The Other Mother by Kelly Chandler

Author:Kelly Chandler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Affirm Press

Five lemonades

On the last day of school before the Easter holidays, when I was seven weeks pregnant, Pete collected the boys and told them that a surprise was waiting at home. In honour of their favourite song by the Foo Fighters, a 1980s white limo was parked out the front of our house. Inside the limo were our witnesses, Bonnie and Lach – our old aid-worker wing-people from back when Pete was my acting boss, not my future baby daddy – and me. I held two cans of lemonade in outstretched arms for the boys.

Charlie sang, ‘I like big bupps and a can of flies,’ to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s ‘Baby Got Back’, sipping lemonade in his booster seat. Harry looked disoriented by the fluoro piped-lighting and loud music. To ground him, Pete gave him the box with our wedding rings and asked him to take care of them. When we spilled out of the limo, Harry took off toward the visible wedge of Fitzroy Gardens, saying, ‘Race you!’ while Charlie squealed in delight as he followed. Pete rounded them up and rolled them down the hill, encouraging the release of sugar and any weirdness they might feel but be unable to express in words. I couldn’t run in my platform clogs without doing an ankle, so I stood with Bonnie on the steps of the Old Treasury Building while Lach headed in the other direction to buy champagne for the limo ride home. I hoped that the rings would come back safely with the children and their father: my stepchildren and almost-husband.

An introvert’s fantasy wedding awaited at the registry office. We had perfected our short vows:

‘You can do yoga whenever you want and watch as much Rage as you want unless it’s all techno.’

‘I will always love your kitchen dancing and I will never get in the way of the cricket. Unless Rage is on.’

But we didn’t get to say those things. The celebrant was in a rush to make the early train home to Benalla for Easter and forgot to give us the option. While Lach helped Harry hand us the rings, Pete turned away to lick the knuckle on his ring finger, and this seemed so graphic to me that I forgot where we were in the service. When the disco ball got stuck on my own knuckle and I had to do the same, I realised that Pete was an old hand at this caper.

It felt a little dirty not having our family and friends with us. It was Thursday night and nobody else was getting married, although I saw wedding parties on these steps almost every time I rode into the city. Later I knew that I’d excluded the people I love most in the world by doing what we did, but the actual wedding didn’t matter to us: we just wanted to be married.

I wondered if – at six and four – the boys would be too young to remember the wedding, or if they’d remember the narrative we created around it instead.

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