In the end, a lot of people who were supposed to be at the wedding didn’t come.

Van and Emil weren’t there.  Mum had tried to talk them into staying, but they said they didn’t want to make things awkward.  They said that they’d invite Lennie, Mum and Ewan up to theirs sometime in the summer, though, and Lennie was looking forward to that.

Charlie, Love and Angel weren’t there.  As soon as Charlie left the hospital, he went right back to Nana Celine’s house, packed up all their stuff, and drove them all back up to Manchester.  Apparently, he was upset that Ewan hadn’t taken his side.  “He wanted me to be a witness in the lawsuit,” Ewan told Mum, with a roll of his eyes.

And Nana Celine wasn’t there.  When Mum and Lennie got to her house to pick her up, she’d locked herself in her bathroom, crying.  She said she’d been there ever since Charlie had left, and she’d realised she had nothing but a lifetime of regret and unhappiness in front of her.  Mum sent Lennie to wait in the car with Emma and Janis while she talked to her.  She came back a few minutes later, with no sign of Nana Celine.

“What happened?” asked Emma.

Mum sighed.  “She said all she wanted to do was lie on the floor and cry.”  Mum got into the front seat, and started the car.  “So I’m going to let her.”

*

The wedding reception had been going on for a few hours.  Lennie and Wesley had filled their time playing football (not easy with Lennie in a dress and Wesley in suit trousers, but they’d found a way), admiring the cake and wondering how they’d got the icing to be so shiny, being fussed over by elderly relatives who hadn’t seen them since they were toddlers, and pretending the sandpit in the playground was full of quicksand so they could take turns rescuing each other.  By now they were a bit tired, so they’d settled into lying on the grass just outside the function room, eating icecream they’d got from the buffet table.

“I still don’t get why he cared so much about your shorts,” said Wesley.

Lennie thought for a moment.  “I don’t think he did, not really.  I think maybe he just liked bullying people.”

The sky had got darker- nowhere near properly dark, but this kind of middling summer-evening kind of blue that you got when the sun was getting ready to set in an hour or two.  That was probably Lennie’s favourite shade of blue.  She’d make sure to use it a lot, when she was a famous artist.

“I feel sorry for Angel and Love,” said Wesley, “Having to go home with him.”

“Yeah,” said Lennie.  She’d been trying not to think about Angel and Love- it was upsetting.  Yeah, Love had been kind of scary, but even Genghis Khan wouldn’t have deserved to go home with Uncle Charlie.

Why do you think Nana Celine didn’t go back to Manchester with them? Lennie had asked Mum earlier, while they were having their hair done.

I think she probably would have, if that’s what Charlie had wanted, replied Mum, with a sour twist of her mouth.  So much for Charlie wanting his daughters to spend time with their mother, then.

“Maybe we can talk to Mum and Sammy.  They might be able to help.  Mainly, I’m just glad he’s gone, though.”  Just because I don’t like to see little girls dressed up like sluts, suddenly I’m the bad guy.  But that wasn’t why he was the bad guy, and Lennie suspected that even he knew it.

“Do you think your Aunt Van will write a book about this?” asked Wesley.

“About how she punched Charlie in the face?”

“Yeah.  I would, if I was her.”

Lennie thought about the book Mum had bought, the one she’d kept trying to read.  There were things in there a whole lot nastier than a punch in the face.  “I don’t think she’d be able to write a whole book about it.  She’d have finished saying what happened after one page.”

“Not if she made a list of all the reasons why she punched him.  Bet that would fill up a thousand pages.  Bet she’d have to write in little tiny letters just so the book would fit on people’s shelves.”

Lennie laughed.  “I think she should write a kids’ book next.  That way, we’ll be able to read it.”  Maybe when Lennie went up to visit her in the summer, she could tell her how to write it.  Van might even let her draw the pictures.

The End