by Emily Giffin
“You think you’ll be ready by then?” he says.
I’m not sure if he’s referring to my post-baby physical or mental state, but either way, I tell him I think I’ll be fine.
“If anything, it might be nice to have some boobs in a dress…assuming I’m still nursing,” I say, thinking that as a bonus, this plan would give me time to hit the pause button and digest everything.
“Do you think it’s too scandalous?” he says.
“I don’t—but obviously you do,” I say with a laugh. “Or you wouldn’t ask the question.”
He gets defensive and says, “I was just asking.”
I shrug and say, “I don’t think so. But would your parents?”
“Maybe,” he says. “Would yours?”
I laugh and say, “Definitely…but it’s our life. And I think that may be the best plan.”
Matthew agrees, and a few days later, we decide that we’ll tell our parents the news together, in person, at a meet-the-in-laws dinner that they have already planned for the second weekend in November. It is a risky plan—and becomes even riskier when Matthew’s mother decides to turn our dinner into a small engagement party at their Park Avenue home. But Matthew insists that everything will be fine. We’ll tell our parents, alone, before the guests arrive, and then make an announcement to everyone at the party. A two-for-one celebration. Despite his reassurances, I continue to feel uneasy, and call Scottie to talk it over.
“It’s not like you got engaged because you’re knocked up,” he says. “You found out after.”
“Does that make a difference?” I ask.
“Yeah. Because there’s no way his parents will see it as entrapment.”
“Shit, Scottie!” I say, having actually never considered that possibility. “Is that what this looks like? Do you think people will think that?”
“Not anyone who knows you,” Scottie says. “And I mean, do you really care what people think?”
I sigh and say I guess not, and then turn the tables on him. “Speaking of which? Any thoughts about talking to your parents?”
“A few,” he says. “But can we just get through your crisis first?”
“Crisis?” I say.
“You know what I mean,” he says. “Celebration, crisis. Love child, bastard. Same difference.”
I laugh and say, “Wow. Thanks so much for the pep talk.”
“Anytime,” Scottie says. “That’s what I’m here for.”
* * *
—
About a week later, Amy calls. I nervously pick up, having been doing my best to avoid her.
“So you’re going to die,” she says. “I’m sitting here in my parents’ kitchen…and guess what I’m holding in my hand?”
“Ummm…I don’t know,” I say, suddenly terrified that she has tangible proof about Grant and me, though her voice doesn’t sound at all upset.
“I’ll give you a hint,” she says. “It has your name on it.”
“Something I wrote? An article?”
“No,” she says. “It’s an invitation to your engagement party!”
“What?” I say, so flustered that I knock over a half-full Starbucks cup. I grab a stack of napkins and wipe up the spill just as it nears my keyboard. Meanwhile, Amy continues, sounding giddy.
“So Matthew’s family—although we still call him Matt—and my family are close. We all lived in the same building for years. I went to Spence with Matt’s sister.”
“Elizabeth?” I say, in a mild state of shock that the world could be this dangerously small.
“Yes! But we still call her Liz,” she says with a laugh.
My head spinning, I murmur yes, thinking that’s what Matthew sometimes still calls her. In the next horrible instant, I recall Matthew making a reference to Amy—not by her name, but as a family friend who lost her husband in the towers. What else had Matthew told me about them? I wish I had listened more closely, but there were so many of these stories in the immediate aftermath of the attacks—especially the two-or-three-degrees-removed anecdotes—and I had been so focused on my own loss. What I originally thought was my own loss, anyway.
I tune back in to hear Amy say, “I just can’t believe Matt is your guy! What a cutie he is! And so smart.”
“Yeah. He is,” I stammer, still trying to process everything.
“So anyway, I’ll be there!”
“You’re coming?” I say, hoping she doesn’t hear my dismay.
“Well, now I am. I told Matt’s mom already.”
“Told her what?”
“The whole coincidence,” she says. “That we’re friends…and that I’m crashing the party with my parents. I mean, can you believe?”
“No,” I say, running my hand over my stomach. “I really can’t.”
* * *
—
“So, I heard we have a mutual friend,” I say to Matthew later that night as we’re getting ready for bed at his place. I’ve been thinking about little else, but have finally worked up the nerve to mention it, feeling an awful mix of guilt and dread.
“Oh?” he says, tapping his toothbrush on the side of the sink, then putting it back into the cup holder. “Who’s that?”
I busy myself pulling down the covers on my side of the bed as I say, “Amy Smith.”
Walking toward me, he says, “Should I know that name?”
I feel a fleeting surge of irrational hope that Amy had it all wrong—that she received another engagement party invitation for a different Cecily and Matthew.
“She was married to…some banker…who died in the towers?” I say, stumbling all over my description of Grant. “She grew up in your building or something?”
“Oh. Yeah. Of course. Amy Silver,” he says. “How do you know Amy?”
“Oh…long story,” I say, the understatement of the century. My heart pounds as I bumble onward. “I…uhh…wrote a little blurb on her husband…for the paper…and we kind of became friends….Anyway, I guess your mom invited her parents to our engagement party.”
