A/N: Well, it's that time again... time to say we've reached the penultimate chapter. :'( I'm sorry it's late. I'm posting without proofreading since I got such a late start, so please overlook any mistakes you happen across. I'll tidy up when I get the chance to re-read later. Have a good weekend, y'all.
CHAPTER 38: The Ballad of a Dove
. . .
"Okay, I don't want to alarm you, but I think Frannie may have swallowed one of the rings."
A lump formed in Amanda's esophagus, as if she had just swallowed one of the rings herself, and she whirled away from the mirror, her reflection red-faced and wild-eyed beneath the fairy crown of pale yellow roses that adorned her hair. After much debate, she had opted to wear it down, in a brooklike flow of gentle, golden waves. That felt more natural to her than any prissy updo, and though a little disappointed by the decision, Olivia had acquiesced, declaring that she too would wear her dark mane loose and wavy. "To compliment my bride."
That hadn't been Amanda's main objective, but she wasn't going to discourage it, either. As much as she adored Olivia's hair in all its varied and lovely manifestations, each one somehow prettier than the last, she liked it best when it tumbled freely around the captain's perfect, poised shoulders. That was her Liv. Her wife.
Except now one of the damn dogs had swallowed one of the damn rings, minutes before the ceremony. She'd thought it was such a cute idea, including Frannie and Gigi as part of the wedding processional, both of them wearing flowered collars to match their mamas' headdresses. Bridesmutts, she had dubbed them, getting an eye roll from Olivia, who was every bit as keen on the dogs' participation as Amanda was.
Noah had been entrusted with a dual role as ring bearer and Frannie's handler—the pit mix had a fondness for men, even very young ones, and she'd taken strongly to the boy in the past year, sometimes choosing him over Amanda. (That was fine with Amanda. Outnumbered six to one by females in his own home, her son deserved a loyal companion.) Jesse was in charge of Gigi, who obeyed commands from everyone in the household, including the smallest member, Matilda, and wouldn't dream of dragging her young attendant down the aisle.
It had seemed like the perfect plan.
Then Daphne appeared, blue eyes oversized in her finely structured face, and made that announcement. And now Amanda was having a nervous breakdown in the middle of a church nursery with a crayon-colored landscape of cartoon trees painted on the walls.
"I'm gonna kill 'er," she announced, hands miming a stranglehold on the air in front of her. The first engagement band—the one she teasingly referred to as their "practice ring," just to rile Olivia—glinted on her right ring finger. They could use that set today, and wait for Frannie to deposit the other in a day or two (then however long it took to have the thing professionally cleaned). But no, murder felt like the appropriate course of action. "Bring her here. I'll strangle her with my veil."
Yes, she had recanted her agreement with Olivia, made while the captain was under duress—so to speak—and worn the veil. She hated to admit it, but it looked gorgeous flowing out behind her, a pristine and seamless match to her dress. Why was Olivia always so damn right?
"Whoa." Daphne drew back a step, folding the sides of her buttery chiffon skirt in on themselves, as if she'd just encountered an ankle-deep mudhole for crossing. She had expressed some concern about resembling a "sexy Mr. Peanut" if she paired her cane with the tea-length yellow skirt and lace bodice of her maid of honor dress, but she looked more like a pretty Black-eyed Susan in the cheerful color, her dark bob swept into a curly half ponytail. "Before you go all Red Wedding up in here, I was joking. The rings are safely attached to that little pillow Fin's guarding. Nobody's getting their hands—or paws—on them until it's time."
"Daphne! You scared the shit out of me." Amanda clutched at her chest, taking deep, gulping breaths, as far as the bodice of her dress would allow. It wasn't particularly tight, but the eyelet lace trim, an intricate daisy chain that looped around the V-neck and the waist, was so delicate, she feared stretching it out with too much expansion. This was precisely why she hated to dress up. She felt stiff as a mummy, white swaddling and all.
The dress was pretty, though. One of the simpler garments from the list she and Olivia had compiled of their top three choices each. Amanda's photo array had been comprised only of dresses, despite having won the challenge she posed in bed a few weeks earlier. ("I said if you held out longer than two minutes, I'd wear the dress," she'd bickered playfully, when Olivia insisted her orgasm at exactly two minutes made her the victor. "But if you want a rematch, that's fine by me. Bring it, lady.")
