But here we are anyway, climbing in the tub, our old place of comfort, and he’s determined to tell me a bunch of stuff, which judging from the urgent look in his eyes, I probably need to hear. He sits in the back of the tub, and I lean back against him. Too much of my skin is touching too much of his, I think. It’s affecting my ability to focus on what he’s saying.
And the more he talks, the more I get irritated. I turn my head around and glare at him. “Why didn’t you trust me to talk about it with me? That’s what I don’t get,” I say.
“Because . . . because, damn it, I came from people who settled the West and plowed the fields and minded their own business and didn’t know how to talk about their feelings and so never showed me how that was done, and because I thought I was supposed to always be strong, and because I knew it was time I got over this, and because I loved you so much, and because I knew at some level it was ridiculous, and that I had so much to be grateful for, and why couldn’t I let myself feel it?”
“Okayyyy,” I say. I lean back again. “Believe it or not, Patrick, I actually have the capacity to understand all that.”
“And then . . . well, it got so much worse. I was being dragged under. It was like being crazy. Voices inside my head, blaming me.” He swallows and drags his hand through the bathwater, as an illustration. His hand grazes my breast, and I jump. I have to bite my lip, and he moves his hand away. “I think . . . I think that completing those paintings—and those sculptures—although it didn’t feel like it at the time, now I think maybe it was me healing. Only to do it, I lost sight of everything that was important.”
He leans down and kisses my neck.
I pull away and turn and look at him, mad all over again. “I couldn’t reach you. What good is love that goes away when there’s a big problem? That’s what I want to know.”
“Marnie, I swear to you it didn’t go away. You were always the important thing I was trying to fight my way back to. You’re so different from anyone I’ve ever known. You’re Christmas morning and a Fourth of July parade both happening at once, and you have so much optimism and joy and love. You always think the best of everybody, and you want the tallest Christmas tree and the biggest crowds around the table, and the creamiest ice cream cones, and the longest, sweetest, slowest kisses—and for some reason, you see sparkles when you look at me, so how could I possibly tell you how far down I had fallen? And how fucked up I was? I’d look at you living life and making plans and I would feel like I was at the bottom of a well. Don’t you get it? You’re a happiness genius.”
“A happiness genius? I don’t think that’s a thing.” I lean back against him.
“A happiness genius is obviously a thing. And I was a happiness school dropout. And when I realized that I had pushed you away, and that it was totally my fault that I had to live without you, I was . . . well, I lost my mind. I can’t do that. I can’t go back there.”
The tap is dripping slowly. Plink. Plink. Plink.
We’re silent for a while, and then I say, “How can I possibly believe in this?”
“I guess I just need you to trust me. I’m willing to wait for as long as it takes. I’ll do my time in love jail, if you want.” He swirls his hands through the bathwater again, turns on the tap with his toe to warm it up. In a different voice, he says, “I’ve been through worse. Like, while you were gone, Fritzie got really, really sick—the kind of sick where I, at least, thought she might die. Like really, seriously die.”
“What? You didn’t tell me that part.”
“I couldn’t tell you. It took all of me to take care of her. I sat by her bed trying to get her to drink liquids. I literally thought I’d snuffed out another person I loved. And I think Bedford and Roy might have agreed; they sat right there, too. Days of it. And when she didn’t die—I don’t know, I guess part of the relief I felt was that I’m not a toxic human-destroying monster who should be forced to wear a warning label on his back. Also, I figured out that absolutely everything is going to be lost at some time in the future—all of this, even Blix’s wonderful bathtub—and that I can’t let myself live in total fear of that happening. Turns out I’m one of the survivors. And as you pointed out one time, that’s a good thing, surviving. I could see my life again. I can take care of us, Marnie. I can do my share and more. When you let me out of the love jail, of course.”
I shiver, suddenly aroused by him, and he feels it, and smiles.
“Um, we’ll get to that in a minute,” he says. “A couple more things you need to know. I never stopped loving you. I just stopped feeling like my love could make you happy. But I’m ready to feel pleasure in things again. I’d like to sign up for a few remedial courses from the happiness genius. And—” He sucks in his breath, waits a beat, and then says, “Well, maybe I’m a big idiot to mention this now, when it’s so soon, but I’m thinking I’d like to tell Tessa I want to keep Fritzie full-time. Would you . . . want to be here with me for that? I mean, could we raise her together, do you think?”
I turn to look at his eyes. They are holding mine, like this is the most important question ever.
“You really think we could keep her?” I say.
“I think Tessa would be only too happy to have that be the case. I know this is going to feel like a complete reversal for me, but I’m ready for a family. I don’t think I can give her up at this point. And I think I want the whole nine yards—the boppers and the sippies and the stroller and the . . .”
“Fritzie is too old for a sippy cup.”
“I know,” he says. “Funny you should mention that. Because there’s something else I want to talk to you about.” He turns me around gently now so I’m facing him. I can see his Adam’s apple going up and down. He puts his hands on my shoulders and looks into my eyes so hard that I can’t look away. His beautiful, luminous face—the face I’ve missed so much—brings tears to my eyes.
