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The reception was held in Aisling’s uncle Kent and aunt Booty’s tiny backyard in Ocean Beach. The house was close enough to the water that you could hear the waves crashing and smell the sea, except for that night, when basil and oregano and garlic overpowered seaweed. The reception food was a family affair, with lots of Italian dishes made by the Saints, including lasagna and rice balls. The mouths of guests walking up to the house watered at the delicious smells.
“It smells like a pizzeria,” Aunt Booty complained.
Aisling’s grandmother made her wedding cake, a traditional rum cake. Uncle Benito said it was so strong you could make a toast with it, and Granny Murphy laughed and said that was the highest compliment anyone could make about her cake.
The small yard was packed with guests speaking Italian and occasionally Irish.
“I thought all Irish spoke English,” Uncle Benito said.
“A few of us from the west coast speak Irish,” Granny Murphy said. “The English tried to squelch us in the 1800s, but we refused to give it up. Aisling speaks fluent Irish, don’t you, dear?”
In a lilting accent, Aisling answered her, much to Mike’s astonishment.
“You speak a foreign language? I’m stunned.”
“Don’t you speak Italian?” she asked.
“Not as well as you speak Irish,” he replied. “Maybe I need to start. Dad, only speak to me in Italian from now on.”
“Right,” Big Mike answered. “I’ll need to brush up myself.”
Trying to get a moment alone with her husband, Aisling took Mike’s hand and led him back to a corner where there was one empty lawn chair. She pushed him into it and sat on his lap and, when she was sure they weren’t being observed, kissed him passionately.
“I love you so much. I can’t believe we’re finally married!”
Holding on to her, he was just mesmerized by his new bride. “Who would think that on my wedding night, I’d discover my bride spoke a foreign language. I can’t believe it. I only want you to speak Irish to me from now on.”
Mike moved his eyebrows up and down, and Aisling giggled, happy she was able to surprise him with something new on their wedding night. “Maybe tonight, when we make love for the one thousandth time, I’ll whisper something in Irish into your ear.”
“Say it now,” Mike asked.
“Is breá liom tú,” Aisling whispered. “I love you.”
Fooling around with the layers of her dress, he tried to get his hand up, but she was too fast.
“Not yet,” she said, laughing. “Let’s say goodnight first.”
He helped her off his lap and they held hands, walking around the crowd, saying goodbye and thanking everyone for attending. Clothes for their honeymoon waited inside Uncle Kent’s house. They’d already had rice thrown at the church, so with Aisling’s parents’ help, they snuck out the front door and down the street to Mike’s car.
“Have a wonderful honeymoon!” Aisling’s mother cried as they drove off.
“We really pulled that off, didn’t we?” Mike said, pleased.
“We did!”
The couple drove back to Aisling’s condo, where they’d hole up for a week, making love and eating takeout.
The joy didn’t last long, however. In October, an official-looking envelope lay on top of the pile of junk mail in their mailbox. Aisling was at work, and Mike woke up three hours earlier than usual, wandering out into the living room in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, his hair messed up; even Ralph looked up at him, confused. This was not the routine.
The mailbox was on the outside to the left of the main entrance into the house. Mike later said he didn’t know why he had done it, the routine was Aisling always got the mail on her way in from work in the afternoon.
“Look at all this crap,” Mike mumbled, pulling the flyers and brochures out after he’d removed the white envelope with the ominous return address: Department of Defense.
Backing into the house, he let the screen door slam shut and closed and locked the big door while staring at the upper left-hand corner. Fear swept through him. Since high school graduation when Mr. Lyon had suggested the reserves as a possible way for Mike to get college paid for, he’d spent one weekend a month up at Camp Pendleton and two long weeks a year training for something he couldn’t fathom. The flyers and brochures, clothing and home improvement catalogues he left on the kitchen counter.
With the white envelope in hand, he went to his den, stood at the door to let Ralph come through, and shut the door, even though Aisling wouldn’t be home for hours.
The couch had been a place of relaxation, where football and baseball games were watched, and pay-per-view movies. He sat on the edge of a cushion and contemplated the white letter.
