Our days weren’t much easier. Laundry and dishes and bills accumulated at an alarming rate. Food disappeared even more quickly, and we often resorted to opening dusty canned goods rather than schlep-
ping our delirious selves the few blocks to the grocery store. There were many days when we didn’t even change out of our pajamas or brush our teeth before late afternoon. And I certainly didn’t have the energy to put on makeup or blow-dry my hair or even look in the mirror except in passing, catching horrific glimpses of my matted hair, sunken eyes, and a lingering fifteen pounds, mostly around my middle.
In short, it wasn’t exactly a breeding ground for romance, but there it was anyway, blooming between Ethan and me, evident in every small act of kindness. It was love as a verb, as Rachel used to say. Love that made me more patient, more loyal, and stronger. Love that made me feel more complete than I had ever felt in my glamorous, Jimmy Choo—filled past.
Yet on the surface, Ethan and I remained “just friends.” They were two words that haunted me, especially when Ethan went off, every few days, to spend time with Sondrine. She was still his girlfriend. I was just his friend. Sure, we were friends who exchanged soulful glances, friends who slept in a bed filled with sexual tension, friends who found any excuse to touch, but I worried that we’d never take that perilous leap of faith toward becoming a real couple, a permanent team. I had nightmares of a tragic ending: Ethan marrying Sondrine while I returned to New York with Thomas and John. I would awaken, sweating and teary, tasting the grief and heartbreak I’d face if I had to spend the rest of my life wondering just how incredible we could have been together, if only one of us had stepped up and taken the chance.
Then, one afternoon in late April, as Ethan and I took the boys out for our daily walk around Holland Park, he solemnly reported that the night before, over oysters at Bibendum, he had ended things with Sondrine. I felt a rush of excitement and opportunity. I also sensed uneasiness between us. Our last obstacle was gone, but now what?
I let out a nervous laugh and said in a teasing tone, “Kind of weird to dump someone over oysters, isn’t it?”
“Well,” Ethan said, his eyes focused on the path ahead of us. “I’m not always the slickest guy… as you well know.”
His “as you well know” seemed loaded with meaning and made me even more anxious. So I stumbled on, rambling about how I thought you weren’t supposed to eat oysters in months containing the letter
r.
“We had rock oysters—fins de clair—which you can eat year-round. But thanks so much for your concern,” he said, yawning with feigned nonchalance.
“Anytime,” I said, as we strolled around the top of the Cricket Lawn. A long minute passed, the silence between us thickening.
“How do you feel?” I finally asked, choosing my words carefully. “About the breakup?”
Ethan glanced at me with raised brows. “It was a long time coming. I think I was just too sleep-deprived to get around to it sooner, you know?”
I nodded. I knew.
“I just didn’t feel that close to her,” he continued. “After this long, I should have felt closer to her. Or at least had the sense that I knew her… I mean, I knew her taste in music, art, food, travel, literature. But I still didn’t know
her.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to know her badly enough.”
I nodded again, noticing that we were both walking at a faster clip and avoiding eye contact.
“There was other stuff too,” he chattered nervously. He stopped pushing the pram long enough to reach down and adjust John’s cap, which had slipped down over his eyes, and then said, “She was so relentlessly anti-American. I’m the first guy to step up and criticize our government. But it raised my hackles when she did it. I found myself constantly grinding my teeth to keep from saying, ‘Your ass’d be speaking German if it weren’t for us.’ “
I smiled, pretending to be distracted by a nearby three-on-three football game.
“And then there’s her scent…” he said.
“What? She doesn’t bathe enough?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s perfectly clean. And she wears nice perfume and all of that. But there’s something about her actual,
natural
scent. The way her skin smells. I just didn’t like it… So you know, it’s hard to fix that one.”
“Do I have a scent? When I’m not wearing perfume?” I asked, suddenly worried that Ethan didn’t like mine either, and that I was only imagining our physical, chemical connection.
Ethan glanced at me, blushing scarlet. “Yeah. You do have a scent,” he said slowly.
“And?” I asked, my heart pounding.
