Lauren had been right. Get it out of the way, keep moving forward. “Did you know she was a consensual sex worker?” he asked her out loud.
He’d bet she was laughing somewhere in the Great Beyond.
He hoped so. She’d had the best laugh in the world.
25
Lauren
Thirty-five months left
March
Daddy,
I am a smug married. I love being married. Marriage is the best thing ever, and I can’t believe how happy we are. We’ve been married for five weeks, and every day is like a dream come true.
Our wedding—shoot, Dad, would you like to hear about our wedding? You would! Great! I know you were there in spirit, but this is my official update to you, assuming you can read in the Great Beyond.
All signs were pointing to doom. First, I caught a cough from one of the little germ sponges at the Hope Center, because I’ve been volunteering, reading and doing art projects. Anyway, I had this cough for a month. Then I apparently lost six pounds (coughing burns a lot of calories) and had to have my dress tightened. Then there was a huge storm two days before the wedding, and it was expected to park over Rhode Island for the whole weekend and either snow or rain or both. The downside of choosing Valentine’s Day for your wedding.
The storm blew out to sea. Thanks for that, Dad! And my cough seemed to disappear. You are one good guardian angel.
So . . . I got to the church early for the rehearsal the night before. It was chilly, but it had that good church smell, you know? Candles and incense, furniture polish and good intentions.
I stood there for a few minutes and thought of you, Daddy. You’ve been gone for six years now, and I can’t believe so much has happened to me without you. This especially. You would love Josh. You would’ve pretended not to like him at first, but you would love him like a son. He would’ve asked for your blessing before he proposed, and you would’ve lectured him on how special I am, then hugged him and tried not to cry.
And at the wedding, you would’ve walked me down the aisle. You would’ve tried to smile and you would’ve patted my hand, happy tears in your eyes. You would’ve called me your little girl and told me how beautiful I looked. You would’ve shaken Josh’s hand and told him he’d better take care of me.
So, standing there in the church, all by myself. I pretended you were there, and I pretended to link my arm through yours, and I walked down like you were next to me, and I cried my damn head off.
How could I be getting married without you? Why couldn’t you have lived, Dad?
You were the best father, Dad. The best.
For a second, I thought I would be a wreck for the wedding, mopey and weepy, like Mom. But I guess I got it out of my system, and when Josh came in, he could tell I’d been crying, and he said how proud you’d be of me. He told me how he went to the cemetery and promised you that he’d take good care of me and never let me feel unloved.
You see, Daddy? I picked a winner. I know you love him, Dad. I know you approve.
Okay, back to the happy stuff. The day of, I was SO happy. I was just floating, Dad! I also looked gorgeous, if I do say so. Darius walked me down the aisle. (Mom passed when I asked her. Sigh.) But hey! Darius is the world’s best brother-in-law, and Jen is damn lucky, too. Sebastian was our ring bearer and the CUTENESS!
My dress was so pretty . . . I tried to pick out something my daughter will want to wear someday, and not something that would make her scream with laughter. (We hope to have at least two daughters, like you and Mom did, Dad, because where would I be without Jen?) So it was Audrey Hepburn fabulous, as you no doubt saw. Josh wore a suit—I thought he was handsome in cargo pants, but MY GOD. I saw his face and thought, I am so lucky. He loves me. He loves me!
His mom was happy-crying through the whole thing. It was so sweet. I didn’t peg her as a crier, and there she was. She blew me a kiss as I walked up the aisle.
Daddy . . . when we said our vows, Josh’s voice was so gentle and . . . perfect. Neither of us cried. It was almost too important for tears. I looked into his eyes, and I never meant anything more in my life when I said I would love, honor and cherish him all the days of my life.
The reception was so much fun. Even Mom had fun. There were toasts, and Jen bawled and was also hilarious, and we all danced till we dropped. Seriously, I thought I was going to faint at one point, the downside of wearing a wedding gown. But at one point, when we were slow-dancing, Josh whispered, “You know what I want?” and I said, “What’s that, honey?” and he said, “I want to take my wife home.”
