Work Text:
“Dearly beloved,” a solemn little voice said. “We are gathered together here in the sight of the universe and in the presence of my Mummy to join together this gull… and this crocodile in holy matrimony.”
Charlotte looked up from her book. Out in the blue waters of the Channel, Sidney was enjoying a relaxing swim. Over at the black boulders that created the natural boundary of the cove, Hollie Grace was very busy officiating the nuptials of Becky, the plush crocodile, and the most special of her special friends, the old herring gull.
Becky, wearing a cockle and some dry seaweed for a veil and smiling her best white felt teeth smile, looked rather content, at least for a plush crocodile about to be wed to an ancient herring gull. The gull, a lifelong confirmed bachelor, looked slightly befuddled and kept nervously driving its bill into its silver plumage. However, a supply of Nanny Heywood’s delicious cookie crumbs ensured the feathered bridegroom stayed in place.
Charlotte smiled to herself but was wise enough not to comment on her daughter’s ceremony. At seven and a half, Hollie Grace Heywood, bespectacled, small for her age and with a penchant for squirrel clips in her short brown hair, knew more than ever what she wanted and had developed a subtle way to express the urgency of her wishes.
What Hollie Grace wished for these days was a wedding – not of Becky and her gull friend, but of her mother and her father: a fabulous wedding party with plenty of Strawberry Secrets for everyone, and for herself, a flower girls dress with a matching hair clip. And her father’s name. That was even more important than the dress. She had even started signing her schoolwork as Hollie Grace Parker.
Charlotte sighed; it was not that she did not want to marry Sidney, take his name for herself and their daughter and celebrate the miracle that their love and their little family was. In fact, she wanted that very much. In the hustle and bustle of the past nine months, after finding each other again and making their relationship and their family a working reality, the question of marriage had popped up more than once. They were going to marry at some stage, no doubt about that, but not while in the midst of house hunting, rearranging their work schedules so that it suited their new family life, and running through all the legal issues connected to having Sidney recognised as Hollie Grace’s father.
“Oi!” Hollie Grace cried at the boulder altar. The gull, having picked up all of Nanny Heywood’s cookie crumbs, had spread its wings and left Becky jilted at the altar, even adding some laughter from above to its misdeed.
“Poor Becky,” Charlotte commiserated.
Hollie Grace, ever the pragmatic, shrugged her shoulders. “He’s not worthy of her. Better she finds out now than after the wedding.”
“You are so clever, Honeybee,” Charlotte chuckled, holding out her arms for a hug and a cuddle. Now that was an invitation Hollie Grace never declined. However clever and pragmatic she was, she was also a seven-year-old who had spent the larger part of those seven years missing one parent.
Hollie Grace comfortably settled down on her mother’s lap, eyeing the book Charlotte had closed. “Is it a nice book?” she asked.
“It’s a bit wobbly here and there, but it has an interesting concept. It’s about a woman who falls in love with a time traveller.”
“That’s exciting!”
“It sounds rather stressful, to be honest. He cannot control the time travelling, so he vanishes without warning and often pops up again when least expected.”
“Hm.” Hollie Grace thought that through. “You did a bit of time travelling with Daddy,” she said after a while.
“We did indeed, Honeybee,” Charlotte conceded.
“You can write a book.”
“I think we’ll leave the writing in this family to Auntie Alison.” Charlotte pressed a kiss in her little girl’s soft hair, relishing the sweet smell of strawberry shampoo and an afternoon by the sea. Tightening her arms around Hollie Grace, she rested her chin on her daughter’s head and looked out at the calm sea where Sidney was returning to shore now: stepping out of the shallow waters, as ever cutting a fine silhouette against the sun. Poseidon indeed.
It was only when Poseidon came closer that his scars and wounds became visible and turned him into a very human Sidney Parker, Hollie Grace’s father and a man who knew a thing or two about pain and loss. The man Charlotte loved.
And a man who enjoyed a little teasing: seeing his two girls cuddled together, he growled, shook his wet head, and showered them with cold and salty seawater while pretending to be the fabled Sanditon sea serpent out to satisfy its appetite. Hollie Grace squeaked with laughter, and Charlotte shoved a handful of sand at the intruder: “We mustn’t let this beastly boy win!”
Within seconds, they were all lying on the beach, laughing, panting, biting on the sand between their teeth and smiling the silliest happy smiles at each other.
The only clean family member was Becky the crocodile, elegantly sunbathing on the wedding boulder, the seaweed veil still in place.
Hollie Grace had managed to land sandwiched between her loving parents. “In Mummy’s book, there’s a woman who’s in love with a time traveller,” she told her father.
