Chapter 500: A seat at the table (3)
Celine couldn’t wait any longer for Phillip to be finished with his weird greeting to River and went around them to greet Beatrice. "It is nice to finally meet Rafael’s family. I’ve been looking forward to seeing the people responsible for such a good young man."
"Oh, dear. You’re going to make me blush," Beatrice said, touching her cheeks. "I’ve been looking forward to meeting you too. Annalise is a special woman and I’m more than happy she is the one Rafael is settling down with."
"We are to be wedding planners I hear. I hope you have some spare time for us to sit and put some ideas together. I can’t wait to start looking for dress styles for Annalise to wear. I’ve longed to see her in a wedding dress and now the time has come," said Celine.
"I know a few dressmakers here who can bring us some dresses to start getting an idea of what you want while you’re here. You can visit my home so we’ll have a quiet space to work. Then there’s the baby. We have so much work to do as grandmothers," Beatrice said, but she looked forward to it rather than feeling it burdened.
"Yes, as grandmothers we have to stick together. We can stick together and start making plans or get to know each other. I don’t know what our husbands are doing," Celine said, looking at Phillip and River still standing together holding hands.
Phillip was nice with the greeting but Celine couldn’t understand why he was still holding River’s hand and squeezing it. She didn’t care to bring herself to make Phillip let go of River’s hand as she was more interested in speaking to Beatrice.
"Lydia, please come sit next to me," Annalise said, pulling out the chair to her right for Lydia to sit. "Father, please let go of his hand and stop trying to prove that you are stronger."
Lydia went to Annalise so they could sit together. Before she got up onto the chair she looked at Phillip smiling at River. She had overheard Celine speaking of being worried about Phillip seeing River again but it seemed the two of them were friends so why was anyone worried?
Phillip squeezed River’s hand once more and then let go so he could join in sitting down for dinner. He was surprised to see that Celine had chosen to sit beside Beatrice so he was left with sitting by River or on the other side of the table.