Soft Irish Rain

“Is if for a special occasion?” gushed the shop assistant, as I tried on the dress.
“Well actually, yes,” I blurted. “It’s for my husband’s daughter’s wedding. I suppose you could say, my stepdaughter,” I faltered, and a puzzled look briefly crossed her face.

When we think of stepchildren, our minds are as likely to be cast into the fairytale world of half-orphaned children getting landed with wicked stepmothers, as to a contemporary family configuration.
Does an adult offspring who already has two perfectly alive parents fulfilling the parental role, require, or more importantly want a step-mom or dad?
And if the answer is no, what do they call that other adult that marries their divorced parent or what do we call ourselves?
And what exactly is our role, if any?
Never have these questions been more pertinent than now, with the wedding of my American husband’s daughter looming.
My beloved’s daughter and son came into my life as fully grown adults, resentful of the woman who had ‘taken’ their father to Ireland.
I first met them by way of a photograph sent to me by their father when our relationship was blossoming.
The picture, taken some time previously, of a High School graduation, showed a father beaming with pride and a young man and woman, looking like they wanted the ground to open up and swallow them.
I studied their sulky teenage demeanour with curiosity. Meeting them was still in the abstract but it was their father’s love-filled words that remained with me, long after the picture got mislaid.
‘Of course, I love them because they are my children but I am also proud of the young adults they have become,” he wrote.
I have never had a child so I will never fully know that overwhelming love felt by parents. Sometimes I get a glimpse of it, or even feel it briefly, but it isn’t a constant. Having parents means knowing one end of the relationship but being a parent is clearly a whole other thing as he has quietly taught me.
The day I met my husband’s daughter, I was so nervous I kept changing my clothes. We had spent the previous night in our camper van in one of Florida’s beautiful State Parks, and celebrated his birthday at midnight by dancing to the cacophony of tree frogs down by the water.
We drove to Orlando early the next morning to face a different kind of music, I knew he was excited. I knew how strong their bond was from listening to how he laughed when he spoke to her by phone.
From what he had said, I also knew to expect a full-on, outspoken young woman who prided herself in telling it like it is.
But I couldn’t have imagined a more frosty reception! She had been called into work at the last minute, although I never quite believed that, and we were left alone in a house in a dodgy neighbourhood with an empty fridge, a drunken boyfriend in bed and a lodger who had a dog being kept alive on drugs.
She said she would be a few hours. We waited for about 12 hours before she came home. Our eyes were square from watching TV. Because we were to go out to dinner we stayed hungry for most of the day. When we went out she spent most of the night with her boyfriend at the bar. Later we went to the same comedy club she had brought her mother for her birthday.  She drove us home way too fast with some very angry rap music, playing way too loudly.
On our way to her favourite beach the next day, she couldn’t bring herself to say much to me except to ask, a little pointedly I thought, whether I had any children and whether I would like any.
It was about then I realised that there was very little I could actively do to make this relationship work except trust that sooner or later her anger would subside and she would eventually accept me. I knew she wasn’t the kind of person who could be won over and more importantly, I knew she would resent my trying.
All I could do was give her time and fervently hope that she would eventually see how happy her father was in his new life and realise that it didn’t alter his relationship with her.
Her mother remarried before we did. For her brother’s wedding five years ago I traveled but didn’t attend as they felt, on my prompting, that it might be awkward for his mother.
Then when she announced the date for her wedding, I gave her the same option but was mildly surprised when she insisted I be there.
Several things had happened in the meantime which I believe had a profound impact on her. I know we have a way to go but I am witnessing a thawing towards me as she lets the anger go.
Recently I read an article about how the divorce of parents affects adult children, with some even saying they wished it had happened when they were younger. It made me see for the first time how hard it had all been for them.
Her father still believes that he did the right thing by staying in a marriage in which he was deeply unhappy until his two children were fully grown but he too probably underestimated the impact his leaving had.
I recall one time we arrived to visit, his daughter collected us from the airport. She was out of her skin with joy,  jumping up and down and shouting “Daddy’s here. Daddy’s here.” I had to turn away to hide my tears.
Next week we will travel to her wedding. I expect there will be awkward moments when I may even feel excluded but that’s okay. I know her father will be bursting with pride and I will share his joy.
She has been through a lot in her young life and has come through it with courage and a searing self-honesty, which I humbly respect and admire.
I know she will be beautiful. This will be her day, and I as her father’s wife, will feel proud to be a part of it.
And I’ll have the tissues at the ready because, whether I call myself stepmother or not, I’m sure to shed a tear.