“I know, Squirrel,” Sidney said. “I gave it to her.”
“It’s very complicated to be in love with a time traveller.”
“I suppose it is,” Sidney agreed. “But I’ll never find out. Unless your Mummy has a hidden ability I’m not yet aware of.”
Hollie Grace giggled, and Charlotte shook her head. “Most definitely not. I very much prefer to stay in the here and now and with my little family.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Sidney said, a twinkle in his eyes.
“If I were a time traveller,” Hollie Grace announced, “I would go back to the day you met and make sure you don’t lose each other.”
Charlotte held her breath, seeing Sidney freeze. “Honeybee…”
“It would have been much better that way, right?” Hollie Grace asked, hands folded in front of her, her dark eyes behind her glasses more serious than ever.
“It would, but …” Charlotte stopped, understanding something. Something essential. How could they have been so blind? Hollie Grace’s wish for a floral-girls dress, her signing her name as Hollie Grace Parker, Becky’s interrupted wedding to the wilful herring gull…
She wanted to see her parents married, not for a pretty dress or a name, but because a ring and a ceremony and all their family and friends as witnesses meant security. A security that would protect her from what Hollie Grace Heywood, dauntless little crocodile owner and warrior for the right and the good, feared most: that her parents would lose each other again.
“Oh, Honeybee,” Charlotte whispered. Sidney was still stunned and frozen, only a twitch around his mouth betraying his emotions.
It was easy, of course. It would have happened anyway; why not now and here, on a lovely summer day at their sunny cove?
“Give me your hands,” Charlotte asked Sidney, kneeling across from him. He did, a little apprehensive yet relaxing when her fingers came around his.
“Sidney Parker,” Charlotte said, seeking his gaze. “Eight years ago, you suggested we explore a distant country together.” A small light appeared in his eyes. “We both had no idea where that journey would take us, and there are some places that I really don’t want to revisit, but what I do know is that what I have today is more than I could have ever wished for. I love you so much...”
“I love you a little more,” he whispered, as he always did when they confessed their feelings for each other.
Charlotte smiled but continued with what she had to say, not to be diverted by him, “I want to hold tight to what you and I and our little Honeybee have, Sidney.” She did hold tight, strengthening her grip around his hands. “And I want to stay with you until the moment we reach the end of that journey.”
“Charlotte,” Sidney breathed, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hollie Grace holding her breath, her eyes growing large behind her glasses.
“I want to marry you, Sidney,” Charlotte went on, a little overwhelmed by her own boldness. “And you can say no, but that’s not going to count.”
“Charlotte,” Sidney repeated, a small smile now creeping on his lips. “I don’t want to say no.”
“He wants to say yes!” Hollie Grace cried. “Daddy says yes! You’re getting married!”
“We are,” Sidney confirmed, kissing Charlotte’s hand and inviting their daughter to join them. Hollie Grace, however, smiling happily - if not smugly – shook her head, suddenly looking very grown-up and sensible.
“I think you want to kiss Mummy properly now, and you don’t want me watching. I will console poor Becky in the meantime.” She cast a woeful glance at Becky’s evasive bridegroom that was still circling above them. “It’s going to be much easier with you, Daddy, than with a gull. You’re not flying away, right?”
“Only flying in your mother’s arms, squirrel,” Sidney promised. And that he did.
🐊
Later in the afternoon, they slowly walked home along the shoreline. Hollie Grace ran ahead of her parents, merrily (and very much off-key) singing “The Noble Duke of York”. With every “up”, Becky was thrown high up in the blue Sanditon sky – and caught again by her keeper.
“Poor Becky,” Sidney said, lacing his fingers with Charlotte’s. “I hope she doesn’t get sick.”
Charlotte chuckled, leaning her head against his shoulder. It was one of the things she loved so much about him: how he accepted and played with the little world Hollie Grace had created for herself.
“You didn’t have to ask me, you know,” he said after a moment of quiet conversation between their hands. “I would have come out as soon as I’d arranged a sleepover for our squirrel at her cousins’.”
“And Babington found a spare hotel room for us?”
“With champagne,” Sidney confirmed. “And strawberries. And your favourite chocolates. And a ring.”
“We can still have all of that,” Charlotte smiled.
“We will,” Sidney smiled back. “We will, my love.”
💖
(And they lived happily ever after. But you know that of course.)
🐊
(OK, perhaps the gull was not that happy, suffering from a guilty conscience after jilting Becky. But with Becky being a very kind crocodile, she soon forgave her erstwhile bridegroom, and they resumed their previous friendship. But that is a story for another challenge.)