“After the baby comes,” Claire added. “I want you both here till then.” She glanced from her mother to her grandmother and Anthony rolled his eyes.
“I can hardly wait till the baby comes out and you get your brain back,” he said to his little sister, and Reed laughed. Claire rarely talked about her work anymore. Reed read baby books and she read nothing. She was thinking about Lamaze classes in January, but she still wasn’t sure. She felt certain she could get through the delivery without them, with drugs. It couldn’t be that bad.
“Any of you who want to come to visit us are most welcome,” Alicia stood up and said. She had high hopes for launching her movie career there, and possibly a better shot at it than in the States.
“Why don’t you two come too?” Kate leaned over and said to Tammy about a trip to India, and Tammy glanced at Stacey, who looked noncommittal.
“We might have other plans next year,” Tammy answered vaguely, but it was certainly the biggest piece of news at the table, and everyone said they were going to miss them, and Kate most of all.
They stayed until midnight and then everyone went home with their presents, after hugging and wishing each other a Merry Christmas. Some went to midnight mass, Alicia and Anthony and Reed. Claire was too tired. Stacey wasn’t a churchgoer and Tammy stayed home with her. Margaret always said it was too late for her. And Kate wanted to clean up after dinner. Margaret stayed back to talk to Kate for a few minutes after the young people left. “Are you all right about Anthony leaving?” She worried about her, she was so attached to her children.
“Do I have a choice? It’s for his job.” She sighed. “At least he’s not going forever, and it’s very exciting for him, for both of them. It’s a wonderful opportunity. I would never stand in the way of that. They all have to grow up and so do I.” She had no doubt in her mind, Alicia was the right woman for him. She encouraged him in just the right ways and gave him strength. She didn’t drain his energy the way Amanda had. And if they decided to get married next summer, Kate was fine with it, and she told Anthony that before he left that night. They had her blessing, and he thanked her and hugged her tight. He appreciated how supportive she had been of all the changes in his life in the past six months, even when she didn’t agree with him.
Kate sat alone in the living room after her mother left. She turned off the lights, and sat looking at the tree all lit up, remembering what it was like when they were little, assembling bicycles and doll carriages for all three of them to discover on Christmas morning, after Santa Claus left them during the night. They had been the best years of her life. But she couldn’t let the story stop there. They were the early years, when Tom was alive and still loved her. And there had been all the years since, and now these last few months where they were all starting to take flight, in directions she had never even dreamed of, into skies far from where she could even see them. She couldn’t protect them anymore, or keep them safe. She had to trust that their wings were strong and would carry them as far away as they chose to fly from her, and back again. These were the years she had dreaded long ago. They had finally come. Her babies were gone. Men and women had taken their place, with ideas that she didn’t always agree with, like Claire’s.
It was all different now, but the house was still standing, and it was strong. From now on, they would come and go, and she would be there for them, and they would be there for each other. Their foundations were built on rock, and the family was as strong as she had hoped. It was all she had to give them of real value.
Chapter 16
Scott called Kate two days after Christmas, and invited her to dinner and a movie. She accepted happily. She was quiet when he picked her up, and he thought she seemed different. He asked her if anything was wrong.
“Not really. My kids are growing up. My son announced on Christmas Eve that he’s moving to India for two years. It’s a wonderful opportunity for him. I’m just going to miss him. He’s coming home next summer for three weeks, possibly to get married. His moving away like that is a big change. I have to get used to it. It kind of shocked me. We’ve had a lot of shocks in the past six months, but this is a big one and a good one. But even the good changes can be hard.” He nodded, trying to imagine what it felt like for a mother to watch her children move away. He had done it to his parents when he left Montana. He had never realized how much it must have hurt them. And then his mother died later. He’d had a happy childhood with them, and he still missed them at times, especially now with his father so far away. He had never thought of it before from their perspective, when he left for college and never moved back, and how hard it must have been for them. He had only thought of it from his point of view. He had never before realized the selflessness it took to let one’s children go and fly away, because it was what they wanted.
“None of your kids are married yet?” Scott asked her and she shook her head.
“Not yet. Almost. Anthony was supposed to get married this month, and he canceled the wedding in September. He fell in love with a different girl. She’s going to India with him. Stupidly, I would have objected to her before. And I think she’s lovely and the right girl for him. I would have picked the wrong one, for all the wrong reasons. He found a better one, for him, which is what matters. They’re thinking of getting married next summer.” She thought about telling him the rest then, but she wasn’t ready to share it with him yet.
They went to a movie that made them laugh, and had dinner afterward. They talked about a million different things until the restaurant closed, and then he took her home. She didn’t invite him up, and he didn’t suggest it. They were still learning about each other and having fun. Kate no longer cared about the age gap between them, it seemed irrelevant.
He was going on his ski trip four days later. He planned to leave the morning of New Year’s Eve. She was going to stay home cozily in her pajamas, which was what she had done for several years. She used to go to parties on that night, but she felt that people tried too hard, and it was never as much fun as she’d thought it would be. She liked staying home better.