“This is the thing I want to tell you,” he says. “I love you, Marnie MacGraw, and I want to spend my life with you, and I want us to have a baby. But seeing as we can’t have our own DNA do that little trick for us, I have another plan.” He swallows, closes his eyes. “Sooo I talked to Janelle . . .”
I can barely breathe. “Janelle,” I say.
“Yes, and she wants to give us her baby in an open adoption—that is, if you want to do that,” he says. “She and I have talked about it, and we’ve already got somebody in mind who can help us draw up the papers—that is, if you agree. This is all a big shock, I know, and maybe you want to think about it. We have some time. Her baby isn’t due until May . . .” He goes on for a bit about the legality and how he came to this decision, and what it might mean for Janelle and what it would mean for us. But my head is spinning, and all my thoughts are so loud that I can’t take in all this extraneous stuff because I’m thinking, I am going to be the mother of a baby. Patrick and I are going to have a baby.
He finally stops talking because I’m crying so hard and hugging him, and he puts his forehead against mine and we stare into each other’s eyes, except we’re so close it looks like he has one giant eyeball. One giant, all-seeing, all-knowing, unblinking eyeball.
“Are you sure?” I whisper, unable to stop crying and unable to pull away and blow my nose, so my whole face is ridiculously gross.
“Are you sure?” he whispers back. “Because I also think we should make ourselves official and get married . . . if we’re going to have all these children, you know.”
“But, Patrick, there’s just one thing that makes us not quite the perfect fit,” I say. I wipe my nose on the washcloth.
He groans. “Name it. Please.”
“Perhaps you’re not aware that I’m going to need a wedding that has actual people attending it.”
“I want that,” he says, so quickly that I laugh.
“And not just a ceremony at city hall. I want a wedding on our rooftop.”
“Yes.”
“With guests. And lots of different kinds of cakes.”
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“All the people we want who can fit on our rooftop. Or, wait, would you rather hold it at Yankee Stadium?”
“Our rooftop will be sufficient.”
“And how many cakes? A hundred?”
“Just sixteen. I want sixteen cakes, and I want everybody we know to come and dance with us. Will you dance?”
“I will dance. Can one of the cakes be a banana cream pie, and that’s the one you and I will eat together after everyone has gone?”
“Are you serious? Because I am very, very serious about this.”
He shrugs. “As long as we’re dreaming, I didn’t think it would hurt to get in there that I want banana cream pie, too. With a little bride and groom standing in the whipped cream.”
“Well, sure. I want them up to their knees in whipped cream.”
He kisses me for a long time. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Can we adjourn this official meeting and get on with the important stuff in our bed right this second?”
Indeed, he says, we can. He thought I’d never ask.
And, well, after the important stuff—which, believe me, could not have waited thirty more seconds—well, we lie together, my head on his shoulder, until very late, talking about babies and little girls and what it’s going to feel like to cuddle our daughters—our daughters, plural!—and we talk about everything we can think of. The big stuff and the little stuff, down to what kind of stroller makes the most sense and which of us should make the Saturday morning pancakes, and at some point we’re so tired and delirious that the words all flow together, and then we get so tired we can’t even form sentences anymore, and I fall asleep hearing my heart calling out into the darkness, and being answered back: yes yes yes yes.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MARNIE
Blix told me over and over again that I was going to have a big, big life.
I never knew what that meant, of course. Was I supposed to be working at the United Nations or becoming an ambassador to some third world country? Was I meant to join the space program? Perform miracles? What the heck would be considered big?
All I ever wanted, I told her, was a husband and children, a house, some bikes and strollers in the front hall, maybe some mittens I’d knit when I learned how. That didn’t sound like a life anybody might describe with even one big—much less two.
But now—well, now I know what a big life is. It’s a feeling more than a thing. You don’t have to go up in space or even stand on a big stage or run for office. It can be something as small as seeing shimmers in the air and convincing two strangers they need to get to know each other. And it can be as routine as a man rubbing your toes in a claw-foot bathtub, a child drawing pictures at the kitchen table, and a baby girl sleeping on your chest. Throw in some music playing in the background, the sound of people walking by in the street, and the fragrance of a Thursday night meat loaf in the oven—and that’s about all the miracles I need.
It’s a year later, and I guess I should explain what’s happened.
Fritzie was delighted when we asked if she’d like to live with us full-time, and armed with the knowledge that we were doing the right thing for everybody, we easily worked out details with Tessa and Richard, who decided they wanted to stay in Europe for another year anyway before coming back to the States. She’ll go visit them, and they’re making arrangements to come and stay with us for a week sometime soon. Patrick says they’ve unwittingly become part of my plan to turn everybody I know into one big, happy family, and that I won’t be content until I have all my loved ones under one roof for every single holiday.