In the end, she had gone with this dress because of the reasonable price tag, but it had the added bonus of being her favorite. Beyond the fitted bodice, the skirt just grazed the tops of her feet, more of the eyelet lace wrapping around it in tiered segments. No unnecessary frills or frippery, no complicated eye hooks or heavy beading to worry about snagging and spilling all over the floor of the church. Just soft, airy fabric that reminded her of white doves and fluffy clouds on a sunny day. She was tempted to walk barefoot down the aisle in such a dress; she wouldn't, lest she look like a pipsqueak next to her long-legged, heel-wearing bride—but she was tempted.
"I love you, Daph," Amanda said with complete solemnity now, "but if you ever freak me out like that again, I will sell you to the nearest pet store as an Easter chick. One look at you in that dress, they'll believe me."
Daphne snickered and ambled closer, barely leaning on the white cane she'd bought specially for the occasion. It was decorated with a winding vine of tiny yellow flowers and Alice-blue ribbon. Leave it to Daphne to make a fashion statement with a wedding color scheme. "Sorry, Mandy Lou. I figured if I led with that, you'd be less likely to freak out that Frannie did actually eat part of her leash. The flowers, specifically. Kinda looks like they went through a wood chipper."
The floral vines, entwined with the dog leashes to add that little bit of pretty Olivia so loved, had been another of Amanda's so-called inspired ideas. She should have known better than to trust Frannie around anything that smelled good and appeared remotely edible. "Damn mutt," she said, but shook her head and chuckled. It was either laugh or cry, and she wasn't about to ruin the makeup she'd applied with painstaking care half an hour earlier. At least not yet.
She fully expected to bawl like a baby while reciting her vows. Writing them, she could barely get through two lines at a time without fat tears rolling down her cheeks and wetting the paper below. She'd memorized every word she put down, determined not to carry a folded scrap of notebook paper down the aisle, but there was a cheat sheet tucked into the cup of her bra. Just in case.
Turning back to the mirror as Daphne sidled up next to her, Amanda gave a light, exasperated sigh but smiled at both their reflections. Little had she known that striking up a conversation with a random stranger at the dog park would someday lead to this: that same random stranger now a best friend, about to see her down the aisle to marry the woman she might never have pursued without a less than subtle nudge from an enthusiastic matchmaker.
Suddenly, she enveloped Daphne in a tight hug, threatening to lift the smaller woman off the ground. But not in this dress and not with her abdomen still a bit tender to the touch. That lap dance from Olivia a couple weeks ago had sent a few stabbing pains—along with all that pleasure—straight to her gut, but she'd muscled through. No way in hell would she have missed out on that performance, even if she'd been freshly gutshot and bleeding out.
"What's that for?" Daphne asked, straightening the smaller wreath of flowers atop her head and casting an amused but deeply fond expression up at Amanda when they parted. "You been back here hitting the sauce? Got a little flask hidden away in your garter belt?"
"I wish," Amanda said, with a light laugh. But she didn't—not really. Just then, she had pretty much everything she ever could have asked for in life (or she would, in a few more minutes, when she slipped the wedding ring onto Olivia's finger), and she didn't have to drink, smoke, or gamble to get it. She realized, all at once, what the feeling was that she'd woken up with this morning; that kept her humming "You Shook Me All Night Long" the entire time she primped and preened for this moment; that inspired her spontaneous embrace with Daphne a second ago: Happiness.
Happiness like she'd never known, and in the form of a person she never could have dreamed existed—at least not for her, anyway.
"I'm just . . . " She fingered the lighthouse charm that hung from a silver chain around her neck, the smooth shard of pale blue sea glass nestled behind it. What had Olivia said when she clasped it on her?
I was unmoored. Drifting out there with nothing to hold onto. You're the light that showed me the way back home.
If she was Olivia's guiding light, Olivia was the open and endless sky that allowed her to shine. She'd put that in her vows and it was the reason she had suggested the color scheme of their wedding: white, yellow, blue. The shades of a sunny sky stretching out into infinity. And that infinity the size of her love for Olivia Benson.
"I'm just really happy," she concluded, and donned the huge smile to prove it. Today, she didn't care if her emotions were on display for everyone to see. Let 'em look.
