I understand it from the inside now.
Lena reaches me, and I think that I would have burned the whole operation down to get here. I would have let it all go. The organization, the name, the years of carefully constructed infrastructure… All of it was worth less than this, and I knew it in a thousand moments before I proposed, and I know it more completely now.
She takes my hands, and all I feel is gratitude.
My father loved my mother the way you love something that makes you better than you are, he once told me. I didn’t know what he meant. I was a kid, and I thought I understood love as a concept, but I actually understood nothing at all.
I know now.
The ceremony is brief, which we both wanted. The officiant is someone Lena found—a woman with a warm, unhurried manner who talks about the choice, the daily ongoing choice of staying in something rather than just arriving in it. She says the words. We say the words back.
When we kiss, it feels like a promise.
Afterward, there’s food and music and the particular loose joy of a party full of people who mostly like each other or don’t know one another at all. Lena’s overly religious mother finds me at the edge of the park and looks at me for a long moment, and then says, “She’s happy.” She says it like she’s unhappy about it.
“That bothers you?”
“This wedding, if you can call it that, should have been in my church. Is that woman even a real officiant?”
I don’t want to start off my marriage on the wrong foot, but I have the urge to do the wrong thing right now.
So I smile. Lena says that’s a good way to avoid a bad mistake, or at least steer it in a different way. “Ms. Swan. Thank you for coming to our wedding. It is a joyous occasion.” I step closer than needed and lower my voice. “You would like it to remain a joyous occasion for the daughter you neglected for years and the granddaughter you chose not to help when she was chronically ill. If you do not help us keep today a joyous occasion, I will take great pleasure in reminding you of your shortcomings every day of the rest of your life. Are we on the same page, Ms. Swan?”
She glares up at me. “Are you threatening me? I’m your mother-in-law?—”
“Yes, and I know all about you, so let me use small words so you might understand me better. You are the person who birthed the woman I love more than life itself, and as such, you are entitled to exactly whatever she decides you are entitled to.” I let that sink in. But she still looks confused, so I add examples. “If that means you move in with us so I can oversee your medical care personally, so be it. If that means you are tossed carelessly into the worst imaginable care home I can find, I will make that happen for her. Your life will be whatever Lena decides. So help her make a good decision for you by being the best possible wedding guest and the best possible mother to your daughter. Got it?”
She keeps looking at me for another moment. “I’ll take it under advisement.” Then she turns, and I hear the most pleasant voice out of her yet. “Lena, darling,” she says as she scampers to her daughter.
Ed finds me later. He’s had some wine and his tie is loosened, and he has the look of a man who has been welcomed into a group of people and found it unexpectedly pleasant. He stands beside me, watching Opal instruct a cousin on how to dance.
Neither of them knows, apparently. But she won’t let that stop her.
“She’s something else,” he says.
“You have no idea.”
“I have a few.” He bumps my shoulder with his. “Maybe it’s weird to say, considering our history, but I’m happy for you, boss.”
“Thanks.” I don’t know why that makes me happy. But it does.
Lena finds me at some point in the middle of the evening, appearing at my elbow. She has a glass of wine and a look on her face that I’ve learned is her private-happiness look, the one she only shows when she’s not managing anything.
“My mom is being nice. Like actually nice. It’s bizarre.”
I smile. “People can surprise you.”
“What did you do?”
“Gave my wife a wedding present.”
“Threatened her into submission?”
I shrug. “Didn’t take much.”
She giggles. “What are you thinking about right now? Want to run screaming yet?”
“Your family isn’t scary. They’re normal. Which is scary, but in a way I’m used to, so it’s okay.” I pause. “I’m thinking about my parents.”
