“What’s happening?” I ask, directing my confusion toward my sister, the one who always seems to be able to untangle me, even if she’s usually judging me at the same time. But she merely smiles and points over my shoulder.
In slow motion, I turn back toward the doorway, where I’m startled to see Dan down on one knee. I blink at him, my heart thudding. “You’re proposing?”
He laughs. “Looks like it.” From his pocket, he pulls a robin’s-egg-blue ring box, cracks it open, and holds it up. “Kate, will you marry me?”
Our friends break into applause, and it feels like time freezes as I stare at the perfect Tiffany solitaire inside. For a split second, all I can think is that it’s different—too different—from the antique engagement ring Patrick proposed with. Then, my mind shifts into high-gear guilt. I shouldn’t be thinking about Patrick. What’s wrong with me? I should be thinking about whether I can say yes to Dan without telling him the news from
my doctor. Then again, I can’t say no in front of all these people either.
Of course I don’t
want
to say no, I remind myself. Dan’s perfect. Always holds doors. Never forgets to say please and thank you. He’s the kind of man every mother wants for her daughter. In fact, my own mother never misses the chance to remind me how lucky I am to have found him. I hadn’t been thinking marriage, but it’s the next logical step, isn’t it? It’s what people do when they love each other.
“Kate?” Dan’s voice jars me back to reality.
I feel my mouth shift into a smile as my pulse races. “Yes,” I hear myself say. And then, because I know it’s the right thing—obviously it is—I say it again. “Yes, of course, yes.” This is what’s meant to be, and when I tell myself that, my heart fills. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Dan,” I say, smiling at him.
He whoops and jumps up, pulling me into his arms and dancing us around as our friends whistle and cheer. “Kate Waithman,” he says, “I’m going to make you the happiest woman in the world.”
I laugh with him as he slips the ring onto my finger, where it catches the light, diffusing it into a million tiny stars.
“I love you, Kate,” he murmurs, pulling me close. But I can barely hear him over the rushing sound in my ears.
F
or the next hour, I smile and laugh on cue, but it feels like I’m in a daze as our friends mill around, telling stories about both of us, calling us “the golden couple,” slapping Dan on the back, and kissing me on the cheek. At least a half-dozen people tell me they’re glad to see me moving on; a dozen more tell me what a catch Dan is. I notice the waitress behind the bar staring lustily at him a few times, and I’m grateful that he seems oblivious.
Susan is busy corralling her two rambunctious kids, so it’s Gina who sticks close to me as Dan mingles with his friends. I know she understands the weird roller coaster of emotions going on inside me right now. She remarried six years after her husband Bill died, and I remember her telling me how it felt like there was a storm going on inside of her after she said yes. Guilt for moving on. Joy at finding love again. A cautious optimism about a new life beginning. A regret at putting the old life definitively to rest.
“You okay?” she asks as she brings me a glass of champagne.
“Yeah.” I smile. “Thanks.”
She gives me a quick hug. “I can’t believe he rented this whole restaurant just so he could propose in front of all your friends.” She grins and shakes her head. “What a guy, right?”
“Gina?” I ask, grabbing her arm as she starts to walk away. “Do you think Dan would still want to marry me if I couldn’t have a baby?”
“What?” She stops and stares at me. “Kate, what happened?”
My eyes fill. “I had a doctor’s appointment today.” I shakily recap what the doctor told me. “It’s okay; I’m going to deal with it,” I add quickly when I see how concerned she looks. “I’m just worried about Dan.”
“Oh, Kate.” She folds me into a silent hug. “But does he want kids?” she asks after a moment.
I shrug and pull away. “I don’t know. We’ve never really talked about it.”
“You’ve never talked about it?” Her tone isn’t accusatory, but I still feel like I’ve done something wrong.
“It just never seemed like the right time.” It sounds stupid when I say it aloud. “Besides, I was supposed to have kids with Patrick,” I add in a whisper.
Gina’s eyes fill with understanding. She chews her bottom lip, and I know her well enough to know that she’s literally biting
back something she wants to say. What finally comes out is, “Do
you
want kids?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not ready to be told I can’t have them.” I wipe my eyes before they can overflow.