"Good. You should be. I saw your intended a minute ago, and I'm not saying I was tempted to whisk her away to a secluded island somewhere, never to return, but . . . " Daphne shook her hand in the air as if she'd touched something hot, making the same face guys made when they turned to check out a hot girl's thong at the beach. "I might have booked a private jet on my way in here."
"Really? Even on my wedding day?" Amanda lifted an eyebrow at her petite friend's reflection, but her smile took on a sly tilt and she leaned towards Daphne in a secretive stance. "She looked that good, huh?"
Daphne pretended to bite her knuckle and momentarily crossed her eyes, this time imitating the men in screwball comedies who lusted after beautiful women they could never attain. Yep, even on Amanda's wedding day, Daphne was going to drool over her bride. This could be Amanda's funeral, and the clerk would probably still hit on Olivia. "So good," she groaned, but when her eyes came back into focus, she let them travel appreciatively over Amanda, top to bottom. "You're none too shabby yourself there, peaches."
Smirking, Amanda opened her mouth for a sassy retort, and instead heard herself say, "Thanks, Daph. For . . . everything."
"Oh, no. Don't you dare do that." Daphne held up her finger at Amanda's softening expression and took a step back, shaking her curly little bob. "If you start crying, I'll start crying. I am not going back out there looking like Alice Cooper."
"I ain't gonna cry," Amanda crabbed, even as she gazed up at the colorful faux-sky ceiling and fanned her bottom eyelashes. Lord, getting married turned her into such a girl. She shoved playfully at Daphne's shoulder when she glanced back down to find the younger woman making a pouty face at her, misty eyes twinkling merrily. "Hush up. Is it time yet?"
"Yep. Come on, Mandy Lou." Daphne held out her arm with a small debonair bow. "Let's go get your girl."
. . .
"You look so pretty, Mommy."
"You so pretty, Mommy," echoed Matilda, never to be outdone by her big sister in compliments or cuteness. She watched Jesse closely, attempting to imitate the same tiptoeing pirouette the older girl had just executed mid-gallop, yellow and white saddle shoes squeaking on the shiny rec room flooring.
The toddler's twirl was more of a drunken, circling hobble, but she beamed proudly when she faced forward again and Olivia clapped for her sweet dancing girls.
"Thank you, lovebugs." Olivia puckered her lips at them in the mirror, making kiss noises. She caught a glimpse of Noah slouched in a folding chair in the corner, scuffing his Converse sneakers for a similar screeching effect to the one Jesse had produced, the pant legs of his light blue seersucker trousers flapping idly. He plucked at his suspenders and let them snap back against his white Oxford shirt, then sighed and tugged at his yellow bow tie.
"Noah honey, don't you want to dance with your sisters?" Olivia asked gently, head tilted to one side as she adjusted the diamond studs in her ears.
A Tyler family heirloom on loan from Daphne, the earrings served as her something old, something borrowed, and something blue—beneath both studs a small circlet of diamonds surrounded a black pearl with a blue tint that matched the sapphires in the wedding ring that would soon be on her finger permanently. Nestled in the upswept sides of her otherwise loose hair were a set of silver combs adorned with blue and white crystals which she'd purchased days before because they were pretty yet inexpensive. Something new.
And then there was her boy—her other something blue. "Huh-uh," he replied, and heaved a listless sigh. He'd been sulky off and on the past few days, but this morning he hadn't wanted to get out of bed and he'd snapped at Amanda for ruffling his curls, then at Jesse for knocking over his orange juice.
Since then, he had gotten a bit lost in the shuffle of wedding preparations and last minute hiccups (Gigi getting carsick on the way to the church; Matilda's ballet flats getting left at home, requiring Carisi to race across town, and race back with a pair of dainty yellow slippers in his hand). Olivia had barely seen her son until he wandered into her makeshift dressing room moments ago, little sisters in tow, and flopped into the chair.
"But you've got that new routine you've been working on." Olivia spread a coat of clear gloss over her pale pink lips, adding a subtle wet sheen to the layer of MAC in Pretty Please. She dotted the applicator to Matilda's lips when the little girl leaned on her thigh, straining on tiptoe, mouth open wide like a baby bird. ("Ipstick, Mommy.") "You should teach it to them. They love to—"
"No," said Noah, arms folded.