And Daddy, that was everything. Wife. Husband. Home. Us.
Yes, he carried me over the threshold.
It was perfect. I’m so happy, Dad. Know that. Feel that. Your little girl is so happy.
In retrospect, the incident during their honeymoon was the first big warning.
Their rented house sat on a huge cliff overlooking the ocean and was impossibly pretty. The flowers, the wild roosters crowing at all hours, the abrupt and glorious drenching rains followed inevitably by a rainbow, and the clear, warm water . . . it truly was paradise. How did people visit Hawaii and leave? Lauren didn’t know.
Plus the great married sex. There was a safety now, a comfort and security that gave her the ability to let go of any inhibitions, knowing that if it was awkward or silly or just didn’t work out (for example, her pathetic attempt to talk dirty), they’d laugh and move on and learn together. Long hours in bed, walking naked around the house, eating pineapples and mangoes, feeling like a goddess in this tropical utopia with her man . . . the happiness brought her to tears sometimes.
Forever. All the days of my life. Forsaking all others. The beautiful words of the wedding ceremony kept echoing in her head, so full of promise and meaning, enacted every time they made love, every time they talked. They had deep conversations about their childhoods, and she learned things she’d never known about him, and told him things she’d never told anyone, and their love deepened and grew even more.
At night, if he fell asleep first, she’d stare at his beautiful face, her heart thrumming with love. She would take such good care of him. Make him so happy. He deserved everything, her hardworking, earnest, brilliant, quiet, kind and sometimes awkward husband, and she would give it to him.
They ate sushi and poké and tried to pronounce long Hawaiian words properly. The beach was an easy walk downhill from their cliff house, and the walk back was good cardio, enough to make her winded and sweaty. Every day, they swam and played in the waves, lay on the sand and laughed when it rained on them and just waited till the sun came back out a few minutes later. They tried surfing . . . Josh was physically perfect but adorably clumsy, but Lauren caught a few waves, and the feeling of being propelled by the force of the ocean made her giddy.
One day, they drove to the western side of the island to see the Nāpali state park and maybe Hanakapi’ai Falls. It was a rugged trail, but they both loved hiking. They packed food and lots of water, and got lost in paradise. Holding hands when they could, walking through the thick forest, swatting mosquitoes. The birdsong was almost deafening.
At the base, they stood in awe at the four-hundred-foot falls, the mist shimmering, the walls of the hills bursting with moss and ferns that grew right out of the shale. They swam in the frigid water, laughing and wrapping their arms around each other. Ate the picnic lunch they’d packed, then sat in a silence that wrapped them in honey-golden contentment and wonder.
But the ascent was harder; a brief rain shower had turned the trail to slick mud. They stopped to rest a few times, and Lauren felt so tired she wondered aloud if she could just lie down and grab a nap. Her limbs felt heavy and achy, but what choice did she have? When they finally made it to the car, both damp with sweat, she was breathing fast and hard. Josh, damn him, caught his breath almost immediately. She shouldn’t be this win
ded, she thought. She was in great shape, she’d drunk plenty of water, had two granola bars, a sandwich and mango slices, she . . . whoops . . . things were graying out, and she seemed to be flowing down toward the earth, just like the waterfall.
The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground, staring at a flower, because there were flowers everywhere on this island. So pretty. They should move here. Also, it was hard to breathe. Her damn asthma. It felt like there was a leather belt cinched around her chest, getting tighter with every second.
“Honey! Lauren! Honey!” Josh was there, and she tried to smile, but her chest hurt, and her breath squeaked.
“Inhaler,” she whispered. He was already fumbling in the backpack and quickly pulled it out and handed it to her. She took a hit, then another, and her breathing eased a bit.
“Your lips are blue,” he said, and his voice was shaking.
A small crowd had gathered. “Want me to call 911?” someone asked.
