I Now Pronounce You Someone Else (10 page)

I went to bed, but I didn’t fall asleep until after three. I was too busy planning my wedding. Eight bridesmaids. Kirsten as maid of honor. My dress would be a strapless Vera Wang of ivory silk with a fitted bodice and tiered train, and somewhere between scripting all sorts of prewedding scenes and choosing the food for the buffet reception, I fell asleep.

I should have been exhausted the next day—my birthday—but I wasn’t. I felt completely exhilarated, not even intimidated by the prospect of having to tell my family the news.

“Well. You’re up early, birthday girl,” my mother said to me when I entered the kitchen around eight o’clock Sunday morning. I had left my ring—my engagement ring;
I could just giggle
—inside a box of tampons in my medicine cabinet.

Mother clicked and tapped her way to me for a
happy birthday; thank you
, quick kiss, sigh.

She sighed every year on my birthday, the My How You’ve Grown Sigh, complete with smile and reminiscences
of the weather on the day I was born. I knew it verbatim and recited it with her.

“It was the most beautiful day the day you were born. All the leaves had changed,” we said.

“Peter was in the backyard. Dad was raking leaves,” I said.

Come on. You pick up the story now. Tell me something I don’t know about him.

“That’s right. Did you and Jared have a nice time last night?”

“Yes, we had a wonderful time.”

“So I suppose you’re not at all excited about tonight.”

“No, I am.”

She and Whitt were hosting a little dinner party for me with, at my request, Chinese takeout. Gram and Granddad were coming, Mr. and Mrs. Sondervan, Lauren and Spence, Jared, of course, Kirsten, and six other friends from school. Rumor had it Peter might even come home.

Just then, Whitt and Sam entered through the garage door, panting from a run, and Sam rushed to greet me as if I’d been away at sea for a year.

“Happy birthday, Bronwen,” Whitt said.

“Thank you.”

“When are we doing cards and gifts?” he asked.

“All day,” I said.

“All right. Well, stay right there.” He left the kitchen, and I heard him enter his study.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Mother said as she took two cards from her desk.

After a minute or two, Whitt returned to the kitchen, and Mother immediately asked, “What’s that?” pointing to a blue envelope in Whitt’s left hand.

“This is for Bronwen.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a sweater,” he deadpanned.

“We already got her a card.”

“Well, this one’s just from me.”

“Oh, well, okay,” she said, pretending cheerful surprise.

I opened Mother’s—Mother and Whitt’s joint card—first.

On the outside were several chickadees among orange leaves, acorns, and glitter. Inside, in orange script, was printed:

May this year be the year when all your birthday wishes come true.

Underneath it, she wrote:

Happy birthday, Bronwen. Eighteen! I can hardly believe it. We love you. Love, Mom, Whitt, and Sam

Also inside were three $100 bills and a $200 gift card to Abercrombie & Fitch. I thanked them sincerely.

They gave me the same thing last year, and I thanked them sincerely then too.

Next one—Peter’s.

Peter had actually traced his hand in brown marker and made a turkey. Wearing a party hat. With a speech bubble that read
Birthday greetings from Elvis, the Birthday Turkey,
and it made me laugh.

Mother laughed louder.

Whitt handed me his.

“You’re sure it’s not a sweater?” I teased.

“Sorry,” he said. “This one’s empty.”

His card showed a beach scene, stylized, impressionistic—small waves under a partially cloudy sky and two figures, a tiny girl and a tall man, walking hand in hand toward the water. The brushstrokes gave the whole card movement. Everything but the sand seemed to stir in slow motion.

Mingled with the clouds was written,
For my stepdaughter, on her birthday.

Inside:

I know I’m not your father, nor could ever take his place. You see him in your memory. I see him in your face. He’s part of you and you of him, and that’s as it should be. It wasn’t easy, all these years, making room for me. But room you made, in life and heart, and I just want to say

how very blessed I am to be part of your life today. Happy birthday to a wonderful stepdaughter.

He signed it:

L
OVE
, W
HITT

I hated it.

Absolutely hated it.