Olivia fell silent as she finished dabbing some gloss to Jesse's lips. The five-year-old was being uncharacteristically compliant and girly today; apparently fancy clothes brought out her feminine side, even though she had insisted on wearing a pantsuit instead of a dress. "Tilly can wear a dress, I want that," she'd declared, pointing out the white jacquard suit at the bridal shop. And Olivia couldn't exactly say no after she had just picked out a suit herself.
Crisp pleated trousers that reached the heels of her suede pumps, a sleek buttonless blazer with satin lapels to be worn open and sleeves to be worn bunched at the elbow—all in lush white befitting of a swan. But the real showstopper was the white lace bodysuit with the nude lining that appeared to show a goodly amount of skin underneath the delicate floral designs on the bodice. It was almost too risqué for a wedding or for a fifty-three-year-old, but it should be more than enough to assuage Amanda's disappointment that she hadn't worn a dress.
She showed the girls how to rub the gloss between their lips—neither quite got the hang of it—and swiveled around on the stool to face Noah, patting her thighs briskly. "Okay, bud, come on over here. Time for a family meeting."
Noah sighed again, extracting himself from the chair as if he'd been glued to it and shuffling over with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. "Ma's not here," he said, when he stood sullenly before Olivia, the mop of brown curls falling into his eyes.
"That's okay. I'll get her up to speed later." Olivia brushed back the curls and tugged him closer, lassoing Jesse and Matilda with her other arm. "For now it can just be a mommy and kiddos meeting. Sound good?"
The little girls nodded. Noah shrugged.
"Well, first off, I want you three to know how proud I am of you. You've all been such a big help getting ready for today, and you did such a good job getting yourselves dressed. You're the best looking bunch of kiddos I've ever seen."
Actually, Noah and Jesse had insisted upon dressing themselves (although, Noah did permit Uncle Fin to affix his bow tie and boutonniere). Poor Matilda had gotten caught in the crossfire and tripped into the rec room with her flower girl dress on cockeyed—courtesy of an up-and-coming young designer named Jesse Eileen—the chiffon rosettes that bloomed on the maxi skirt growing at a noticeable slant.
Olivia had rescued her youngest, settling the ribbon straps into place on the toddler's tiny shoulders, re-tying the tangled sash at her back, and fluffing the rosette skirt into a full bouquet. It was a decidedly bohemian frock, but it had been Matilda's choice, and Olivia was quietly, gently trying to foster an unshakable sense of self and decisiveness in her most amiable and permissive child.
"But I also want to make sure you guys know that today isn't going to change anything. Not in a bad way, at least." She looked at each of her children in turn, the way she did while reading them stories at bedtime, ensuring that everyone was following along. "It's definitely not going to change how much Mama and I love you. Nothing could ever do that. Ever.
"Today is just a way for Mama and me to celebrate how much we love each other. And how happy we are to be a family—which includes all three of you." Olivia tapped each child, smallest to largest, on the end of the nose with her fingertip. "So, that means it's your day to celebrate too. Kinda like . . . " She focused on Noah, glad to find him listening intently, the clouds slowly parting behind his blue, blue eyes. "Like when you learn a new dance and can't wait to show everyone at your recital. You know how excited and happy that makes you feel?"
"Yeah," Noah said, his posture relaxing a bit in Olivia's embrace. ("Yeah," agreed Jess and Tilly.) He rested his arm on her shoulder for a moment, then tentatively reached up to touch the wreath of roses and peonies that encircled her head.
"That's how your mama and I feel today. And it would make it even more special to know that you three felt that way, too."
"I do, Mommy," Jesse said automatically, her attention beginning to wane. She was watching her saddle shoes again, legs wiggling incessantly. Her mama's daughter. ("I dood, Mommy," Matilda echoed, much more content to snuggle at Olivia's side.)
That just left her eldest—her deep thinker and biggest worrier—and she looked to him with a hopeful expression that melted into relief when he assented with a faint nod, a faint smile, and said, "Me too, Mom."
Still, there was a long hesitation during which she sensed him building up to something. It made her anxious. Please don't let this be the moment he asks about his father, she thought, and held her breath. Oh, please.
"It's just . . . " Noah glanced at his sisters, then back to Olivia—or specifically, at the flowers in her hair. He pointed to them, this time without touching the petals, and scrunched a shoulder against his ear in a bashful pose. "How come I can't have one of those?"
Momentarily caught off guard, Olivia blinked at him in surprise and a bit of confusion. He had seemed pleased with his boutonniere, a sweet nosegay of white and yellow spray roses, but now he was gazing at the arrangements on her and the girls' heads with open envy.
