ATOP Chapter Thirteen

"Everyone is being perfectly ridiculous about it," Katie stormed, balking at the foot of the stairs, up which Emma was about to push her. "Bad luck indeed. There's no such thing as bad luck! And why on earth would something like the groom seeing the bride before the ceremony cause it, even if it did exist?"

"Tradition, sissie-mine, tradition," Emma laughed. "Now will you walk upstairs or must I get someone to carry you?"

"Mac could carry me," Katie grinned, brightening.

"No way," Emma shook her head firmly. "Here, Rachel, help me get this stubborn... I dunno what to call her... help me get her upstairs, willya? We gotta get her hair washed now so it'll be dry in time!"

"And there's another thing," Katie protested as Emma pulled from the front and Rachel pushed from behind, somehow managing to get her up a few steps. "Why must I wash my hair again? I washed it two days ago!"

"Because it's your wedding, silly," Emma shook her head. "And you wanna look beautiful for him, don't you?"

That did the trick in getting Katie the rest of the way up the stairs, along with Marjorie's calling from the upstairs hall that she had a surprise. And a surprise brought all the way over from Scotland, at that!

"I never had a daughter of my own," Marjorie added as Emma and Rachel at last succeeded in getting Katie into her room. "If I had, this would have gone to her, on her wedding day. But this is just as wonderful... I get you as a daughter now, and you shall wear it." And with a flourish, she pulled something lovely and creamy-white from a hatbox, shaking out the folds of chiffon and lace lovingly. "My wedding veil," she added softly, tears filling her eyes. "You know, if you wear the veil of a happy bride, then her happiness will pass on to you. And my dear... I was the happiest bride ever to walk the aisle. May you be every bit as happy and more."

Katie blinked back the sudden sheen that was trying its best to blur her vision, and the elder Mrs. Scott found herself enveloped in the sweetest hug she had met in many a year. Katie whispered into her shoulder what could not be said aloud past the tears rising their way the the surface. 

“Oh, Mum…. With Mac for a husband, and yourself for a second mother… anything else will be perfectly impossible.” In a desperate effort to keep the tears from truly falling, and risking Emma’s consternation at reddening her face so near the ceremony, she stepped back…. And gasped in abject dismay. She hadn’t so much as  let Marjorie set the veil aside, and it had been wound up in the embrace as tightly as Marjorie herself. It now contained large creases along middle and sides that, bore testimony to the fact, and Katie’s face crumpled alongside it in dismay. She looked dangerously close to a thunderstorm of brokenhearted torrents. And Marjorie laughed softly, patting her gently on the arm.  

“Dinna ye worry now, Katie-my dear.” There was a warmth and happiness so overflowing in her voice that Katie couldn’t help but listen. This did not sound like a woman whose own long-guarded heirloom had just been crushed by the one she had entrusted it to. Not at all. The silvery little woman who was to be her “second mother” continued. “Would ye be believing me if I said, now, that the day of my wedding I swept it up in me arms and held it as tightly as ever I could, covered it in kisses, and cried over it all together?” She laughed, a laugh that tinkled out as silvery as sleigh bells, and as softly as the braided coronet that wound its way around her head. 

“It was a good thing no one looked at it closely, I’ll tell you that…. You would have thought it had been caught in a rainstorm, nearly.”

Katie smiled through her sudden tears. “Did you really?” 

Marjorie nodded. “For pure joy to be marrying my Duncan….  my Duncan. It seemed too good to be true.” She patted the veil which now lay in Katie’s arms, and stood on tiptoe to kiss her son’s bride on the cheek. “So ye see, love, these are not the first crumples to be put in this veil…. And the more can be put in it before the day is over, the greater the joy the passing on of it carries.” 

Katie was beyond words now, and laying the veil ever so gently on the armoire, both veil and Marjorie were cried over for the second time that day. What girl before her had ever possibly been so blessed? Had any? To be given her Mac and such a mother-in-law on the same day… It defied all understanding, and it overflowed her heart with pure joy mixed heavily with sheer awe.

This was their day. Their day. 

With a gasp and a scramble, one wild and flying glance at the clock, one hurried and delighted and apologetic farewell to Marjorie who quite understood, Katie and Emma and the veil were off. There was much to be done, and Emma’s schedule could not be put off any longer.

♡♡♡

In the barn, Jafe was still imparting the Secrets of the Scotts, Mac so intent upon listening that he had almost forgotten he was locked in the barn.

“Secret Number Two." That was as far as Jafe got before his throat required clearing. He remembered exactly how Duncan had looked at him the day he’d been the one imparted to, instead of imparting. As only Duncan could look, like a big brother who’d had to double for his own Dad. He’d worn it well, but eighteen year old Japheth had not appreciated it quite as much then as the version of him at thirty-five did now. This Dad-business was harder than it looked. And there was a suspicious lump lodged  in the back of his throat. He cleared said throat one more time,  determined to win out over it. This seemed to be doing the trick this time around, so he moved on to Step Two, looking with solemn solidity at his one and only nephew. Wagging his finger for emphasis, and to keep it from becoming too somber, he put forth his likewise-begotten generational wisdom.