“No one’s telling you that,” she says firmly. “Maybe you could do IVF. Or you could hire a surrogate if you still have healthy eggs left. You could even adopt. There are plenty of options. Don’t you dare let yourself believe that your chances are all gone.”
“Thanks.” I smile weakly.
“As for Dan, you have to tell him,” she adds. “But it’s not going to change his mind about you. He loves you. Don’t worry about it tonight, okay? Just enjoy this. But talk to him, Kate. You’re supposed to be able to talk to the man you’re going to marry.”
“I know. I will. I shouldn’t have said anything. Don’t worry, okay?” I walk away, a smile pasted on my face, before she can get another word out.
It’s seeing Patrick’s mother come through the door twenty minutes later that finally undoes me.
“Kate!” she exclaims, rushing over. She pulls me into a tight hug. She smells, as she always does, of cinnamon and flour. “Gina invited me; I hope it’s okay that I’m here.”
“Of course it is!” The two of us have remained tight since Patrick’s death, and we grew even closer after her husband, Joe, died nine years ago. Patrick was their only child, and with Joe gone too, I feel responsible for her. But it’s a responsibility I relish, because I love her like a second mother. “I’m so glad you’re here, Joan.”
“I just wish I’d been on time!” She rolls her eyes. “Wouldn’t you know I missed my train? It threw my whole schedule off.”
Joan lives in Glen Cove, a small town out on Long Island, in the same house Patrick grew up in. Sometimes I worry about the fact that she’s living all by herself, surrounded by the past. I’d had
to move out of my downtown apartment three weeks after burying Patrick because I couldn’t stand the emptiness in the space we’d shared. Every time I walked through the door, I had half expected to see him standing there. Besides, the neighbors had started to complain about the fact that sometimes in the middle of the afternoon, I’d stand in the living room and start to scream. I couldn’t stop. The landlord had been only too happy to let me out of my lease.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.” I’m startled to realize that tears are rolling down my cheeks. “Listen, Joan, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She looks at me blankly.
“I . . . I don’t want you to think I’m forgetting Patrick,” I sniffle as I wipe my eyes. I avoid her gaze for a moment, then I look up.
“Sweetheart,” she says gently, “you’re allowed to move on. You’re
supposed
to move on.” She puts her arm around me. “Let’s go get a breath of fresh air, shall we?” She leads me out of the restaurant, and once we’re around the corner, she takes a tissue out of her purse and hands it to me. “Kate, sweetie, it’s been almost twelve years. Patrick would want you to be happy. I know he’s up there in heaven, smiling down at you.”
We both glance skyward at the same time, and I wonder if she’s thinking, as I am, that the city is covered tonight in a canopy of clouds, obscuring all the stars. It makes heaven feel very far away.
“Do you still wear the coin?” she asks softly when I don’t say anything.
I nod and pull the silver dollar out from beneath my shirt. It was the last thing Patrick gave me, and a few months after he died, I found a jeweler who agreed to drill a hole through it and string it on a long chain.
She smiles slightly. “Patrick believed in all kinds of good things in the universe, Kate,” she says, reaching out and touching the coin. “He believed in love and luck and happiness, and he would have wanted you to find all that. That’s what these coins are about. You have to remember that. He would want the brightest possible future for you, dear.”
“I’ll never stop loving him, you know.”
“I know,” Joan says, folding me into her arms for another warm hug. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t love someone else too. Life has to go on. You’re happy, sweetheart, aren’t you?”
I nod.
“Well, then, you’re doing the right thing,” she concludes. “So shall we go back inside to your party? I’d love to meet your fiancé.”
A
fter I introduce Dan to Joan and down another glass of champagne, someone puts Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” on the jukebox. Dan holds his hand out to me with a smile. “Let’s dance, my beautiful bride-to-be.”
He spins me dramatically onto the makeshift dance floor, and we fall into an easy rhythm, just like we always do.
“Pat’s mother seems nice,” he murmurs as our friends begin to appear alongside us, swaying to the music in pairs.
“Patrick,” I correct. Dan has the annoying habit of calling my husband by a nickname that was never his. “And yeah, she’s great. I’m lucky to have her in my life.”
