It Started at the Beach - Chapter 8

One Year Later

In a room full of their nearest and dearest, they’d said ‘I do,’ and Sasha had thought hearing Gigi return her love was her greatest moment ever. But this was right up there with it.

Hooking her hands around her love’s neck, they slow danced on the yacht they’d chosen for their wedding reception. The sun setting over Sydney’s iconic skyline providing the perfect fiery backdrop to their love…Sydney Opera House itself, a wonder of human engineering, but no more wondrous than the love blooming on board.

She gazed up into the eyes of her one true love, her best friend forever, her wife.

‘Has it been everything you hoped it would be?’

Gigi swept her nose against Sasha’s, her lips caressing hers next. ‘More than… I never dared hope for this, Sash. You know that better than most. To think we could have spent the rest of our lives together, but not.’

‘Scary, I know.’

‘And to have my mother here…’

Gigi looked over her head to where the woman sat with Sasha’s father, stepmother and Precious. The colour in her cheeks, not all makeup, and encouraging to see. The cancer treatment was going well. It had bought her more time. Enough time to form a relationship with her daughter and bring happiness to them both. Bittersweet, perhaps. But worth every tear they had shed and would shed.

‘I feel like I’m dreaming.’

Sasha smiled, though it faltered when she caught sight of the lonely figure at the head of the bow. The petite pink-haired woman watching the sun set over the open water was Fae. Her stepsister. Standing apart as she so often did when they were all together.

‘I’d say the same if not for the persistent frown on Fae’s face.’

‘Hey, she’s not frowning, she’s just…’ Gigi followed her line of sight. ‘Okay, she is frowning but not at us. She’s just, perplexed.’

Sasha cocked a brow. ‘Perplexed?’

‘Sure. See it from her point of view, Sash. It’s been her mother and her for an entire lifetime. Then your father comes along and sweeps her mother off her feet, taking her away to live her best life exploring everything the world has to offer. Meanwhile Fae’s stuck in Melbourne, her job and home obliterated by a redevelopment project. She’s had the rug pulled out from under her.’

‘They asked her to move in with them, you know. To leave all that behind.’

‘She’s twenty-four, she’s not a child any more. She needs to stand on her own two feet and find her own way in life.’

‘But it wouldn’t hurt to accept some help…’

‘Are you still upset that she wouldn’t let you buy her an outfit for today?’

‘No.’

‘Liar.’

Sasha frowned at her stepsister’s back, wishing for her walls to come down, to have her join in rather than stand apart. An outsider, not even looking in…

Was it her mother’s happiness she was avoiding, or Sasha’s own with Gigi? The stepsister that she didn’t want?

Or was she not even present? Her head elsewhere, thinking of her life back in Melbourne and what she’d lost?

How could Sasha help her see all that she had gained instead? A sister for one, a father too…

‘Okay, but it’s not the dress. I always wanted a sibling growing up, and when Dad found love a second time round, another family with it, I had hoped to gain a sister too…And there are times when it feels like we’re almost there. That the bond exists. When she opens up a little or we share a laugh at our parents’ expense, moments that give me hope.’

Gigi gave her squeeze. ‘Because it does exist, darling. She just needs more time to adjust. She truly is lovely beneath the aloof front…’

‘Just a little misguided?’

‘Sí. And she’s agreed to come and house-sit while we’re away on our honeymoon. She’ll be taking care of Precious and getting out of Melbourne for a spell. It’s just the break she needs.’

‘True.’

‘As for bigger families, we have ours to focus on now.’

‘You’re right.’ Sasha smiled softly. They’d talked of it often this past year. Sasha’s desire for children. And her worry that Gigi’s troubled childhood might have dissuaded her from wanting the same. ‘And you’re absolutely sure it’s what you want too?’

‘We’ve been over this a thousand times.’

‘And I’ll go over it a thousand more to make sure you’re not just agreeing because it’s what I want.’

‘Sasha, my love…’ She stroked her hands into Sasha’s hair that had been styled into soft waves and left to fall freely — just how Gigi adored it. ‘The idea of you being a mother, of becoming one myself, to bring up our own children in a home filled with love and laughter and hope. It makes me so happy, happier than I ever dreamed possible.’

‘It’s going to be a long road.’

Because they hadn’t got as far as deciding how they might go about it, but like everything else in their lives from here on in, they’d decide and set about it together.

‘The longest. But the best things in life are worth waiting for. You taught me that.’

‘Well I want lots.’

‘You say that now…’

‘Baby steps?’

‘Baby steps.’

Emotion clogged up her throat as she kissed her wife, her head filled with a future so bright. Everything she’d never dared hope for coming true…

‘I love you, Mrs Garcia-Campbell.’

Gigi grinned. ‘And I love you, but that’s going to take some getting used to.’

‘For you and me both.’

‘Something else we get to do together, Mrs Garcia-Campbell.’

Sasha gave a little shiver of excitement. ‘Actually, scratch that. I adore it already.’

‘That’s my girl.’

And then they kissed, and this time the world fell away and it was just them and the magic of their marriage. Their happiness. Their future. One and the same. A pair. Always.