"You want a flower crown?" she asked, careful to use a neutral tone. Being mother to a boy had proven challenging from the outset—she wanted him to have the freedom to pursue masculine interests, but without internalizing the toxic behavior that so often accompanied them; she also wanted him to appreciate and respect the feminine, without forcing her own interests on him and without worrying he would be ridiculed by his peers.
Truth be told, she'd had reservations about the dance lessons at first. And he had come home crying after school one day because his former baseball teammates teased him for wearing ballet shoes. "They said I wear tutus, but I don't," he wailed, recounting the story to a sympathetic Olivia and a fuming Amanda. (Olivia thought her then-girlfriend might actually punch some second graders after that incident.)
Most of his friends were from dance class now, so the teasing had abated. Thanks to Amanda's quick thinking, pointing out that dancers were some of the strongest athletes around and even football players took ballet to develop better agility, the boy had returned to school—and the dance studio—with renewed determination. Much better than Amanda's alternative suggestion to Olivia that same evening: "Lemme at least teach him how to give those little shits atomic wedgies. Wet Willies? Purple nurples? Oh, come on!"
Yeah, her boy was going to turn out all right. And if he liked wearing flower crowns, or even a damn tutu, she wouldn't discourage him or let anyone else do it, either. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't realize you wanted one. Here, you can—"
"You can wear mine, bubby," said Jesse, and tore the crown from her own head, several bobby-pins and long beach-blonde strands coming with it, and plopped the flowers on top of her brother's—her big bubby—head. "Can I wear your boot thing?"
"Boutonniere," Olivia said lightly, unpinning the sprig from Noah's eagerly extended suspender and transferring it to Jesse's lapel as she explained that the word was in fact French for buttonhole.
It occurred to her that she sounded like her mother, always correcting Olivia's grammar and providing the definition to words far beyond the range of most children's vocabularies. She decided it wasn't such a bad thing. There weren't many of her mother's traits that she cared to pass down to her kids, but she would forever be grateful to Serena for instilling in her a love of language. She could honor her mother's memory (Would Serena have been proud of her, today? Would she have stayed sober long enough to see her only daughter walk down the aisle?) by keeping that tradition alive.
Moments later, when she dabbed the stopper from a perfume bottle to her wrist, releasing only a droplet or two on her skin, and with it a scent of gardenia and citrus that evoked images of strolling through an orange grove with a basket of fresh cut blossoms, she obliged both of her daughters and their skinny, outstretched wrists. She offered the stopper to Noah, who reddened but eagerly held out his arm, bared from the elbow down by his rolled sleeves.
"Not too much, otherwise the smell is overpowering and you might sneeze your brains out," she said, demonstrating the different pulse points to rub the fragrance into. (She waited until they were busy pretending to sneeze their brains out to wet her fingertip from the bottle and swipe it through her cleavage. The rest she smudged into the soft grooves behind both ears.)
The kids were still giggling at the idea of brains shooting from their nostrils like projectile boogers when Fin called out, "Police. Open up." He paused for a beat, then added, "Y'all best be decent, I'm coming in," and poked his head into the room as if he were scanning for suspects.
He looked good. It had been a little like arm-wrestling an angry bear, talking him into wearing baby blue dress pants. The white Oxford was fine, once he discovered rolled up sleeves were encouraged. The only way he would wear a flower, though, was in the band of his porkpie hat. "I'll walk you down the aisle, Liv, and be proud as hell to do it, but you gotta let me do my thang," he had said, upon agreeing to give her away, but not to the wardrobe advice she posited. Turned out his "thang" was pretty damn stylish and didn't stray too far outside the appropriate color scheme.
"Is it time?" Olivia asked, belly suddenly aflutter with small, winged creatures too weightless for birds, too relentless for butterflies.
She hadn't worn her watch. It disturbed the line of her suit, especially with the sleeves pushed back, and for some reason, it had felt twice as heavy when she tried it on that morning. Today, she would allow nothing to weigh her down.
"It's time," Fin confirmed, and as they walked arm in arm towards the sanctuary, the children and dogs ushered to their places by a frazzled-looking Uncle Sonny, he surveyed her with an approving, dimpled grin. "Damn, Liv, if I knew you cleaned up this good, I'da married you years ago."
. . .