“Oh, okay. That makes sense,” he says, getting into bed.
“So they’re that close? Your parents with hers?” I ask, sitting down next to him.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say they’re super, super close, but yeah, they’re good friends.” He shrugs, picks his BlackBerry up from the nightstand, and starts to scroll.
“But I thought this party was going to be on the small side?” I say.
“I think it is,” he says, now distracted.
“What’s your mom’s idea of small?” I ask.
“Umm…probably your idea of medium,” he says, glancing up at me with a lighthearted smile.
I don’t smile back. “Like what? Fifty? Sixty?”
Looking back down at his BlackBerry, he says, “Umm…I’m not sure….Probably more like eighty to a hundred.”
“One hundred?”
“Let’s say eighty. I really don’t know….Eighty to a hundred isn’t that many. Aside from my family and yours, that’s only about thirty or forty couples. My parents’ friends, my friends, your friends. It adds up fast.”
“But I only invited Jasmine and Scottie,” I say, so grateful that Scottie has agreed to fly in for it; I’m going to need him. “And they aren’t bringing dates. So that’s just two. Two of my bridesmaids aren’t even coming.”
Matthew puts down his phone and says, “Well, you’re welcome to invite them. Or anyone you want.”
“That’s not the point,” I say, biting my lip and reminding myself that it’s not Matthew’s fault he grew up in a building with Amy Silver, now Amy Smith.
“So what is your point?” he asks.
Flustered, I say, “My point is…we’re going to be announcing our pregnancy to one hundred people?”
Matthew opens his
mouth to reply, then stops, reaches over, and puts his hand on my stomach. “Well, it’s not like we can keep it a secret for much longer,” he says, his voice now gentle. “You’re going to start showing soon, Cess. You’re nine—almost ten weeks.”
“It’s one thing to show…it’s another to announce it at a family party as if me forgetting my pill is a big accomplishment. And your parents won’t feel like this is the way things are to be done in…you know…polite society?” I say the last two words with a complete attitude.
He sighs, then says, “It’s a baby. It’s an occasion for joy. They’ll be fine. Everyone will be fine. Why do you seem so upset?”
“I’m not upset. I just…I don’t know…some random girl who you grew up with and I just met isn’t really the guest list of ‘close friends’ I’d prepared myself for.”
“She’s coming?” he says, glancing over at me. “I thought you said her parents were coming.”
“She said she’s coming, too,” I say.
“Well. That’s nice,” he says. “It’s probably good for her to go out and do things right now.”
I stare at him a beat, then say, “So how well do you know her?”
“Not that well. She was a few years older. She was just my sister’s hot friend…who may or may not have been the subject of my earliest fantasies.”
I roll my eyes. “You really think she’s that hot?”
He gives me a look like of course she is.
“So was he hot, too?” I can’t stop myself from blurting out.
“Who?”
“Her husband,” I say.
“I don’t know,” Matthew says, doing the I’m-a-straight-guy-how-would-I-know? routine. “I mean, I guess he was a good-looking guy. I only saw him, like, once….”
“You saw him? When?”
“At their wedding,” he says.
Reeling, I tell myself to stop right there. Change the subject—to anything. But instead I say, “You were at the wedding? So you met him?”
“Briefly.”
“What was he like?”
“He seemed like a nice guy. A little aloof, maybe. Serious…but nice…Did Amy tell you the backstory with them? How they met?”
“Um, yeah…something about knowing each other as kids?” I say, now feeling completely nauseous.
“Yeah. That’s when they met. But how they met is so crazy,” Matthew says.
I stare at him, my heart racing, as he tells me a story that feels so familiar—about a guy with a flat tire in Buffalo. It takes me a few seconds to realize that it’s the very same story Grant told me in the Adirondacks. Grant just left out one big, big part of the story. That the guy with the flat tire would become his father-in-law. I stare at Matthew in horror as he gets to the devastating punch line—that Grant’s dad was killed because he stopped to help Amy’s dad.
“Oh my God,” I say under my breath, thinking that Amy omitted this detail, too. Wondering why—whether it felt too painful or too private or a source of too much guilt—I say, “That’s so awful.”
“Yep,” Matthew says. “Crazy, isn’t it?”
I nod, suddenly desperate to know the rest, to have all the gaps filled in. “So then what happened? Did Amy’s family go to the funeral? Is that how they all became friends?”
“I don’t know all of that….I just know that Mr. Silver helped out Grant’s mom for years.”
“Financially?”
“Yeah. I think so. And he just sort of looked out for them, too. Took them to baseball games and concerts. Stuff like that.”
“Who is ‘them’?” I say, though of course I know the answer.
Sure enough, Matthew says, “Grant and his brother. Twin brother, as I recall.”
“Out of guilt?” I say, trying to imagine that dynamic and how it unfolded.
“I don’t think guilt per se. It’s not like Mr. Silver hit Grant’s dad.”
