“I know this is meant to be. I know it’s what God intends. I know Peter loves me, and I love him. I know he’s the perfect person for me and I for him.”
“And you know sex hurts a lot, right?” said Jill.
“Really?”
“A lot. Your first time? It’s going to hurt like hell.”
“It’s not that bad,” I put in. “It doesn’t hurt that much. You’ll use lots of lubricant. I already stashed some in the side pocket of your suitcase. Wedding present. You’ll be fine.”
“Gross,” said Katie.
“You better get used to this pretty quickly,” said Jill. “You only have about sixteen hours. You know how, right?”
“Yes. I’m not stupid. I do read.”
“You’re a Victorianist,” Jill pointed out. “It’s more fun than they let on, you know. But not the first time.”
“Be on top,” I advised. “It’s easier.”
“Don’t be nervous,” said Jill gravely. “Being nervous will make it harder.”
“He’s a sweet guy, Katie.” I tried to sound reassuring. “You’ll figure it out together.”
“You could have heavy petting,” suggested Jill, getting giggly. “You haven’t ever even touched an adult penis. And the man hasn’t had a nipple in his mouth since his mother’s. It took me three years to get from second base all the way home. You’re thinking of doing it in twenty minutes. Maybe you should delay actual sex for a night or two.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “Give you something to look forward to, give you a goal for your honeymoon.”
“You have to have sex the night you get married,” Katie insisted.
“According to God?” Jill asked.
“According to everyone. Everyone knows you have sex the night you get married. I’m sure it will be great. Stop freaking me out. What about you? Are you nervous?”
“Me? Why?”
“Because all of a sudden you’re not just back together but living with a guy who dumped you when he found out you were pregnant.”
“He didn’t dump me,” said Jill, going dark again.
“No, he didn’t even do you the courtesy of dumping you. He just disappeared and then reappeared without apology or explanation,” said Katie, whose near wifely status had evidently conferred on her some of Jill’s bluntness.
“He’s given me both apology and explanation,” said Jill, but she didn’t seem sure. “He was scared and angry and felt manipulated. He needed to get away and finish being a kid, a college student. He thought he had years more of that freedom coming to him. But then he got a job, lived alone, realized he was lonely. It wasn’t a baby that was encroaching on his freedom; it was adulthood that was doing that. What, was I supposed to never forgive him and ruin all of our lives over some confusion and fear?”
“But don’t you feel settled for?” said Katie. “He’s lonely, so he’ll come back to you. He has to be responsible anyway, so he might as well have a kid.”
I thought Jill would explode or try to have everyone arrested again. But instead she just talked to us and got more and more sullen, so much so that soon we switched tactics and started reassuring.
“I’m sure he loves you and Atlas, or he would have stayed gone,” said Katie.
“If living with him doesn’t work out, you can always try living alone for a while or with your mom. You can always move back in with me,” I tried.
She looked up. “You would still do that?”
“What?”
“Let me live with you again?”
I shrugged and admitted it. It was embarrassing maybe. But it was also true.
“Because you love Atlas?” said Jill.
“Yes. And because I love you.”
Then, finally, Jill apologized—entirely. “Weddings suck,” she said. Maybe this didn’t sound like an apology at first, but that’s what it was. “Dry cake, bad outfits, creepy relatives. That stupid chicken dance. Sappy, empty vows—honor, obey, forsake all others—what is that crap? No offense, Katie, but I’ve always thought it was such a load of shit.
“Now, though, I don’t know. Things change. Love’s unstable. I would never obey anyone, obviously. But I do know we’ll always be together—that we’re stuck with each other—because you are Atlas’s family. My family,” said Jill. “This will never not be true. Other things will change. Everything else might change. But for better or for worse, this will never change.”
Then it was late, and we had a big day tomorrow, and Jill claimed not to want to drive back to Daniel’s so late, but really I think she was just coming home, and since mine was the only bed left in the house, we all climbed into it and went to sleep.
Forty
The next day we had a wedding in the backyard. I stood at the front next to Katie and Jill and felt the sun and the wind and considered, because the bishop asked us to, what it all meant. This story ends with a death and a wedding. Does that make it tragedy or comedy? It ends with the dissolution of our little family, though not entirely, and the forming and reforming instead of two couples, possibly three. Does that mean it reifies traditional conceptions of family? Of narrative? It couldn’t possibly because none of us believe it. Because Jill and Katie and I are all moving, not in together anymore, but near each other like before. Because Jason and Lucas are having a baby. Because Ethan promises me that Atlas will always be my family and not, I think, just to make me feel better. Because we are all too in love with each other to be just friends. Because sometimes I hate them, but it doesn’t matter. Because who else would you forgive for having you arrested but family?
But it’s also because this journey is not to death; this journey is not to marriage, and it’s not to couplehood or even parenthood. This journey begins with friendship and comes back to it again. My grandmother thought it all started with the baby in the Waldorf-Astoria, but that’s because for my grandmother, the story was all about me. I know better though. It’s the cracker aisle, meeting Jill, teaching Katie how to cook. The beginning of this story, Atlas’s story, is the three of us. And here, at the end, at the end of this part anyway, I looked out over how much bigger we’d become. Atlas was sitting on Jason’s lap, for the moment anyway more comfortable with him than with Daniel, and holding Lucas’s index finger in his tiny fist. Diane sat next to Lucas, trying to watch the wedding but having a hard time taking her eyes off her beautiful grandson. Dan sat next to her, sneaking occasional nervous glances at her beautiful grandson but having a hard time taking his eyes off Jill. My parents were there, happy for the first time in weeks, trying to keep Uncle Claude from rushing the altar. Ethan was there, smiling at me from somewhere between awe and wonder. It was a combination that worked for me. But none of that suggested it wasn’t a story from friendship and back again. In the beginning, in the end, it was our story, our wedding, we three.
Katie was happy. Truly happy. You had only to look at her. Peter seemed indeed like he must be her One. It wasn’t based on the foundation of the years of friendship they shared, but maybe it was all the trial and error. Maybe it was God. Jill I was less sure about. Jill seemed angry and depressed and insane. I didn’t know that Dan would stay. I didn’t know that she would forgive him. I wasn’t sure she should. I wasn’t sure she could handle Atlas without more live-in help. So that’s a wash maybe? They cancel each other out? Katie’s surety versus Jill’s unknown? Katie’s joy versus Jill’s crazy?