I am so, SO sorry that it's taken me this long to get a new chapter up. There are a thousand and one excuses I could give as to why, but you probably don't want to hear them. The two that mostly impacted my updating, or lack thereof, were a major case of writer's block and a severe loss of free time. And when I say writer's block, I don't mean just for this. I mean I couldn't write ANYTHING. But anyway. I'm sorry a million times over, and I hope you enjoy the unfolding drama!
He turned down the corner of his newspaper and looked at her. She stood in the doorway to the parlor, looking oddly distressed. She was dressed rather nicely, in a dark blue sundress, which was also odd. She took a deep breath and spoke to them. "Good morning."
His wife barely noticed her. She merely continued to nurse her glass of scotch, though it was not yet ten in the morning. "I hope you've come to your senses about getting married."
Marietta took a step into the room. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that."
"So you'll marry Abra." Without moving any other part of her body, Savannah turned her steeled blue eyes to match and meet her daughter's. They contained deep loathing, and an air of power. Andrew knew that look. She wanted her to squirm.
"I never said that." Marietta, astonishingly, leveled her mother's gaze with one of her own. "I said I wanted to talk about it."
"If you're not agreeing, then you've nothing to say worth listening to." Savannah threw her head back and swallowed her drink. Andrew cringed. She'd be drunk by noon at this rate. And then things would get very bad.
"You have to start listening to me sometime, Mother." She replied, calmly and controlled. "And what I'm saying now and have been saying is that I will not marry him."
"It's not your choice." Savannah poured herself another drink.
"Why is it yours?" Marietta asked. "Why is it always you who decides and never Father?" She turned to him. "What do you think?"
Andrew could feel his wife glaring at him, willing him to be silent. But he didn't want to be silent. He didn't want to force his daughter into something that would most likely kill her. It wasn't right. But he had no power, he could not tell her these things. All he could do was mumble "It's your mother's decision."
"And you will marry him." Savannah said haughtily. "End of discussion."
"Wrong." Marietta shot back. "It's not the end, it's not even the beginning." She stepped farther into the room.
"That's why Juliet was always better than you. She listened to her elders. And when she was told she had to get married, she obliged." Savannah said, contempt apparent in her voice.
Andrew saw his daughter falter at this statement. But she recovered quickly. "And now she's dead. I'm your daughter and I'm here. Don't compare me to her any longer."
"I wish you weren't."
Andrew closed his eyes, unable to watch. How could she say that? Worse yet, he knew that she meant it. This was no product of alcohol, this was real and true hate. She hated her child. He expected there to be noises to leaving, a sob, hurried footsteps out the door. But there were none.
What he heard, was his daughter's voice say, loudly and clearly, "Wish I wasn't what? Alive? Your daughter? Standing here?" There was no trace of sorrow, no hint of sadness. All that was in her voice was strength.
He opened his eyes as his wife replied, "All three."
And Andrew found himself saying, "Would you like to know why she feels that way?"
Two pairs of eyes swiveled to him and fixated on his face. Too late to go back. He shrugged off the glare and continued. "Twenty years ago, there was a pair of brothers. Sons of the leader of a great company, people with tremendous influence. Their sister, who was the middle child, had been happily married to a friend of the family for four years and had a three-year-old son. So the father of the brothers thought that it was time the young men took wives."
"Andrew." Savanna said, in a tone that meant for him to shut up and retreat behind his newspaper.
But he would do no such thing. "Their father chose a pair of sisters, daughters of a customer. Both girls were fairly pretty, and both brothers were fairly handsome. The men just had to decide which one to marry." Andrew paused, looking at Marietta. She was still standing straight and tall, but she seemed entranced with his tale. He pressed forward.
"Because the older brother would inherit the company and the title of Lord, both girls went for him, leaving the younger to take whichever one lost, regardless of their feelings for each other. The older brother picked the older sister, and they became happily wed. The younger couple was stuck together, forced into marriage. The young woman-"
"Andrew." Harsher this time, with more force.
"The young woman could not bear the fact that she had ended up with the lesser suit. So she took control over her new husband's life. He--he was too scared to stand up to her, to try to fight back. When the young woman became pregnant, she was…" He glanced at his daughter once more. This was going to hurt her far deeper than anything her mother had ever done. "…she was disgusted that she would be bearing this low life's child and…threw herself down the stairs in an attempt to kill it."
Marietta took a few steps back, covering her mouth. She stared wildly at her mother, who glared back at her. Andrew lowered his head, unable to look at her, and finished the story. "When the child was born, the mother ignored it completely, refused to feed it or have anything to do with it. The father however, despite his wife's feelings, loved the little girl dearly. He took care of her until she was five, when his wife forbade him to ever speak to the child again. Meanwhile, the siblings of the couple had a baby girl of their own, and the wife began to dote on it as if it were her own daughter. And the daughter grew up to feel unloved, while the other girl received all the attention from everyone."
"She was a real daughter, not the product of a coward." Savanna spat at him. "And it should have been me. I should have married him, instead of marrying you, you spineless little rat!"
