Free A Bad Bride's Tale by Polly Williams

pretty fucking joyless.” Jez spat as he spoke.
    “Maybe you never know what people get out of a relationship, not even your own parents. Look at mine,” she said, softly. “You’d have thought they’d have divorced years ago.”
    “Dad used to turn off his hearing aid in his dodgy ear when she was twittering on. Just turned it off. Click. Silence. She never real- ized.” Jez shuddered, stuck a knuckle in his mouth, and sobbed loudly. He released more of his weight onto Stevie’s lap, which was now beginning to ache slightly. She stroked his hair silently. Jez started to cry louder.
    It startled Stevie, seeing Jez crying like a baby. It wasn’t right. She wanted to take away his pain, but was unsure how to do it, so she offered him tea instead.
    He looked uncertain, shook his head. “No, I’ll have a beer, pumpkin.”
    Stevie wished he wouldn’t call her pumpkin. But now was not the time to remind him. She started to lever herself up from the sofa to get a beer. Jez pushed her down, gently. He wasn’t done.
    “Stay with me. Don’t leave, babe.” He settled back into her lap. “You know the worst freaking bit? Dad so wanted to see me mar- ried. That’s all he wanted. ‘I’m so happy you’re finally settling down, son,’ was the last thing he said to me, like it was the first thing I’d ever done right. That was on Friday night, after . . . after . . .” Jez’s throat locked. “. . . after fucking Big Brother , of all things. All he wanted, to see his son, his only son, married,” he re- peated solemnly, allowing his father a portentous dignity he had never allowed him in life. Jez had never been entirely sure he liked his father, but it was clear now that he must have loved him. And this was a relief. By dying, his father had improved their relation- ship immeasurably.
    “We should cancel, out of respect,” said Stevie, quietly. There was no way they could marry now. Rita would be in a state. It would be insensitive. Perhaps this was happening for a reason. In a cruel twist, had she shamefully got what she wished for? It made her feel dreadful. She couldn’t bear to see Jez so sad.
    “Cancel?” Jez craned his neck off her knee. “Don’t be ridicu- lous. I want to do something right. Even if he’s gone.” He soft- ened his voice, staring into the distance. “Mum also wants to bang the funeral out quickly and—you know—proceed as planned.”
    Stevie felt her insides sink deeper and deeper until she had noth- ing left in her chest but an empty cavity and a fluttery feeling, like something was flying about in there, a trapped bird. “It just . . .” She paused, wondering how hard she should push it. “. . . feels wrong, Jez.”
    Jez brushed Stevie’s cheek with his fingers. “You’re so sweet. But really, I want to go through with this, I do.” He clenched his fists with fresh resolve. “Yes, I do. I think I’d just fucking crumble to pieces right now if I didn’t have this wedding to focus on. You are my solace, pumpkin. I love you.”
    Stevie bit her lip, looked down at Jez—the man she was to marry—and saw him as he truly was at that moment, needy, griev- ing and, for what felt like the first time in their relationship, totally in need of her support and love. Did she really have it in her to de- stroy him completely?
    “Hold me tight,” muttered Jez, as he wiped his wet nose on her jeans. “Hold me while I sleep, that’s all I ask.”
    Stevie held Jez tight as a baby, as if the tightness of the embrace could arrest the moment somehow, prevent time from careering
    forward. Jez fell into a troubled doze, tears and snot drying and flaking in his blond mustache stubble. She tenderly stroked his hair away from his sweaty temples. The gesture made Jez smile in his sleep. As the smile faded, his lip stuck to his front tooth. Stevie looked away.

    NINE Æ

    behind a sheet of shimmering glass, seventy feet above Lower Manhattan, Sebastian Compton-Pickett put down his ergonomic