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Vanessa had moved to the Boston area to be closer to Jake who just started his freshman year at Northeastern as an electrical engineering major. My relationship with her is still a work in progress, but we have gotten much closer and she and Bettina help watch the twins two days a week when I have classes. On the other days, she works as a waitress at the Stardust. She and Jake moved into my old apartment in Malden when Sonia moved out to live with her now fiancé, Tom.
Jake is everything I could ever want in a brother. He helps out with the twins too and has turned into quite the tattooed “manny.” Holly, in particular, has taken a special liking to her Uncle Jake.
Ed continues to be in remission and he and Elaine purchased a summer home in Dennisport, on Cape Cod to be able to spend more quality time with us. Ed is able to work remotely from there for his consulting job. Cedric, the twins and I spent most weekends this summer down there. Ed and Cedric like to fetch quahogs and we often steam the clams for dinner, which we’d eat on the candlelit screened-in porch while listening to Jimmy Buffet on low volume, as the babies slept upstairs.
Denise gave birth to a baby boy named after Cedric’s father, Paul. They call him Pauly and his middle name is Cedric. I am excited about my daughters having a cousin so close in age and I am sure they’ll be wreaking lots of havoc together, like Caleb and Cedric did when they were younger.
Even though I had to stop working with Callie, she’s still my favorite girl and refers to the twins, her nieces, as ‘Teletubbies’. (She’s watching that show on her iPad now as a matter of fact, as she gets her hair done for the ceremony.) She’s still as in love as ever with Anderson Cooper.
Cedric and I moved from his condo to a single-family house in the Boston suburb of Brookline. He was promoted to senior agent at J.D. Westock and tries his best to make it home by 6:00 each night, so that I can study in between breastfeeding the girls. I can often be found sandwiched between two heads on a Boppy pillow.
We had decided on a late August wedding and wanted to wait until after the twins were born, so that I could at least try to squeeze into a presentable dress. I had lost about half the baby weight and very voluptuously managed to squirm my way into my dream Pnina Tornai dress which I picked out with Elaine and Bettina at Kleinfeld in Brooklyn before the babies were born.
Wanting to keep it simple, we opted for an outdoor ceremony with only our family and closest friends. After scouting lots of scenic areas, Cedric and I found the perfect spot by the water in Newport, Rhode Island.
***
The milk spots dissipated just in the nick of time. As the soft sounds of the harp played in the summer breeze, Ed reached out his arm.
Before taking it, I looked up to sunny cloudless sky and blew a kiss to my mother and sister in heaven. I hoped they were watching over us.
Ed’s eyes were watery and he kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Honey, thank you for letting me be the one to walk you down the aisle. I am so honored. Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too,” I said shaking.
“You’ll be fine.”
“Dad?”
“Yes, Allison?”
“Do you feel like she’s here?”
Ed looked up to the sky and then back at me.
“She is here,” he said pointing to his heart and then to mine. “She’s right here, always.”
I smiled, though a part of me still wondered if Amanda would really be okay with my marrying Cedric. It was the one thing I would never be sure of.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said, clutching my bouquet of pink roses.
The wedding march started and I entwined my arm with Ed’s.
As I slowly marched down the aisle, floating past the faces of all the people I love standing in the sunlight, gratitude overcame me.
Thank you God for the life you’ve given me.
And then I looked straight ahead and he took my breath away. Just like that very first day, the most beautiful man in the world.
Blue Eyes.
Cedric was crying tears of joy as I moved closer and closer to him. What did I ever do to deserve to have someone look at me like that, with the intense love I see so clearly in his eyes?
I kissed Ed on the cheek and he shook Cedric’s hand.