Andrew ignored this, he'd been hearing it for twenty years. What he focused on, was that there was a young man standing with his daughter in their parlor. She was crying into the front of his shirt, and he was gently comforting her. Who was this man? Why was he here? The man moved slightly, Marietta was pulling away from him, wiping her eyes. Andrew had seen that face before. He recognized it in an instant. "Benvolio Montague."
There was a shatter of glass. Savanna was pale, her half-empty scotch glass now on the floor. "Why is there a Montague in my house?" she asked through gritted teeth.
Marietta, her eyes still red, laced her fingers through Benvolio's and turned to them. "Because we want to get married."
Silence. Andrew was trying to comprehend exactly what was going on. His daughter…wanted to marry this young man? A Montague? Not that he had anything against them really, but honestly. She could have picked someone, anyone else. "You want to get married?"
"Yes." The young man spoke.
"I have to get married so my husband can become Lord Capulet. And Benvolio is becoming Lord Montague, so they'd really like it if he was married." Marietta explained.
"You want to marry a Montague?" Savanna seemed to be having trouble understanding. "You want to marry into the family that killed Juliet!"
"Juliet killed herself." Marietta snapped. "Benvolio had nothing to do with it. And yes, we want to get married. We love each other." She paused, seeming to be weighing something in her mind. "And I'm pregnant."
Another stunned silence. Marietta didn't allow it to sink in before continuing. "It's against family traditions that a child be born out of wedlock, therefore you'd have to exile and disown me. Meaning you'd no longer have a Lady Capulet. No one else can take over. Also, tradition dictates that if a man gets a woman pregnant and they are not married, he must act as a gentleman and marry her." Marietta smirked triumphantly. "You lose. You have to let us get married."
"So the child's yours, then?" Andrew asked, still trying to get his mind over the fact that his daughter was pregnant.
Benvolio nodded. "Yes, sir."
Savanna sat in her chair, her hands gripping the armrests. "You, your snake of a lover, and your bastard child can all go to Hell." She hissed.
"If falling in love sends a person to Hell," Marietta stated, her eyes not leaving her mother's face. "Then Juliet is roasting down there this very minute."
Time seemed to slow for the next few minutes. Andrew watched in disbelief as his wife picked up the half-full bottle of Scotch from the table, and hurled it at their daughter's head. It flew through the air in slow motion, right on target. And at the very last second, before it hit, Benvolio pulled her out of the way. The bottle crashed to the floor, spraying alcohol and shards of glass everywhere. Time returned to it's normal speed.
Marietta stood, shell-shocked, not but two feet away from the remains of the bottle. She stared at it, then her mother. Savanna was fuming, giving Marietta a look that could shoot daggers. Andrew stood, unable to stand this any longer.
"When shall we set the date?"
"You…You're going to let us get married?" Marietta gaped at him.
His wife nearly fainted. "You're giving them permission! Are you out of your mind!"
He gazed at her calmly. "No, Savanna. For the first time in twenty years, I think I'm in it." With that, he walked forward and pulled his daughter into a hug. She didn't respond at first, but after a moment she returned his embrace.
"I'm sorry for not doing this sooner." He whispered.
"Thank you." She replied, her voice breaking.
Andrew held her as she cried. He was briefly aware of Savanna sending her looks of death to all of them and exiting the room. He also knew that Benvolio, his soon-to-be son-in-law, was hanging back. He probably wanted to hug his fiancée, to whoop and celebrate.
"I thought you didn't love me." Marietta said softly, her tears subsiding.
"From the minute the midwife placed you in my arms, I loved you." Andrew assured her, letting her go. She wiped her eyes, a smile spreading onto her face. "Now, someone else who loves you would probably like to talk with you."
Marietta turned to Benvolio, who was grinning. No words were spoken between the two, their kiss said it all.
It was decided that the wedding would be in two weeks, on November 27th. And the lover's days were spent doing a flurry of planning activities. They hardly saw each other, because though they were getting married, they both still had school and they could never find the time between everything to have a quiet moment alone.
On this particular day, a week before the wedding, Marietta was having a dress fitting. She really didn't want to be doing it, but Lady Montague was in charge of plans because Marietta's family refused to have anything to do with her wedding. Well, her father tried to help out, but he was a man, so there wasn't much he could do. Luckily, Anna hated all of it as much as Marietta did and so had placed herself on her future daughter-in-law's side. And Bernadette, chosen maid-of-honor, was being carted around, for no other purpose than to provide moral support. (Though Lady Montague wanted her gone, due to Bern's habit of making sarcastic comments about everything)
Today, Marietta stood in the grand parlor of Anna's house, elevated on a stool as the gown designer measured her for the white monstrosity. She glanced at the spools of fabric strewn about the room, her stomach lurching at the very sight. She'd been dreading this day since the planning began. She wished there was more time before the wedding, but Lady Montague, her father, and even Anna agreed that it was best they got married before Marietta started to show. A long planning period would have been hard on Marietta, with her hormones going crazy and all, and, plus, Montagues and Capulets weren't supposed be set bad examples for the city. Marietta and Benvolio, apparently, were a bad example.