“No,” she said at the same time Josh said yes. He scooped her up and carried her to the side of the road to wait.
“Thank God you . . . work out, babe,” she said, still puffing. “It’d be so embarrassing . . . if you had to drag me.” Big breath. “For you, that is. Not me.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite fool her. He was worried.
Blue lips. That was a first. Residual cold from the swim? The elevation? Some weird allergic reaction to the fruit?
The EMTs gave her oxygen and said fainting wasn’t that uncommon after this hike, especially if a person wasn’t in great shape.
Rude. She was in great shape. She just had asthma. “Ride in ambulance, check!” she said as they unloaded her at the hospital. “This was thrilling. Thanks, guys! Mahalo!” They did that cool thumb-pinkie wave and wished her well.
Josh’s face was somber, but she reassured him. The ER doctor wasn’t worried. He gave her a five-day course of prednisone, listened to her lungs and said she sounded like someone with asthma. “It’s probably the exertion coupled with the difference in humidity, but everything else looks good,” he said. “Make sure you drink lots of water and have a good dinner tonight. Your oxygen saturation is ninety-five, which is on the low side of normal. You might be a little anemic, given that you’re a woman who gets her period, which can also cause a drop in O2 sats. You said you’re on your honeymoon, so if you’ve been hitting the mai tais, back off on that, because alcohol can make you dehydrated, which doesn’t help anything.”
“Killjoy,” Lauren said. Mai tais were the new love of her life. Ah, well. There was always tomorrow.
It took Josh a full day to stop checking to see if she’d faint again. She had to admit, she kind of loved being treated like a delicate orchid. The honeymoon progressed with no further incidents . . . just love. And fun. Joshua got a tan. Lauren’s nose sunburned a little. They took an inner tube ride down an old plantation canal through the rainforest. Snorkeled with turtles and brilliant-colored fish. They went jet-skiing, and saw a pod of spinner dolphins who played with them for a few minutes before darting off into the cerulean ocean. One night, they ate at a little shack-like restaurant and heard a Hawaiian singer, and the music was so lovely and happy. Lauren sat with her back against Josh, and the singer dedicated a song to “the young lovers at table four.” So, so romantic.
Best of all was going back to their pretty little rented house each night, giving their food leftovers to the stray cat who had marked them as softies, and watching the sunset, holding hands.
It was hard to leave.
“We’ll come back,” Josh promised. “Every few years, how’s that? This house, every time. Maybe we can even buy it if it ever goes on the market.”
Sometimes she forgot he was wealthy. Well. They were wealthy now. Josh wouldn’t sign a prenup, even when she had said she wouldn’t mind. “That would indicate a lack of faith in our future,” he’d said in his serious way. “And my faith in our future is absolute.” Lauren asked Stephanie what she thought, and Steph smiled and said, “Josh has never once made me question his judgment. I’m not going to start now.”
So yes, a house in Hawaii wasn’t out of the question. And hey, she made a decent living, too. It wasn’t like she brought nothing to the table.
Back home, her dry cough returned. After a couple of weeks, she went to the doctor, who drew blood and tested her for the usual viruses, and everything was negative or normal.
So she didn’t worry.
Just before the wedding, they’d moved into a bigger apartment in the same mill building where Lauren had lived. It had more character than Josh’s building, so he sold his place and they bought a three-bedroom with access to the rooftop garden.
Oh, the joy in making it lovely and warm—her specialty, after all. She turned one bedroom into his study and got lounge chairs and a table for the garden up top. He had to sit in the middle of the roof, given his fear of heights, which she thought was cute. The second bedroom could be for guests, though they agreed they’d eventually want a house. For now, the apartment was absolutely perfect. They had friends over, like real grown-ups. One Sunday, they made dinner for their mothers, Jen, Darius and Sebastian, who now called Joshua “Unca Josh.” Seeing him play with her nephew was a preview of coming attractions. Oh, he’d be such a good father! Maybe even as good as her own.