When he dropped her off at her place, he wished her a happy New Year and said he’d call her from Vermont. She’d had another lovely evening with him, and he kissed her gently on the lips before he left her. It was a heady promise of things to come, if everything worked out right.
The next morning, Tammy called her.
“We just got a wedding license, Mom.” She sounded breathless. “We’ve been wrestling with a decision. It changed things once Stacey met the family, and we’re not a secret anymore. We want to get married and try to have a baby, and we want to do it in the right order. Neither of us care about a wedding or a big white dress. We have the wedding license now. We want to get married in two days, on the thirtieth. Will you be my witness?” Tears filled Kate’s eyes. She was going to be the witness to her daughter’s gay marriage, and if what she had always said to them was true, that all she wanted was their happiness, this was the proof of it. This was the happiness Tammy wanted.
“I’d be honored,” Kate said, with raw emotion in her voice.
“We have an appointment at noon in city hall. We’re going to the sperm bank tomorrow. Stacey knows how to do the insemination since she’s a doctor. It’s pretty simple. We want to do it on our wedding day. It probably won’t work the first time, but we’ll try.” It was a little more mechanical and more detail than Kate was ready for, but she was touched to be included and part of the wedding. It was a little startling to realize that her first child to get married was going to be her daughter marrying another woman. But they had been together for a long time, and Kate had come to love Stacey. She was an honorable woman. “Do you think Grandma would be our other witness?”
“You can ask her. I think she’d love it.”
“I’ll call her,” Tammy said, sounding excited. Kate called her florist as soon as she hung up and ordered a
bouquet of white Phalaenopsis orchids for each of them. She didn’t know what they were wearing, but brides needed bouquets, and she wanted them to have them. The florist asked her if one was the tossing bouquet, in which case they would make it smaller. It was a standard question.
“No, two brides, two bouquets, same size, one for each of them.”
“Are they twins? Is it a double wedding?”
“No, they’re marrying each other. My daughter is marrying her partner, and I want the bouquets to be gorgeous.”
“Of course,” the woman at the other end said nervously. “We’ll deliver them to you at nine A.M. on the thirtieth.”
“Perfect, thank you.” She made a reservation for lunch at La Grenouille afterward, and the rest of the details she left up to them. She took two blue handkerchiefs out of a drawer. And she got the string of pearls Tom had given her when Tammy was born out of her jewelry case. Margaret called her a few minutes later.
“We’re witnesses day after tomorrow, I hear. This is so exciting.” Margaret sounded genuinely happy for them, and Kate was too. She didn’t have to fake it or pretend. And she wouldn’t have to at Anthony’s wedding next summer either. She would be truly happy for him.
“I’ll pick you up at eleven A.M.,” Kate told her mother.
“What’ll we wear?”
“Something nice. I just made a reservation for lunch afterward at La Grenouille for the four of us.”
“They don’t want Claire and Anthony there?”
“I don’t think so. Tammy would have mentioned it. It seems to be just the four of us.”
* * *
—
Kate picked Margaret up at eleven A.M., on the day of the wedding. They were both wearing mink coats, and Kate had a navy wool dress under hers, Margaret a gray suit. They were meeting the girls at city hall. She had the florist boxes with the bouquets in them, the pearls and the blue handkerchiefs.
“We should have picked Claire and Reed up and gotten them married too. Maybe they would have given us a group rate,” Margaret said and Kate laughed. The ironies of life were exquisite sometimes.
Tammy and Stacey were waiting for them in the lobby of city hall, as Margaret and Kate hurried in, carrying the boxes. Kate opened both of them and handed a bouquet to each bride. They were truly beautiful. Tammy was wearing a white Chanel suit with a white coat over it, and a very chic little white Chanel hat with a wisp of white veil over her eyes. She looked spectacular with her blond hair in a bun, and Stacey was so happy she looked like she was about to burst in her Saint Laurent tuxedo pantsuit, with black patent leather men’s dress pumps, a white tuxedo shirt from Charvet in Paris, and black satin bow tie. Kate reached into her purse then, and brought out the pearls. She put them around Tammy’s neck and clasped them in back.
“Your father gave them to me when you were born. They’re yours now, on your wedding day.” There were tears in Kate’s and Tammy’s eyes when they looked at each other. And then Kate reached into her purse again and pulled out the two pale blue lace handkerchiefs. “Something borrowed, something blue, I’m lending one of these to each of you. So you have to give them back for good luck.” Margaret stood by watching approvingly, and patted her daughter’s arm.
“When you do it right, you really do it. I’m proud of you.”
“I’m proud of all of us.” It was five to twelve by then, and they went to the room where they’d been directed to go. They had the wedding license, and there were two urns of white flowers as they walked into the room. Another couple was just leaving. The bride had on a tight white lace wedding dress, and a veil, and they were beaming.
“Good luck,” they whispered to the foursome. Kate could never have imagined that this would be such a happy day, but it was. It felt just right to all four of them, and most of all to Tammy and Stacey.