He stopped walking, turned to face me, and stared into my eyes. “You have an almost citrusy scent. Sweet, but not too sweet.”
His expression removed my last trace of doubt. I was sure now—Ethan loved me as much as I loved him. I smiled, feeling light-headed and breathless as he wrapped his hand around mine, his other still gripping the handle of the pram. We had held hands many times before, but this time was different. It was a precursor to something more. Sure enough, Ethan pulled me against him. Then he closed his eyes, buried his face in my neck, and inhaled.
“Yeah. You smell like an orange,” he whispered. “An orange in your stocking on Christmas morning.”
An electrical charge passed through my body, and I learned what it means to be weak in the knees. I closed my eyes and put my arms around Ethan’s shoulders, holding on tightly. Then, right in the mid-
die of Holland Park, amid footballers and dogs and babies, Ethan and I shared our first real kiss. I’m not sure how long it lasted—ten seconds or five minutes or something in between—but I do know that everything in the world seemed to halt, except our hearts, thudding against each other. I remember his warm hand slipping up under my jacket and shirt, his long, slender fingers pressing into my back. I remember thinking how much I wanted to feel all of his skin against mine.
When we finally separated, Ethan said my name in a way nobody had ever said it, his voice filled with equal parts affection and desire. My eyes welled as I looked into his. He was still Ethan, the scrawny kid on the playground and my best friend. But he was also someone new.
“I think you know the real reason Sondrine and I broke up,” he said.
“Yeah. I think I do,” I whispered.
I could feel myself beaming, bursting with anticipation of what was to come. That afternoon and every day to follow. I hooked my hand over his elbow, as we turned the pram around and headed toward home.
two years later
It is a brilliant summer day in London. I am waiting in Holland Park, wearing an ivory gown made of chiffon so soft I can’t stop touching it. The dress comes to a V in the back, and the front is gathered over the bustline and accented with a shimmering of beads. The skirt is a loose A-line—romantic and simple—and it sways just right in the breeze. The woman at the Kensington bridal shop told me that the design was inspired by the Edwardian era—which sounded like something Ethan would love. It was the first dress I tried on, but when you know something is right, you just know.
As the string quartet begins to play, I peek around the corner of the Belvedere, into the gardens, and allow myself a glimpse of Ethan. We’ve only been apart twenty-four hours, but for us, it is a long stretch. Whether it is our separation, his Armani suit, or the emotion of the day, he has never looked more handsome. I feel a tightening in my chest, and take rapid, shallow breaths to keep from crying. I don’t want to ruin my mascara so early in the day. For a moment, I wish I had my father to lean on or a bridesmaid to trail behind. But no, I made the right decision. I am walking solo on my wedding day, not out of spite or to make a statement, but rather as my own private symbol of how far I’ve come.
I take a deep breath and round the corner toward the gardens. Ethan is now in full view. I can see in his face that he thinks I look beautiful, and I can’t wait to hear him put his feelings into words later. No one can express himself as he can. I keep my eyes locked with his. I am finally beside him.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” I whisper back as the minister begins to speak.
The ceremony is short, despite the hours Ethan and I spent crafting our vows. We kept some parts traditional, discarded the rest, but every word is imbued with our own meaning. At the end, Ethan’s eyes are damp and red-rimmed. He leans forward and brushes his lips against mine. I kiss my husband back, memorizing the moment, the feel of the sun on my skin, the scent of wildflowers in the arch around us, the sound of applause and snapping cameras and the jubilant notes of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
I feel buoyant as Ethan and I turn, hand in hand, and face our guests. I see my mother first, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. My dad sits beside her, holding Thomas and John. My parents are thrilled that I found true love, and that I found it with a Stanford-educated novelist, whose book about finding love in unexpected places is an international bestseller. I doubt if my parents will ever change—they will always care a lot about money and material things and image, but I also know that part of our rift was caused by worry and concern for a child. I understand these emotions now.