“Sure,” he says. He pauses and adds, “So do you think you plan to stay in touch with her?”
I pull away and look at him. “Of course.” When he doesn’t say anything, I add, “Why wouldn’t I?” I sound more defensive than I mean to, so I try to soften the words with a small smile.
Dan pulls me back toward him. “I just thought that once you and I got married, you might let that piece of your past go. But I don’t mind. She seems like a nice woman.”
“She’s family, Dan. She always will be.”
“That’s fine,” Dan says quickly.
But it doesn’t feel fine. It feels like Dan thinks I’m doing something wrong, which makes me wonder if I am.
As soon as the song’s over, Gina sweeps in with another glass of champagne for me, and as we walk off the dance floor, I down it in two gulps. She gazes at me with concern. “Anything you want to talk about?” she asks as she takes my empty glass from me and motions for a waiter to bring us another.
“Nope,” I say. The bubbles are starting to go to my head.
“Was that about Joan?” she asks. “Whatever Dan said?”
I nod and glance at Dan, who’s dancing to “YMCA” now with some of his buddies from work. Somehow, he manages to make the dance look cool. “Yeah,” I say. I don’t bother explaining, because I know Gina understands.
“You’re not doing anything wrong, in case you’re wondering,” she says. The waiter arrives with another glass of champagne, which I sip more slowly than the last. My head is starting to spin.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive,” she says firmly. “Joan is a part of your life. She always will be. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”
“Okay.”
For the next few hours, I down glass after glass of champagne as the party winds into the night. I dance a silly version of “Call Me Maybe” with Sammie and Calvin before Susan takes them home to put them to bed. I hug Joan good night around ten and put her in a cab with instructions to call me once she gets home safely. And I dance with Dan, who pulls me close and tells me that he’s the luckiest man in the world.
Around midnight, Dan’s friend Stephen puts Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” on the jukebox and pulls him away to rock out on the dance floor with a bunch of his friends. I drift back to a seat at the bar, and as I listen to the song, even though I know that it’s not actually about a child, the chorus gets me thinking about kids.
Maybe it’s the champagne or the fact that the world feels a bit like a whirling merry-go-round, but as I put my head down, I’m all of a sudden wondering what would have happened if Patrick and I had tried for a child when we’d first married. What if I’d gotten pregnant before he’d died, long before my ovaries had given up? I’d have an eleven-year-old by now. I’d have a piece of Patrick with me forever. Regret surges through me, tightening my throat.
When the song ends and a Rolling Stones song comes on in its place, Dan drifts over and puts an arm around me. “I’m happy too,” he whispers, and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m crying and that he’s mistaken my tears of loss for tears of joy.
I let him make the mistake, because I
am
happy. So happy. So many people never get a second chance. And so I kiss him deeply until Stephen and a few of his other friends whistle and catcall from across the bar. I pull back and look into his eyes.
“Thank you,” I say solemnly.
“For what?” He smiles and kisses me on the forehead.
“For loving me,” I tell him. “For making me feel special and for marrying me and for trying to understand me and for . . .” My voice trails off, because I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.
Dan laughs. “Looks like someone’s had a little too much champagne,” he says. He helps me to my feet and I realize he’s right when I sway a little. “What do you say I take my beautiful bride home and put her to bed?”
“But I’m not a bride yet,” I protest, surprised to hear my
words slurring together like they’re made of syrup. “But yeah, okay. Bed.”
He laughs again, sweeps me into his arms, and after waving good night to our friends, he carries me home as I fall asleep against his solid chest.
Three
T
he next morning, as I blink into the sunlight, I have the dim sense that something’s off. There’s far too much light for our western-exposure bedroom. Dan put up blackout shades when he moved in six months ago, so mornings usually dawn in near pitch-blackness.
Where am I?
I squint, my head pounding from what is undoubtedly a massive champagne hangover. I sit up and look around, confused, as my eyes adjust and the room comes into focus. Indeed, this isn’t our apartment. The curtains on the windows are white and gauzy; the bed is a teak sleigh queen instead of a burnished black king, and the sheets and comforter are pale blue and soft instead of gray and sleek. The room is oddly familiar, but I can’t put a finger on why.