The clerk officiating made a very nice little speech about marriage, and got their names right. They had signed the papers to change their names when they got the license. They were both taking the name Morgan-Adams, which combined their last names. He pronounced them wife and wife, without batting an eye. He had done that often by now, and told Stacey she could kiss the bride. She handed her bouquet to Margaret, and kissed Tammy. She had handed her bouquet to her mother when they exchanged rings. Tammy was wearing a narrow diamond eternity band and Stacey a wide gold one. They had bought them at Tiffany the day before. Collectively, they had thought of everything. A photographer stepped up to take their picture, and Kate said in a stage whisper, “Take lots please!” and they all laughed. It was the happiest day Kate could remember in a long time.
They were back on the steps of city hall at twelve-thirty, having posed for a few extra photographs in the lobby, and Kate took photographs of the bridal couple with her cellphone, and the father of another bride took a few of all four of them, and then they got in the car Kate had hired with a driver who drove them uptown to La Grenouille for lunch. Both girls handed her back the blue handkerchiefs in the car, to return what had been blue and “borrowed,” for good luck at the wedding, and all four women walked into La Grenouille wearing broad smiles, looking elegant and radiant.
They had a spectacular lunch in the exquisite restaurant, and Kate ordered Cristal champagne. They left at three-thirty. It had been a very special day for all four of them. Tammy thanked her mother for making it so perfect.
“You two are what made it special,” Kate said with deep emotion, and meant it.
She gave them the car to take them home, and she and Margaret went uptown in a cab, and talked about the wedding.
“I don’t know why Claire doesn’t just do something like that,” Margaret said. “It was very sweet and relatively painless. And you made it so nice for them. I’m very proud of you,” Margaret said tenderly.
“Thank you. You’re beginning to sound like me about Claire,” she said with a sigh. “But she’s not going to do it. We just have to accept it.”
“She’s making such a point of not getting married. It’s so childish,” Margaret said, annoyed with her. It wasn’t worth the energy she was putting into it, or the people she was upsetting to have her way.
“The girls looked so pretty, didn’t they,” Kate said happily. Tammy’s suit and coat had been gorgeous, and classic Chanel. And the pearls had looked just right.
Kate dropped her mother off at her building and Margaret turned to smile at her. “Well done.” Kate smiled and waved as they drove away, and when she walked into her apartment she had a text from Tammy, telling her what it meant to her to have her mother be a part of it, and make it all so lovely for them. They would never forget it. She had texted her brother and sister too to tell them they had just gotten married. Both responded immediately to congratulate them.
Tammy took her chic Chanel hat and laid it down carefully on a table when they walked into their apartment. She wanted to save the hat and her bouquet forever. She was so touched that her mother had brought the flowers, and Stacey loved hers too. Tammy thought she’d wear the dress and coat again. She had worn white satin Manolo Blahnik shoes with rhinestone buckles that she had bought the day before when they went to Tiffany for their rings. They had pulled everything together in a single day, once they decided to do it, and Kate had added the little extra touches that made it more special.
“It was magical, wasn’t it?” Tammy said as she sat down on the couch, still in her wedding dress after she took off the coat.
“I never thought a city hall wedding could be so much fun. And lunch was fabulous,” Stacey said and sat down next to Tammy with a look of gratitude and disbelief. “I never believed we’d get here, did you? Marriage at a pretty little wedding. Your mom and grandmother there as our witnesses. I keep thinking I must be dreaming.” She looked happy and peaceful.
“I thought it would happen, I just didn’t know when or how,” Tammy said, smiling at her.
The vial was waiting for them in the refrigerator, since they’d picked it up at the sperm bank, and Stacey had been instructed how to use it. You didn’t need a doctor to do it, but it was convenient that she was one. There would be no slipups, and Tammy trusted her to do it more than anyone. It was the final seal of their vows and their bond on this very special day.
“Why don’t you go change,” Stacey said gently. “We’re not doing this in a Chanel dress,” she said and Tammy laughed.
She came back a few minutes later in her nightgown with nothing under it. Stacey was reading the directions again. She had three needleless syringes, in case there was a problem with any of them. It was a completely painless procedure, which only required directing the sperm upward with the syringe internally, just as it would happen during normal sex. It just came out of a syringe instead of a penis, but the process was simple and similar. There were no hormone shots involved or medication. Tammy was only thirty-two, and had no history of fertility problems. All they needed was the sperm.
“I’ll get out of my tuxedo and be back in a minute,” Stacey said. She was back five minutes later in her nightgown too. Tammy looked at her, and they both had the same idea at the same time. Since they lived together, they had the same cycle and the time was right for her too. They were both ovulating at the exact moment. Tammy had checked that morning. It was why they had wanted to get married on that day, so Tammy could get pregnant on their wedding day, if it worked the first time. They realized that they might have to try for six or eight months, or even a year for her to get pregnant. This was only the first try, but if it took, Tammy loved the idea of conceiving on the day they married. And she finally felt ready to get pregnant, after months of thinking about it.
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