understanding.

“I can’t believe you think I wouldn’t want to know if you were safe regardless of what you were doing. It never mattered. I love you and that’s unconditional. I am proud of you and always have been.”

“That really means a lot to me. I love you more than you will ever know. You can’t even begin to imagine the number of times I wanted to call you.”

We hug again and she briefly fills me in on her life over the last three years. She tells me how when her inheritance money ran out Kevin left her, but before that they moved to Charleston, South Carolina and lived off of it for a couple of years. He left her when she was just twenty, which still seems to bother her, but I think that’s because she took him back. It ended for good near her twenty-third birthday. When the money ran out for good he was gone, too. She was working at a bar in Charleston, waitressing and bartending when she met her husband, coincidentally his name is Kevin, too, yet nothing similar exists. He’s a lawyer, airline crash litigation, for Delta Airlines and works of out of their Atlanta offices, which is where Maizey now lives. Kevin happened to be in town dealing with some legal issues that arose from a plane that skidded off the runway. He ate at the bar every night and was completely smitten with Maizey.

“I think he borderline stalked me, but it was so endearing I couldn’t say no,” she says, beaming. “We talked every night and after six months I moved in with him. A year and half later we were married. It was at the courthouse. No one was there, not even Rachel, so don’t go getting all jealous on me.” She rolls her eyes as she links arms with me. “We’d better get back to our dates before they leave us. They must be bored out of their minds.”

“Oh, I sincerely doubt that. Both lawyers. I’m sure they have a ton to talk about.”

“Your date’s a lawyer, too?” she asks, obviously unaware of who he is. Neither of us got a good look. We were both so wrapped up in our own thoughts. “Where’d you meet him?”

I laugh slightly and reply, “Naperville North High School.”

“What?” She’s thoroughly confused now.

“It’s Tyler. He’s the lawyer for one of my clients. We got back together recently and things are really good.” I show her my ring and I’m pretty sure she nearly trips over her feet.

“Holy shit! You’re marrying Tyler?” I nod my head as she stops walking. “Are you kidding me? This is crazy! And that is some ring! But what else would you expect from Tyler?”

She knows him well. He spent more time with my sisters and me than anyone else. Sitting next to us at the movies, getting us beers at parties, driving us home from school when my car wouldn’t start. He was as present in Maizey and Rachel’s life as I was. He was even around more than our mother. Maizey was in the back seat when Tyler rolled his Jeep Wrangler after it slid on some black ice on Naperville-Plainfield Road on the way home from an away basketball game at Bolingbrook High School.

“I know. It’s all a little crazy, but the good kind,” I say. We start walking again and out of nowhere Rachel runs up screaming and nearly plows us over. She’s all tulle and lace, her blonde hair loose and flowing behind her. She hugs us both and screams a little too loudly for our close proximity.

“Oh my God! You brought Tyler as your date? What the hell are you thinking? I knew something was up when you didn’t answer my text.”

“We can talk about it later.” I say dismissing what I know to be a reprimand at the hands of Rachel. “This is your wedding and you look amazing. I’m just happy I’m here with both of you. Let’s make sure that from this day on, no more secrets, no more missed phone calls. Let’s make this right in spite of everything, in spite of our mom.”

“Definitely,” Maizey says smiling. “Not just in spite of her, but because of her. Let’s honor the fact that we all escaped her virtually unscathed.”

“We’ll toast to it,” Rachel says. “Irish whiskey, anyone?”

“Only if it’s The Wild Geese. It’ll be like a tribute to our childhood,” I say and Rachel agrees but Maizey declines out of respect for her sobriety.

Back when the three of us lived with our mother we’d steal bottles of The Wild Geese out of her hiding place behind the toilet tank and drink shot after shot on the roof outside my bedroom window. Probably not our smartest move considering we could have easily fallen off given our drunkenness, but we managed. We’d fill the bottle with apple juice and stash it back where we found it.

“Of course. I had the bar stock it special for tonight,” Rachel says. “That shit’s expensive. No wonder she was mad that we filled it with apple juice after we drank it dry.” All three of us laugh, which is pretty much how we spent our high school days, laughing and drinking. It was the one time when I wasn’t in charge and it felt good to go back to that time. Tonight’s going to be about my sisters and me. “We need to find our dates,” Maizey says.

“Don’t worry. They’re by the bar with Paul,” replies Rachel.

We make our way to the tent and then to the bar. I spot Tyler and he smiles at me a bit too smugly. And then I hear him say, “Have you guys ever seen the three of them together?” I know exactly what he’s talking about and by the looks on Paul and Kevin’s faces they see it, too. Rachel and I are polar opposites. Her with her blonde hair and blue eyes, she looks like she should be playing beach volleyball and sunning herself on lounge chair. She tans instantly and when she does her eyes appear bluer and her hair blonder. We’re the same height, but that’s where it stops. While my hair turns copper in the sun and my skin stays somewhere between pale and a slight tan no matter how much bake myself. My green eyes are as bright as hers are blue. My nose, no matter how much sun I didn’t get would still be smattered with freckles and Rachel’s nose, perfectly flawless. As much as we differed in looks, our features are dead on the same. That’s what creates the strange looks we get. Our eyes are the same shape, our noses, perfect ski slopes, profiles matching exactly, and the shape of our face long and narrow with a bottom lip that looks too full sometimes. The strangest part of all is Maizey. She is a combination of the two of us. Dark hair, but blue eyes, tan skin but freckles; she is a rare mixture of the two of us and it’s fitting since she is the last.

Tyler winks at me and says, “Watch out for the little one, she’s trouble.” He walks over and pulls Maizey into his embrace. He whispers something into her ear and she laughs her endearing child-like laugh that hasn’t changed since we were kids.

“I was only trouble because I was always trying to keep up with you guys. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to ditch me all the time I would’ve behaved myself.” She shoves Tyler slightly as she moves away from him.

“Maybe we were trying to tell you something,” he jokes shoving her back. Tyler and Maizey always had a great relationship. She put him on a pedestal and no matter what happened she would defend him to the end. He was her first real crush and he was also one of the only men in her life that she trusted. He never turned his back on her the entire time we were in high school. He treated me like shit, but never her. Their friendship was endearing and cute in the way that all high school bonds are. They seem to have picked up right where they left off and the look on her husband’s face screams annoyance. At one point during the night he pulls her aside and from the looks of it chastises her for her behavior. Rachel, Tyler and I drink shot after shot dedicating them to Rachel’s marriage and sisters, eventually changing to random things like, cars that smell like wet dog and The Taste of Chicago. Tyler requests “Jessie’s Girl” and we pretty much dance till we pass out, not sure if it’s from exhaustion or the sheer amount of alcohol that is filling our bodies.

Rachel hired several buses to shuttle people from the reception back to their hotels, which turns out to be for the best considering most of the guests are drunk and there’s no possibility of getting back without driving. We board the bus and I kiss Rachel and Maizey good-bye. I tell them we’ll meet for breakfast, for some reason, I guess it’s unclear to us exactly how drunk we are. It will become painfully clear early the next morning.