Six hours later, at five o’clock in the morning, Katie crawled in bed with me. “He said he had a dream,” she whispered, less, I think, because it was five A.M. and more for something like reverence, “where he was in a bike race for tandems, and everyone else had two riders, but he was alone, and even though he was fast and strong and good, he couldn’t catch up, but then he pulled over to have a snack, and I was there, and I said I’d ride with him, and then we caught up to everyone else and overtook them and won and rode all over the world together.” She was crying.
“What do you think it means?” I said dryly.
She ignored me. “I told him I had a dream where I was asleep. You know when you fall asleep in your dreams? When you’re just so tired and comfortable, you have to stop telling yourself stories and totally sleep? Except I was sleeping next to him with my head on his chest and my legs on his legs. It was the most comfortable feeling I’ve ever had.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I was everything he ever dreamed of in a wife. He said he’s been waiting his whole life to meet me. He said he wondered why God would send him to Washington of all places, and now he knows it was to meet me. He said he knows God wants him to get married. He says he sees me with Atlas and knows I will be a wonderful mother.”
“What did you say?”
“Same thing. Different pronouns.”
I hugged her, somewhere between delighted for her and also thinking she might be insane. And also wishing she could wait and tell me these things at a more reasonable hour of the morning. But since I was up anyway, I waited until she fell asleep and then walked down the hall to wake up Jill.
“He all but asked her to marry him,” I hissed.
“Who?” she asked sleepily.
“He had a dream about biking around the world with her. She had a dream about sleeping on his chest. He said she was everything he wanted in a wife and that God wanted them to be together and have children. She said she thought so too.”
“They’ve been dating since Tuesday,” said Jill.
“I know. It’s insane.”
“Where is she now? Singing in the front yard? Trying to find a wedding caterer open at six o’clock in the morning?”
“She’s more calmly excited. Excited suffused with wisdom, purpose, godliness.”
“Maybe she’s just tired.”
“Do you think it’s too soon?”
Jill opened her eyes for the first time and looked at me. “Are you kidding?”
“Maybe after so much looking, she knows it when she sees it?”
“Since Tuesday.”
“Should we talk to her?”
“I doubt we could put a stop to this even if we tried. It’s like stopping the weather. Maybe he’s less serious about this than she imagines.” We heard Katie get up and go to the bathroom. Then she poked her head in the room. I did my best to look innocent. Jill did her best to will both of us to get the hell out of her room so she could go back to sleep. “Are you guys talking about me?” Katie said.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” said Jill at the same time.
Katie looked thoughtful. “I think I’d like to have everyone over for dinner Sunday night,” she said finally. “I think Peter should meet the family.”
Twenty-four
It was as if we were hosting a coronation. In retrospect, it is easy to see how important the evening was, that the effort towards finery was warranted and worth it. At the time, we all thought we’d lost our minds, but none of us could stop. Jason and Lucas went without saying. They had a more or less standing Sunday-night dinner invitation. Ethan too these days. Peter’s older brother Eli was in town, one night only, so he came. We invited Diane, who was seeming unhappy to Jill on the phone. Plus the four of us, even if one of us didn’t get his own chair, made for too many around the table.
Katie borrowed a folding table and chairs from church, and we moved the plan outside, a good excuse besides for her to buy a few thousand candles, lanterns, and paper lamps. We invited everyone for late, even though Ethan and I had to teach the next day and even though Jason and Lucas and Diane and Eli had to drive home, so that we could have post-sunset glow and moonlit summertime to go with the soft light of candles and so that we had a better shot at Atlas falling—and staying—asleep. We spent Saturday morning from nine to noon menu planning. Nine to noon. Then I insisted on going running for an hour. Then we shopped. One farmers’ market, one co-op, two grocery stores. This is a task I generally delegate, but the night seemed too important to leave up to the mischievous gods of cooking or my roommates, who tended to be less picky than one might wish when it came to selecting good produce, the right chunk of cheese, bread that was fresh, and so on, and did not take well to instruction (“Fastidiousness,” I said; “Annoying and controlling,” they said).
A better question than why I was running all over the tourist-mobbed city on a summer Saturday afternoon with one baby, two roommates, a three-page list, and seemingly everyone else in the Seattle metropolitan area is how I knew. Even though the evening was important to Katie, even though I loved her and wanted as much happiness for her as possible, I should also have been able to relate to this from afar. Jill and I had lost somehow the distance that allowed us to watch with wry amusement and tinged alarm the pace and bubble of this relationship. We’d been swept up. Like when you go to the movies and identify so closely with the star that you go to the bathroom afterwards and look in the mirror and feel vaguely surprised to see your face and not hers looking back. Perhaps this was Atlas-effect too. Jill’s son was my son. Jill’s problems were my problems. Katie’s love life, the possibilities so suddenly opening before her, were my possibilities too? I wasn’t as panicked, short-tempered, and jittery as she was, but I was hell-bent on cooking for the queen.
We shopped for three and a half hours, rented a movie (Big Night for perspective), ordered Thai food, and started cooking. Sunday morning, Katie got up and went to church. Diane came early and took Jill and Atlas to the zoo. Jill was sure Diane was depressed. Diane was sure Jill was depressed. They were worried about each other and, both of them right, glad I think for the distraction from themselves. I put the iPod on both random and loud and danced while I cooked. I chopped and mixed and whipped. I made an epic, seismic, disastrous mess, covering every inch of counter with eggshells, corn husks, pea pods, food wrappers, cheese rinds, and tea bags. When I ran out of room, I cleaned up the mess in order to clear counter space. Then I made a mess again. Twice. I put the mini-quiches in about four, went into the living room to turn off the music and on the ballgame, and walked back into the kitchen to find Ethan standing in it, scaring the crap out of me.
“I was knocking, and someone was clearly home, but no one was answering, so I just came in. Thought you might need some help.” Blissed out as I was on the loud, the dancing, the chopping, the house-to-myself, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted help. Plus, he was obviously stopping off at the tail end of a run and was grimy, smelly, and generally damp.
“You can help,” I said, “but go shower first.”
He grinned. He thought I was kidding. “But I’ll miss the ballgame,” he complained.