Was This in the Plan? by Stephanie Nimmo

Author:Stephanie Nimmo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hashtag Press
Published: 2017-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“It’s going to be so great to get the family all together again, we must make sure we get plenty of pictures, these get-togethers are becoming few and far between.”

Issy and Kev’s wedding in the Hampshire countryside was a magical weekend. When you reach middle age the wedding invites start drying up. Family reunions tend to happen at funerals, with promises not to leave it so long next time.

Andy, always one to embrace a retail opportunity, had bought a new suit. Proud of his beautifully-groomed beard, he was a man in the full throes of a mid-life crisis, or as my teenagers described him: “a hipster trying too hard”.

Daisy couldn’t come to the wedding. The onset of seizures had taken its toll and her medical needs were becoming more and more consuming. She was booked into the hospice, leaving me to ponder how I could involve her in some way in this big family reunion. It seemed so sad that she would miss out on it all.

The children each had their own room at the hotel. Bitter experience had taught us that sharing was not an option. The boys needed a safe haven to retreat to when the noise and pressure of making conversation got too much, while for Xanthe it was space away from her brothers.

This was our life, a constant juggling of the needs of our family: our boys and their high-functioning autism, Daisy and the complexities of her disability, Xanthe and her need to have a break from being the only ‘normal’ sibling.

Getting ready in our room before joining the wedding party downstairs, I thought Andy looked like a man who was enjoying too many of the finer things in life, a man carrying a bit too much weight. I was worried about this. There was a strong history of heart disease in his family.

When we met, I was vegetarian and persuaded him to come over to the ‘dark side’ as his friends called it. Despite the jokes, he was strict about his vegetarian principles, never tempted when friends waved bacon butties under his nose. But Andy’s business was going well, he was enjoying the fruits of his labours, lunches with clients, expensive Bourbon. I didn’t want to lose him to a heart attack or for him to be reliant on medication to manage his blood pressure.

I made a mental note to do what I always kept promising to do, which was to plan healthier menus, shop for home-cooked meals, cut out the snacks. I needed my husband to be around.

Our children played with their cousins and I ignored the fact that one of my children was missing, another would not participate in the family photograph, preferring to stand to one side glaring at the camera while we all smiled, and another had disappeared off to bed halfway through the evening without saying goodnight to anyone. It was our norm. For a moment I envied the cousins with their children who sat engaged as their parents spoke, who played nicely, high academic achievers with glossy hair and bright smiles.

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