Patrick and I got married in a crazy big May wedding on our rooftop with, yes, sixteen cakes and one secret banana cream pie with a plastic bride and groom standing up to their knees in whipped cream. There was a mariachi band and people dancing under the full moon. Everybody wore wonderful boho clothes, and Patrick found a tiara for me that he said belonged to Blix and that she’d worn when she threw her own Irish wake, because only Blix would have thought of putting on her own wake so she could get to comfort the mourners herself. And only she would have worn a tiara for it.
Fritzie stood up next to us while we read our vows, and she said her own, in which she promised to love our family and to notice if we were falling away from all the things we promised that day, particularly the one about always having ice cream in the house, which was her idea. She also said she’d pick up trash on the street and thank people on the subway when she saw them giving up their seats for pregnant women or old people, and people clapped—and even though that didn’t really have anything to do with our marriage vows, the clapping was a nice touch, and Fritzie, I think, needs a full amount of clapping. Years of clapping!
For my part, I promised to clap for her and love her and make sure she gets a lot of time to be a kid and I promised to remind her that she doesn’t have to worry about parenting the grown-ups around her.
Talk about interesting speeches, my mother got up and said that her dearest wish for us was that we shake up our marriage at least once every five years—that we should just throw out all the rules and break loose into doing completely new things.
“It’s great to be in a couple, and most people will tell you that you have to sacrifice everything for the marriage and work hard at it, but I say you should play hard at it, and don’t sacrifice a thing. Most of all, be brave enough not to give up on your own personal self,” she said. “Also, if you hate making meat loaf every Thursday night, don’t do it. Do not do it.”
My dad called out, “Could we have it on Wednesday sometimes, maybe, every once in a while?” and everybody laughed, and Paco yelled out that he’d give my dad some meat loaf to take home, and also give him the recipe so he could make it himself. That line drew some applause. My wedding was becoming like a group conversation.
You know what was the best part, though?
Well, first let me tell you that all the people from the Frippery came: Anxious Toby, Kat, Ernst the Screenplay Guy—and all the Amazings, which was like having precious swans show up. Lola and William Sullivan were there, and Lola kept dabbing her eyes and telling me that she knew that Blix was right here with us, enjoying immensely the whole idea that her plan for Patrick and me had worked out after all.
“That’s the thing about Blix’s plans,” she said. “Just when you give up on them and think they’re not coming true, then everything kind of works out just the way she said it would.”
I pointed to the tiara. “She’s right here,” I said. “Narrating the whole thing.”
So right there on that rooftop was everything I’ve ever loved about weddings: tears and applause and laughing and family and food and dancing and children and a fire in the firepit. Nobody jilted me at the altar this time or said he didn’t think he could go through with it.
But now I need to get to the best part.
After we’d said the vows, and after everybody had gotten their plates of food and the sun was starting to go down, Patrick came over and tapped me on the shoulder. I was chatting with my sister about Brooklyn kid events, and my nieces, Amelia and Louise, were running in circles around us.
“Marnie,” he said in a low voice. “It’s time. She’s pushing.”
“Oh!” I said. I stood up and put my plate on the table nearby. I felt like my cheeks were flushed.
“Should we put somebody in charge of this wedding while we’re gone, or will it just run along on its own power?”
I looked around. It seemed like a wedding that had enough oomph for a few more hours at least. Mariachis were lining up to play after a break, and there were still a whole bunch of cakes to be introduced.
My sister thought that we should stay at our wedding—“It’s your moment!” she said—but we thanked her for that observation, and kissed and hugged everybody and said we were off to have a baby.
Janelle had been very clear that she wanted us to come. We were supposed to be there for her whole labor, but she’d known we were getting ma
rried today, so she had her mom call us at the pushing stage instead. We hadn’t even known she’d been in labor since it was a whole week early.
Three hours later, I sat in Janelle’s hospital room, and Patrick and I held on to our new little daughter, and all of us cried. She was beautiful and pink and perfect, with curled-up little fists and big, soulful navy-blue eyes that gazed right up into mine. She was swaddled up in one of those white hospital blankets with the pink-and-blue stripes, and she was wearing a jaunty little knit cap that Fritzie said was so cute that we should all make some for ourselves.
Yes, Fritzie was there with us. She insisted on coming along to meet her new sister, and make sure we didn’t name her anything stupid, she said. Her eyes were glowing, I noticed, and she kept saying, “Now my daddy has two little girls.”
At Janelle’s request, I stayed with her after Patrick and Fritzie left and went back to the wedding. I think she wanted me there for fortification when Matt came to see her. The reluctant father of the baby.
He looked like a cowboy, striding into that room, bringing in an air of testosterone and defensiveness, and I didn’t like it one bit. When he asked me if they could have some privacy, I looked at her, and she nodded so I left the two of them alone and went down to the cafeteria to have a cup of tea and walk around. People looked at me and smiled, and maybe it was because I was wearing my wedding dress, which was dragging along the ground, all that lace and colorful silk—but maybe it was because I couldn’t stop hugging myself, since I was having two very intense and opposing feelings at once. I was so excited and happy in the main part of myself, but there was this other little section that was, I have to admit, a little bit scared that maybe Matt was going to say he’d changed his mind, and that he wanted to raise his baby girl with Janelle after all.
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