I wanted to tell him so, wanted to yell at him that it was too late, too little too late, five whole years too late,
and where the hell were you when I wanted this?! Where
were you?! I waited for this! I waited for you! You were supposed to sign it
Love, Dad,
and you never even said anything to me! How could you just not say anything?!

Mostly I wanted to yell that the card was wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! I didn’t make room for you!
I hadn’t made room for him since I was thirteen.

Somehow, I managed not to cry.

“Thank you,” I said with something that passed for a smile, and then I said I had calls to make, which was true. Kirsten. But I also wanted to get out of the kitchen.

Go.

Away.

Kirsten came over later that afternoon, and in the privacy of my bedroom, I showed her my engagement ring. We cranked up the volume on my new Senior Year Playlist—whatever was on—so that the noise would cover our squealing.

“I cannot believe this,” Kirsten said, grabbing my hand and leading me by my ring finger to my bed, where we sat cross-legged and leaning close. She continued to hold my hand long after she stopped looking at the ring.

“Okay—now tell me everything, but mostly tell me you have no doubts,” she said.

“I have no doubts,” I said easily.

“Are you sure? Bronwen, are you absolutely sure? Because this is a huge step, and it is kind of fast.”

“Okay, I know it seems that way, but we’re not kids, and I have known Jared for years.”

“That’s true.”

“And he is so steady, and he wouldn’t have asked me if he weren’t certain, and that only makes me more certain. He is everything I want. Everything. I love his family. They’re going to be my family, and I have Jared. There is nothing else in the world I want so much. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do. And he is terrific. So then spill it. Details.”

“Okay, well, I have to show you this dress that—”

“Not those details,” she said. “I know those.”

“Then what?”

She tilted her head at me, chin down, eyes up, as if to say
You know exactly what I mean.

“Sex?” I asked. “We’re waiting. This doesn’t change that.”

“And he’s okay with that?”

“He completely supports that. Isn’t he incredible?”

She scrunched up her face a minute. “Bronwen, are you telling me that you and Jared are going to wait four years for sex?”

“What’s four years?”

“Bronwen.”

“Oh, you mean college? Look, we haven’t even started talking about a date, but I figure it’ll be between sophomore and junior years. And that’s really just two years. Well, after this one,” I said and laughed a little.

“That’s an awfully long time,” she said.

“Lots of people are engaged that long. Longer even.”

“Yeah,” she said and thought about it a moment. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I’m not being stupid about this.”

“I know you’re not stupid. I just think you might be getting carried away with the idea of it all. What are you guys doing about college when we go? Where’s Jared going to live? Here? And what about—”

“Listen to me,” I said, taking hold of her hands. “I’m going to go to Hope. Jared’s going to live at his parents’ cottage after he graduates, and even if he gets a job here, he can commute. It’s thirty-five miles. Civil War soldiers walked that in a day.”

“He’s walking?”

“You know what I mean. And then if we get married while I’m still in school, I’ll live at the cottage too until I graduate, and it’s perfect. Kirsten, we’ve got this worked out. And there’s more to talk about, but we’ll get to it. Right now, I just want to enjoy this, and I want you to be happy for me.”

“I am happy for you, Bronwen,” she said. “I really am.”

“It’s not like I’m getting married tomorrow, and even if I were, it would be my choice based on what I think is best for me,” I said. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You, of course, will be my maid of honor.”

“Of course.”

Then we made a list of friends for bridesmaids. Not one was willing to drop her panties for Chad Dykstra. But I’d invite him and his girlfriend too.

“Show ‘em how it’s done,” Kirsten said.

“Exactly.”

I decided that day that I wanted a summer wedding, on the beach, at the Sondervans’ cottage. In August when it’s windy and cool in the evenings. We’d say our vows around six o’clock, just as the sun started to set and streaked a fading sky with orange and purple.

“Perfect,” Kirsten said. “It’s just going to be perfect.”

And I had to agree.

For my birthday, Kirsten gave me a beautiful card about everlasting friendship and also a slate blue sweatshirt with H
OLLAND
, M
ICHIGAN
embroidered in pale yellow on it.

