Prologue –
Part I
For the umpteenth time Cane Ashby flickers his wrist-watch up to meet his anxious stare. 4:30 he muses, thirty more minutes. When the sun began to settle and spread into a golden scarlet glory, calming the wind he reassumed the rhythmic tapping in his shoe as he grinned a familiar toothy grin that hadn't seemed to quit to Devon, who uncharacteristically mirrored the same. He shoved his hands eagerly into his suit pockets and waits. Waits like he had for the past week, month, year and possibly for the better half of his life; nevertheless he waits, impatiently so. Today especially, it never ceased to astound him on how something that was so close could seem so far away. Even just standing here at the foot of the isle created simply by white silk and deep purple African violets mixed with rich yellow honeysuckles, matched with white chairs filled with the smiling expectant faces in the midst of a green May backyard, which would soon become a wedding, wasn't enough.
Today he wanted more. Everything to be exact and today having everything meant the woman at the other end of the isle, draped in ivory, covered in love and eternal promise.
At the thought of it his grin widens; heart opens and he feels full with a sentiment that he cannot define.
Whatever it was, he took it willingly; grabbed onto it and let it consume all areas of his anxious form, from the firmness of the soles of his feet firmly planted on the grass, all the way to his nerve wrecked hands clenching and unclenching fits behind his back and then casually into his tuxedo pockets.
The days leading to this moment, he had spent as a fanciful fool, singing and humming as he stalked the anticipated hallways, gliding and swaying his mother, Ester and Katherine in tow. He moved to the music inside of his spirit and he was playing the chords of a man in love. This blew the better half of his mind. If anyone would have told him he would think this way about love, marriage much less a woman he wouldn't hesitate to mention how bollux the whole idea was. But things have clearly changed, what Cane Ashby would have sooner deemed as the actions of a man who was clearly certifiable was now being replaced with the wisdom of a man that was consumed by something more meaningful; humbling even. It was lasting and imprinted into his very being.
For years there had always been a voice inside of him that spoke volumes as a lone boy and built up barriers as a man. A cruel constant reminder that told him that his circumstance was to never love or be loved. The same spiteful voice could have continued a tortured life and nurtured the kind of person that cared nothing for anything or anyone because no one truly cared for them. But he'd always known something was missing.
As much as he had tried to hide behind a great lust for life and nonchalance for consequence there had always been something missing. A hole that left him wide awake at night and consumed his thoughts from day to day.
She was that missing piece. The part that in which he found made him feel whole.
At the other end of the aisle Lilly Winters waited inside unconsciously fidgeting with her dress and looking into the mirror facing the archway to the back yard full of wedding guests in hastened intervals. Nerves unravelling at the thought of it all, three weeks ago the wedding fared as a beautiful thought. A dream that she could hitch up high to the universe and never reach; As the weeks passed and the million dollar decisions were made she had realized that getting married to the man she wanted wasn't as farfetched an idea as she'd originally thought when the idea shamefully popped into her head years back on her first initial school-girl crush. Now her mind only raced to how many ways anything could have gone wrong with this day, not to mention the creeping suspicion that today was simply just another figment of her feverish dreams. Which she hoped like heaven it wasn't.
Slowly, yet surely breaking her thoughts, Lily's head snapped up passed the patio door of their home to notice that Colleen, Anna and Cordelia had already placed themselves ahead of her in line waiting for a cue as she waited with her father watching her every move.
"Stop that already!" Neil chastised as his daughter dropped her hands to her side turning smiling weakly. In the past second Lily had teased, pulled and primped every inch of what to him seemed like perfection. She grimaced in the mirror, turned and repeated each action in the past hour.
"I'm nervous"
"I could have never guessed"
"You ready?" He studies her closely, smiles at the puddle of nerves that she's become in the last few hours and finally offers "Because if you have any second thoughts my car is outside full of gas and I could take you anywhere you wanna go," When her eyes narrow a sharp answer he laughs heartily and she follows suit. "Canada even, baby, all you gotta' do is say the word."
"Dad!" she grasps his shoulders and his breath catches. Lily is no longer the little girl he once knew; she was a woman of choice and principle. One of respect and wisdom, a woman that needed less of his protection and more of his understanding. "There is no turning back for me. Not this time, not ever" She peaked at the other end of the isle and smiled wide and full, at the hazed image "this is it – he, is it." Period no question or doubt. Looking in Cane's direction, even if she couldn't see him, soothes her and this makes Neil somewhat at ease.
He draws out his response, as he continues to stare in his daughter's hopeful eyes full of a conversation that she had given up on years ago. He knew what she wanted, more than anything Lily had wanted Neil to see who was to be her new husband as the man she'd always seen, and clearly as the father he was Neil could only see the possible danger hidden intricately behind a feverish love; the one that was often hidden to young girls like his daughter out of sheer admiration and clear as day to the perception of fatherhood.
Nevertheless hesitating at every step "He is" which was as much as an admission to him as it was to Lily "it. He is it, I mean"
He hoped the shortness of his words would translate to her that, despite his previous thoughts, Cane Ashby is a good man, and that he is more than deserving of her love and when Lily smiled and squeezed him into her arms, he'd known that it did. She let go for a moment and looked back up at him with hopeful eyes.
"Do you think she would have liked him?"
The question is met up into the sky where her eyes rise, away from her father and closer to where Lily thinks that she feels the closest to her mother, when she feels like that's not enough she drops her eyes to the mother's wedding dress and smoothes it out once more as if Drucilla herself were holding her close.
"Not at first," she scoffs at the honesty, smiles when he father reaches out once more to grasp the softness of her chin so that their eyes met "but when she would have seen how happy he makes you, and how much he loves you, she would have loved him."
"I miss her,"
"I miss her too baby"
When both father and daughter let their eyes fall back to reality. Neil's eyes look down at his daughter one last time. The small confirmation of somewhat of a mother's blessing was enough for her, she smiled and fidgeted with her dress and hair before looking up.
"Daddy I'm ready"