Getting married was supposed to make a person happy. Yet Marietta felt miserable.
"I think this design will look nice." Lady Montague commented, flipping through a selection of dress photos. Bernadette peered at the picture, then blanched. She stared at Marietta in horror. This certainly didn't make Marietta feel any better.
The designer looked it over, then cast her eye at Marietta, who gulped. "Yes, it covers her bony shoulders, and isn't too cinched at the waist, and the rounded skirt will hide her ankles."
Marietta looked down at her ankles. She didn't notice anything wrong with them, except a faint mark from where she'd cut it on the candlestick. That seemed so long ago. But it couldn't have been more than three months.
"I think it's disgusting." Bern commented, but was, as usual, ignored.
Anna tried to find some sort of reason for the design to be discarded. "But--her…her chest, it's…"
"Anna, you've never chosen a dress design." Lady Montague said in a voice she used every time someone tried to contradict one of her decisions. It was gentle, yet extraordinarily forceful. "I think you can trust my choice."
"Well, if you let me plan my son's wedding, I could choose." Anna replied, the so-called 'lawyer tone' creeping into her voice.
Lady Montague ignored that comment as well. Marietta bit her lip. "Um, could I see…?"
"Oh, of course." The book was handed to Marietta. She looked at the photo and froze. It was the ugliest dress she had ever seen. But the design suddenly didn't matter as she was sucked into the bright, cold color. She had to suppress a wave of emotion, as all the thoughts she'd had as she'd sat in the church and stared the red-speckled white flooded her mind.
"I--I can't wear this." She managed to say.
"Oh, don't be so picky. It's lovely." Lady Montague's voice floated somewhere in front of her.
"Yes, you will be a vision in white!" the designer clapped enthusiastically.
This was too much. She couldn't hold back what she'd felt for the past three months every time she looked at that color. She dropped the book, shaking her head, stepping off the stool. "I can't. I just can't."
"Marietta?" Anna's hand at her back was mildly reassuring.
"What on earth is the matter with this dress?" Lady Montague asked in a rather unkind tone.
"It's white!" Marietta almost shouted, the heels of her palms pressing against her eyes.
"Of course it is. It's a wedding gown." The designer said.
"She died in white."
A stunned silence hung in the air. Marietta tried to calm herself as she continued. "I know your family suffered a great loss. But so did mine. And that's why we're all here now. But please, remember how your son looked in his tomb. He wasn't covered in blood. My cousin, she had on a beautiful white dress. The blood--her blood--had stained it. It was everywhere, on her face, her neck, on that dress. You did not sit at a funeral and have the image of red on white burned into your mind forever. You did not begin to associate white, that pure color, with blood and death."
She stared at Lady Montague. "Please, do not make me wear white."
Anna placed a hand on Marietta's shoulder and gave her sister-in-law a pleading look. "Diane, sometimes you can have a perfect wedding and sometimes you can have a happy wedding. Not often can you have both. And given everyone's current situation, I would choose happy over perfect."
Lady Montague nodded slowly. "I understand." She turned to the designer. "Is there another color…?"
The designer looked Marietta over. "Pale blue would work, I should think."
"Another gown design would help, too." Bernadette chimed in.
Lady Montague picked up the book of designs and studied the chosen one. She looked from Marietta to the gown, then back to Marietta. "Perhaps it is a little…frilly."
"See? Compromise. It works every time." Anna smiled.
There was the sound of the front door opening and closing. "Ma, I'm home!" Benvolio called.
"You can't come in the parlor." Lady Montague stated.
There was silence from the entrance hall. "Why not?" he asked.
"You can't see the bride in her gown before the wedding." His aunt replied.
Marietta and Bernadette exchanged looks. She wasn't in the dress. The dress hadn't even been designed.
Another silence, then the sound of footsteps that stopped right in front of the door to the parlor. "Then can I just see the bride?"
Marietta looked hopefully at Anna. Lady Montague opened her mouth to argue, but Anna stopped her. "You have her measurements, you just need to choose a design. Let her go."
Marietta didn't wait to be excused, she ran out of the room and into his waiting arms.
"Hello." She breathed, feeling all her pent-up emotion ebb away as she embraced him.
"Hi." He smiled at her as they broke apart. "How's it going?"
She made a face. "I don't want to talk about it."
"So," He intertwined his fingers with hers. "I thought that the two of us needed a little getaway. How does a long walk on the beach sound?""
"Perfect." She replied as they left the house.
Later, Marietta would convince herself it was a servant of the household, or even a trick of the light from the setting sun. But at that moment, when walking down the large front steps and onto the wide driveway, she glanced at a parked car. And the cold, cruel, unforgiving eyes of Abra stared back at her through the window. Then she blinked--and they were gone. But the threat of his presence shadowed her mind until she went to sleep that evening.
But even then, he was watching.