“Still,” I say. “If it weren’t for that flat tire…”
“I know,” Matthew says, nodding. “Of course he knows that, too. But Mr. Silver’s a really good person.”
I swallow and nod.
“And then their mom died, too,” he says, shaking his head. “Of some slow, awful degenerative disease like MS or ALS or something….I just can’t believe one family has endured so much tragedy….It’s like the Kennedy curse without the politics.”
His voice trails off as I shiver, blinking back tears, turning to plump my pillow so he can’t see how emotional I am.
When I finally get the nerve to meet Matthew’s gaze, I know I’m at a crossroads. That this is truly the point of no return. If I don’t tell him right this second that I already knew this story because I knew Grant, dated Grant, and had sex with Grant the night before he died—then the lie will be forever sealed into the fabric of our relationship. This is it. My heart thuds, and suddenly tears are streaming down my face.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry,” he says, reaching for me. “I shouldn’t be telling you stories like this right now…when you’re already hormonal….”
“No. It’s not that,” I say, conjuring all the courage I can muster. “It’s just that…” My voice trails off, as I lose my nerve. “It’s just that life is so tragic.”
I am crying harder now, because life is tragic and also because I know that I’m a coward.
“It can be. But it can also be really beautiful.” He puts his hand on my stomach and says, “And I promise this baby is going to have a wonderful life.”
I shake my head and tell him that he can’t promise such a thing—nobody can.
“You’re right,” he says, looking at me so tenderly that my heart breaks even more. “But I promise that I will do everything I can to take care of you and our baby.”
I nod, accepting this immeasurable gift from my fiancé, even while knowing that I don’t deserve it.
Over the next several days, I remain constantly on the verge of tears. I think Matthew is right—my already fragile state is being exacerbated by pregnancy hormones. Not to mention all the emotions swirling around the realization that I’m going to be a mother in just a few short months.
But I can’t deny that Grant is part of my melancholy. Instead of time working its healing magic, I find myself missing him more. There’s something else though, too—something about the story that Matthew told me. It fills me with such sadness, but also makes me obsess over the question of who Grant really was, as a son, brother, husband, and man. I keep sifting through all the clues, replaying our conversations and re-creating scenes from his life. I picture his father on the side of the road, helping a stranger with his flat tire, in a last, selfless act. I think about the moment Grant’s mother told her two young sons the news. I picture the funeral, wondering if Amy’s father attended, and when, why, and how, exactly, he forged such a close relationship with a grieving family. And how did it come to include Amy? I know it shouldn’t matter. Yet it somehow does.
So when Amy calls the following Saturday morning and asks if I’m free for brunch, I say yes. She suggests a French bistro on Madison Avenue—not exactly the neighborhood I’m in the mood for—but I agree, thinking the change of scenery might do me good. I throw on clothes and take the subway uptown, and walk east toward the park. As I cross Madison, I spot her standing outside the restaurant, looking golden and tousled in bell-bottom jeans and a trench coat.
As I approach her, she looks up and beams at me, sliding her dark oval sunglasses up like a headband. “Hey, you!” she says, her voice as rich as her honey highlights.
“Hi,” I say, smiling back at her.
She gives me a quick hug before we duck inside and check in with the hostess, Amy telling her that we’d love a table outside. Once settled, we consult our menus and both order the challah French toast. Amy also asks for a Bloody Mary while I pretend to contemplate a mi
mosa before announcing that I think I’ll stick with coffee for now.
We chat about our work and her yoga classes and, of course, my engagement party. We both marvel over the coincidence of her growing up in a building with Matthew, as she remarks more than once how incredibly small the city is. Thinking that it’s way smaller than she even realizes, I finally get up the nerve to ask her how she’s doing.
She knows what I mean by the question, of course, her expression turning somber. “I’m okay,” she says. “It’s such a cliché—but I really do have good days and bad days.”
I nod, knowing what she means, but also amazed that she can have any good days at all when I’m lucky to have a decent stretch of a few hours.
“And Grant’s brother? How is he doing?” I ask, tensing up, afraid of her answer and the tumultuous territory I’m entering.
She bites her lip and lets out a long sigh. “To be honest, I’m not really sure. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of weeks.”
I watch her stir her Bloody Mary with the celery stalk, wondering how she could not know how her very sick brother-in-law is doing. Her husband’s twin. It crosses my mind that he could be dead. Would she even know? Who would tell her the news? I try to think of a way to tactfully ask the question, but before I have to, she goes on to explain that the last she heard, he was at his cabin in the Adirondacks.
“He’s alone?” I say, trying to hide how horrified I am by the thought of him in that isolated, decidedly handicapped-unfriendly cabin.
“No. No,” she says. “He’s with a nurse.”
Relieved, I say, “Good. But you don’t know how he’s doing?”
“I really don’t….I’ve offered to visit, but his nurse wrote back that he doesn’t want visitors right now….I don’t think he wants me there.”
“But I thought you guys were close?” I say.
“We used to be. When we were younger. But Byron can be difficult. Even before he got sick.”