Though Josh was a workaholic, Lauren made him limit his computer time on weekends so they could cook together, take walks, go to the farmers’ market and buy beautiful mushrooms and tomatoes. Work was going great—Bruce the Mighty and Beneficent loved her and gave her some plum assignments. They had him and his husband, Tom, over for dinner, and moved from boss-employee to friends.
At her annual review, she got a nice raise and an office of her own, which made Lori Cantore hiss with jealousy. Lauren didn’t care; Lori was just that type, and she had Louise and Santino as work friends. The first thing she put on her desk was a picture of her and Josh, taken in the lush yard of their house on Kauai, the glorious sunset in the background.
Every Thursday night, she volunteered at the Hope Center, and helped with the open house on the first Sunday of each month. Josh donated a 3-D printer and hit up RISD for a grant. (They had ignored Lauren when she asked, but for their golden boy, anything. It was for a good cause, so who cared how it got done?) She saw her sister for lunch at least once a week, and she and Josh babysat so Darius and Jen could go out.
Twice a month, she made sure to go out with her girlfriends—Sarah, Mara, sometimes Asmaa and Louise, too. She didn’t want to be that woman who disappeared after marriage, and while being with Josh was her absolute favorite thing, she wanted to remind both of them that she had other people she loved.
Every morning, Josh made her breakfast. He cooked her dinner once a week; she loved cooking, and he didn’t, but it was the thought that counted. He set up a weekly flower delivery for her office, so every Monday as she shook off the faint melancholy that the weekend had ended, there was a fresh bouquet of flowers in her office, never with lilies, because they gave her a headache. The fact that he remembered that about her was as romantic as the flowers themselves.
He still worked a lot, often leaving bed while she slept. On the nights when she did something without him, he worked, and if she fell asleep watching a movie on a Sunday afternoon, she’d wake up to see him with his laptop, working on a design that would save humanity from whatever problem he had in his sights.
One night after they’d made love and lay tangled in the bed, heart rates returning to normal, she said, “Do you remember the first time we met? You told me I was too pretty and shallow. You could barely deign to look at me.”
He looked at her with a half smile. “I do remember.”
“Was I so bad?”
He shrugged. “You were so . . . different from me. So confident and popular and . . . socially graceful. But I think even then, I knew.”
“Knew wh
at?”
“Knew you’d be trouble.” His hand grazed her ribs, tickling her.
Oh, God, she loved him. She loved them. His hermit days were over, thanks to her, and he learned to live more like a human and less like a feral raccoon. He emptied the trash before it was overflowing and tried (though failed) to wipe down the counters so they were spotless. He said he loved her daily, and he still blushed over the words sometimes. He made small talk with her mother and hugged Jen awkwardly when she came over. And when he looked at her with those dark-flame eyes, she felt him in every cell in her body.
Life, as they say, was perfect. Every day was so full, so peaceful, so bright with joy and warm with contentment. When she thought of the future, Lauren felt a palpable thrill zing through her blood. Babies. (They would be so cute! Maybe Josh would do that DNA test so they’d know his ethnic background on his paternal side a little more, since Steph claimed not to know.) They’d take vacations. Buy a house. Raise a family and grow old together.
More than anything, she loved thinking about that . . . the endless unfolding of days.
There were little irritants, of course. When Josh was immersed in a project, he’d apparently lose his sense of hearing and she’d have to wave her hand in front of his face to get him to say hello to his mom. He relied on her to do everything social in their lives, whether it was going to a movie on a Friday night or deciding how to spend Christmas. He didn’t have friends of his own—not really, not like she did, and sometimes she wished he had a monthly poker game so she could have a night alone in the apartment.
But those things were so small.
She still missed her dad, still wanted to show him everything, every project she worked on, whether it was a new bus stop or a tiny park along the river. She missed him on her birthday, shocked that she was turning twenty-six without her dear old dad.
Pack Up the Moon Page 27