As Ethan and I walk down the garden path, we smile at our other guests. I see my brother and Lauren, who is newly pregnant… Ethan’s mother and father, who by all appearances were rekindling a romance at last night’s rehearsal dinner… Annalise, Greg, and sweet, little Hannah, who is about to turn three… Martin and his new girlfriend, Lucy… Phoebe, whom I have grown to appreciate, and almost like after a few cocktails… Charlotte and John with Natalie… Meg, Yossi, and their son, Lucas… Geoffrey and Sondrine, who, much to Ethan’s and my amusement, are recently engaged.
Then I spot them in the back row. Rachel and Dex with their baby daughter, Julia, a clone of her mother, but with Dexter’s dark, wavy hair. She is wearing the pink smocked dress I sent for her first birthday. As I pass them, I point to the blue silk trim from Thomas and John’s worn-out baby blankets, now a ribbon tied around my bouquet of white lilies. Rachel and I don’t talk often, but I did tell her about my plan to use the ribbon as my “something blue.” I could tell she was touched, pleased to play an indirect role in our day.
“You’re gorgeous!” she mouths to me now.
Dex smiles at me, almost fondly, and I acknowledge him with a pleasant nod. It is hard to believe we were together for seven years. He now seems to be nothing more than an acquaintance with exceptionally good hair.
As we come to the end of the path, I turn back to face Ethan. Then we scoop up Thomas and John, who have broken free of my dad and chased after us.
“Are we married yet, Mummy?” they ask in the British accent they did not learn at home.
“Yes!” I laugh.
“Yes! We
are
married!” Ethan says.
At last.
I think back to that autumn day when Ethan proposed. We were on a weekend trip to Edinburgh, celebrating my new job as a fund-
raiser for the Adopt-A-Minefield organization. After checking into our hotel, we decided to climb Arthur’s Seat, a small mountain overlooking the ancient city. As we rested on the hillside and admired the sweeping views below, Ethan presented me with a tiny slip of paper so worn it felt like velvet. Upon closer examination, I could see that it was the note I had given him in the fifth grade. The “Will you go out with me?” note, its
yes
box checked with a red-colored pencil.
“Where in the
world
did you find this?” I said, feeling giddy that he had preserved the oldest piece of our history together.
“I found it in a box of old papers,” he said, smiling. “I thought I had given it back to you, but I guess I never did?”
“No. You just told me yes at recess. Remember?”
“I guess so.” Ethan nodded and then said, “Turn it over.”
I did, and on the other side, I could see that he had written a question of his own.
Will you marry me?
I looked up, startled. Then I cried and said yes,
yes!
Ethan’s hands trembled slightly as he removed a small box from his jacket pocket, opened it, and slid a sparkling cushion-cut diamond ring onto my finger.
“It doesn’t take vows or genetics to be a family. We are one already,” Ethan said. “But I want to make it
official
. I want to make it
forever
.”
Then, always one to capture a moment on film, he extended his arm and snapped our engagement photo. I knew my hair was messy from the wind and that both of our noses were red and running from the cold, but I didn’t care. I had learned to let those surface issues go, to value content over form. I knew that every time I’d look at that picture of us on the mountain in Scotland, I would see no imperfections, and would only think of Ethan’s words. I
want to make it official I want to make it forever.
So on this joyful June day, below skies so blue they look airbrushed, we are just that: an official family, embarking on our forever.
Later, after we all have moved into the Belvedere for a champagne brunch, the toasts to Ethan and me begin. Some people joke about our fifth-grade romance. Others reference our hectic life as the parents of twins, marveling at how we do it all. Everyone says how happy they are for us.
Then, when I think that the last toast is over, Rachel stands tentatively and clears her throat. She seems nervous, but perhaps I just know how much she hates giving speeches.
“Nothing could make me prouder or happier than being here to witness the marriage of two such close friends,” she starts, looking up from an index card and glancing around the room. “I have known Darcy and Ethan for what feels like forever, and so I know what fine people they are. I also know that they are
that
much better together.” She pauses, her eyes meeting Ethan’s, then mine. “I guess that’s the power of true love and true friendship… I guess that’s what it’s really all about.” She raises her glass, smiles, and says, “So here’s to Ethan and Darcy, true love and true friendship.”