“Never you let the sun go down on your anger.”

Mac hooted. “At Katie?? You gotta be kidding me, Unc’.”

Jafe frowned at him sternly. “Don’t knock the sound wisdom pertaining to a path ye’ve yet to walk, boyo. Or I’ll keep the third all to myself, and a tradition will be slain in the impetuousity of a Cat. Worse than curiosity, you’ll find." Mac sobered instantly and Jafe nodded approvingly.

“Number three. Let go of what’s past, and reach for the future together. Don’t be two, Mackie, be one. Your da never wasted words. If he said ‘em, you can be sure he meant every one. You listen, and plot you a steady course…. And no wave that rocks the boat can swamp ye.”

He flinched at this final point himself, and stared into space, considering. Memories. They bit when all you were trying to do was the decent thing. So this might be just about enough reminiscing. Or else he’d have to get sawdust out of his eye, and since there was no sawdust presently to be had, it was just gonna have to be enough right now. Thus deciding, he heaved himself up out of the now nicely compressed pile of hay, and gave a laughing groan as he stretched a few firmly lodged links out of his back.

“Gi’ me a nice leather easy chair any day o’ the week…. Think I got a grasshopper in my shoe.” A note of disgust colored his voice, and he shook said shoe upside down with a vengeance before stepping back into it. If there was anything Japheth M. Scott despised, it was stepping on things that could squash flat. Shaking his head ruefully, he kicked at Mac’s foot. Mac, who had still been deep in thought, was rudely startled by this move. Jafe grinned at him widely.

“Alrighty, lad. Up and out of the straw with ye, there’s a wedding to get ready for here, and blamed if I’ll let ye be late for it!”

Mac bolted upright and was at the door almost before Jafe had finished. 

"Easy now, laddie," Jafe chuckled, pulling Mac back from the door. "There are rules to be considered. We are going straight to the Hayes', understand? No side trips whatsoever. Don't even look at the Stewarts' house, okay? Else I'll be forced to yell for the rest of that Cavalry of yours and we can go through all of this again."

"Aw, don't worry 'bout me," Mac grinned, his eyes twinkling dangerously. "I'll behave." and without further delay, he swung the door open. For a few moments, he walked meekly along at Jafe's side, looking solemnly ahead of him, deliberately ignoring the big white farmhouse in spite of the fact that Mickey was leaning head and shoulders out of a second-story window and yelling wildly at him. And then suddenly and without warning of any kind, Jafe had his hands very full indeed as Mac turned sharply and made a bee-line for the Stewarts' front door. Jafe managed to catch hold of him, but actually rerouting him and getting him all the way across the meadow and the orchard when he wasn't willing to go was another story entirely. 

The Cavalry was accordingly yelled for, but by Mickey rather than Jafe, who was too distracted at the moment. In danger of falling out of the window and in equal danger of dying in a fit of hysterical laughter, Mickey shouted the warning until the front door burst open and Josh dashed out, Ronnie on his heels, just in time to grab Mac who had broken away from Jafe again. Another second-story window went rapidly up and Emma stuck her head out, alternately yelling at the tangle in the yard, at Mickey in the window just across from hers, and at Katie behind her in the room, Katie also being restrained at the moment by a rather amused Rachel. 

The fun was just getting whipped up to a froth, which, as any good cook will tell you, comes just before you hit the Stiff Peaks stage, where the climax bursts forth. Or rather, in this case, the anti-climax. This was produced when Mac, just when they expected his greatest efforts to arise with the arrival of reinforcements, suddenly went quite still and grinned impudently at them all. In fact, he stopped struggling entirely, and Jafe nearly overbalanced with the unexpectedness of it, looking askance at his suddenly serene nephew.

Mac gave them all one sweeping sidelong glance and burst into peals of hearty laughter. In between gasps for breath and waving a hand in the air as a signal to them to hold on exactly as they were, he 

Josh looked at Ronnie uneasily. This was not going according to plan at all. Jafe shot questions at them both, and the occasional one up at Mickey, to see if a bird's-eye view made the situation any clearer. It did not. And finally Mac spoke, around another chuckle.

“Just keeping you on your toes, guys, I got a wedding to get ready for here! You enjoy your last minutes with her, cuz after this…” —And he paused, both to let it sink in for himself, and for dramatic effect— “She’s all mine.” 

And with that, he looked straight up at Katie, who had managed to wrangle a position at a window herself (Rachel being slightly sympathetic to her cause), blew her one kiss, which flew through the air unchecked, turned on his heel, and began comfortably ambling off back to the Hayes home, whistling merrily as he went. The Cavalry  was not the only one who could pull a successful stunt, it would seem. Mickey disappointedly withdrew himself from the window.