Later when I showed it to Mother, she first called the colors pretty, said they would flatter me “now that your hair is so dark,” and then wondered why Kirsten chose a Holland sweatshirt instead of something more personal.

“You mean like a card with chickadees on it?” I tried to tease but sounded bitchy.

Oops.

“You love chickadees,” Mother said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” I said by way of apologizing for the bitchiness.

I have no emotional investment in the chickadee other than that I would refuse to eat one if served.

About four thirty, my grandparents arrived. My grandmother pushed a birthday card at me as if she were
slicing air with it. She and Granddad hugged us all and settled into their habits, Gram speaking authoritatively of nothing, Granddad looking for a drink.

Gram gracelessly lifted herself onto one of our leather bar stools around the breakfast bar.

“I don’t know how you people eat on these things every day,” she said, walking her bottom backward on the cushion. “Bronwen, did your grandfather wish you a happy birthday?”

The question indicted us both.

“Yes, he did,” I lied, and Granddad winked at me.

“Eighteen!” he cheered.

“Yes, eighteen,” Gram said. “Bronwen, you know, don’t you, that now you can be legally sued.”

Granddad howled. “Well now, what the hell kind of birthday greeting was that?”

“Howard, do not say hell.”

“Happy birthday. Don’t get sued,” he said.

“These things are important to know,” Gram said. “Whitt, what does a person have to do to get a drink around here?”

Whitt had begun pouring their drinks the moment they entered the kitchen.

“I’ve got them right here, Jane,” he said, carrying two short glasses from his bar.

Gram took hers without so much as a thank-you.

“Ah, ready and waiting, just like I like them,” Granddad said. “God, you’re a good son-in-law, Whitt. Not like that horse’s ass Miriam went and married.”

“Daddy,” Mother said.

“Ignore him, Jacquelyn,” Gram said. “He’s been like this all day.”

“I’ve been like this since I met the man,” Granddad said. “I didn’t like him then, and I don’t like him now.”

Milton Bridenthal had been married to Mother’s older sister, Miriam, for over twenty years, and Gram and Granddad had yet to embrace the fact that he was very likely staying. They longed for a good, old-fashioned, scandalous divorce when, at last, they could blame poor Milton for all the problems in Miriam’s life, and their own.

“The Bridenthals aren’t coming, are they?” I asked Mother. They lived three hours away in Chicago.

“Not today,” she said. “But they’ll be here for Thanksgiving.”

“I can hardly wait,” Granddad grumped.

“Bronwen,” Gram said, waving me to her, and she grabbed my arm. “Help me off this thing, will you?” Cumbersomely, as if her long, slender frame weighed eight times as much, she descended the bar stool, roughly using my arm and shoulder as climbing aids.

“Now, shall we go to the living room? I do not care to socialize in the kitchen,” she said. “Take note, Bronwen,” she spoke over her shoulder as she royally led us into the significantly less comfy living room. “When you have your own home someday, kitchens are work-spaces. They are not for entertaining.”

By five o’clock, the lively sounds of chatter filled both the living room and the kitchen as the partygoers moved comfortably from one room to the other. At the last minute, Mother had invited the next-door neighbors over, so we had quite a little crowd in our house.

Shanghai Orchid catered it, which meant two employees in a van dropped food off around six o’clock, and Mother and I set up a buffet in the kitchen. Whitt invited the guests to “Help yourselves to dinner, but before we eat, let’s meet in the living room for a birthday toast.”

That was my cue.

I darted upstairs to retrieve my engagement ring, which I kept twisted palm-side until the whole group assembled itself.

And then it happened again—my mother gasped. Gasped and pressed her hands flat against her chest and smiled her most gorgeous smile, reserved only for fireworks with my father, my blonde hair, and Jesus.

There strode Peter, slowly crossing the stage of the living room in the spotlight of Mother’s smile, and we all stood up and applauded. Not really, but almost. There were hugs and handshakes and happy greetings and
hey, kiddo
,
glad to see ya
, and
happy birthday.

Some organic settling in followed—lots of questions to Peter,
how’ve you been
,
how’s school
,
what’s new
,
sorry, you first
,
what?