I Now Pronounce You Someone Else (16 page)

The phone rang about ten minutes after I got home.

“I’m fine,” I said in a voice thick with too much crying. I was in my room wearing just a T-shirt, sitting on the edge of the bed, without enough energy to actually pull on a pair of jeans.

“Honey, what happened?” Mother asked. I could hear the lively sounds of the reception behind her. “Jared got here a little bit ago, and Patty said the two of you fought, and he looks just—”

“Mother, stop. I really don’t feel like talking.”

“We are on our way home.”

“Why?”

“Well, you…We are coming home.”

“Don’t. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Mother, please. Just have a good time. I’ll see you later.”

I knew enough, then, to put my pants on. It was exhausting, but I wanted to be dressed when they got
home, which would be in about fifteen minutes, because why listen to anything I say?

“I said I’m fine,” I greeted them both in the kitchen, and fairly pushed Mother away before she had a chance to hug me.

“What happened? Bronwen, to see the look on Jared’s face. And then Patty’s, and—”
Stop talking.
“—she told us you and Jared broke up, but she didn’t know a single detail—”
Stop talking.
“—and no one wanted to say too much, but Jared just looked so distraught, and, oh, poor dear—”

“Stop it! Stop talking! Just stop.” I calmed down. “Please, stop talking.”

My yelling caused Sam to start pacing. Whitt soothed him with a few pats on his side.

“Please,” I said. “I’m completely drained. Yes, I broke up with Jared. I gave the ring back. This is one of the worst days of my entire life, and I just want to go to bed.”

“I was only concerned,” Mother said.

“I know. I know you are, but I said I’m fine.”

“But we see that you’re not, Bronwen,” Whitt said. “And we just want to help.”

“You can help by leaving me alone,” I snapped.

“I don’t think that’s the best thing for you,” he said.

“Oh, what do you know?”

“I’m willing to put up with a lot from you right now, Bronwen, because I know you’re hurting, but I am not—”

“You don’t know anything.”

“—willing to tolerate rudeness. Where is this coming from?”

“Where are you coming from?” I shouted.

“Now. Now,” Mother was saying.

“I’m going to bed,” I said and turned toward the stairs.

“Bronwen, wait. Wait,” Whitt said and nearly ran to catch me by the wrist, which I wrenched out of his hand.

“Leave me alone!”

“Bronwen,” he said at my scream, which frightened us all, and he held my arms, and Sam barked.

“Let go!”

“Not when you’re like this.”

“Let go of me!” I cried.

“I am not letting you go. Let us help you.”

“I don’t want your help!”

“You need my help!”

I sobbed and struggled and finally managed, “
Your
help? Where the hell have you been?!”

“What?” he asked, loosening his grip enough that I was able to jerk myself free.

“You had your chance. And now it’s too late, so do not pretend suddenly that you’re my father. You’re not!”

“I don’t know—” He shot a worried look over his shoulder to Mother, who stood perfectly frozen, staring at the two of us.

“Bronwen, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Right.”

“I don’t,” he said, grabbing a paper towel, handing it to me.

I wiped my face. The kitchen fell silent but for Sam’s tail nervously thumping on the floor.

“Talk to me,” Whitt said.

“I’m going to bed.”

“For God’s sake, Bronwen! Would you just please talk to me? For once! For once!” Whitt shouted. In the same strident tone, he added, “Please! Would you talk to me?”

“Why?” I whispered. I wanted to scream but couldn’t find the breath to do it.

“Because I want to help you.”

Again, “Why?”

“Because I love you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No. You’re wrong. I do.”

“No. You. Don’t,” I swore.

“How can you say that?”

“Then why aren’t you Dad?! Why am I not yours?! Why? I waited for you! You said I would be! You said you loved me! So I waited! I was thirteen, and I waited, and you didn’t come through!”

“Bronwen—”

“You never even said anything about it! Did you think I would just forget?!”

“Bronwen—”

“Did you think it wouldn’t matter? That I didn’t matter?! That I was fine being nobody’s?!” I sobbed into a paper towel while Mother said, “I resent that.”

“Bronwen,” he said. “Bronwen, look at me. Look at me.”

After some seconds, I did. He stood right in front of
me, and he took the paper towel from me and wiped a tear I had missed.

I leaned back.

Away.

He was supposed to have done that so many years ago.

“Bronwen, there’s been a terrible…a terrible…I had the papers.”

“What?”

“I had the papers. All drawn up by my attorney. To make you mine. I had never been happier in my life than I was the day you told me you wanted me to be your dad. I wanted to be that for you. And I knew I wasn’t replacing your real dad. I just wanted to be a second one to you, and you’d be a daughter to both of us. And when you said that was what you wanted too, well, I couldn’t have been prouder.”

“But—”

I couldn’t think.

“I love you, Bronwen. As if you were my own daughter. And the step part doesn’t matter to me at all. It never has.”

“Then—why didn’t you—?”

He looked at Mother a second time, who took Sam by the collar and let him out back.

We both watched her all the way to the door.

“Oh, no,” I said. “You didn’t. You didn’t!”

“I—”

She held her palms toward me, half surrender, half protest.

“What did you do?” I asked, walking around Whitt. “Mother, what did you do?”

“I made a mistake.”

“What mistake?!”

“I didn’t know,” she said.

“Didn’t know what?! That I loved Whitt? That I had what I always wanted? That I had a dad again?”

“I didn’t think we were—I didn’t think you were ready to—I didn’t know you really meant it. I rarely ever know what you mean, Bronwen.”

“Is that what you said?” I looked at Whitt. “What did she say?” Back at her. “What did you say?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Jacquelyn,” Whitt said in a strangely soothing voice. “Your daughter needs to know what you said.”

“Why? So she can hate me more?”

“I don’t hate you,” I said.

“You’ve never wanted to be close to me.”

“What about me have you ever accepted?”

“This—I don’t care to go into this.”

“Jacquelyn.”

“What did you say?!” I demanded.

“I said,” she shouted, “that you had changed your mind and didn’t know how to tell Whitt. And that we all just wanted the whole matter to drop. There. Are you happy now?”

“God, Mother!” I cried. “You lied! How could you?!”

“Well, how do you think I felt?”

“You?!”

“Yes. Me. My own child told me she wanted to be someone else’s child, not mine.”

“When have you and I ever really been mother and daughter?”

“Well, you’ve never been easy for me to understand.”

“You never tried!”

“I’m done discussing this. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

“That’s it?!”

She tossed her hands in the air, marched outside—no clicking, no tapping—and sat in a patio chair with her back to the house. I started out after her, red and seething, but Whitt stepped forward.

“Don’t. Not now. Not when you’re angry,” he said.

“She lied. All those years. She lied to us both. I—” I started to cry. “She let me think you didn’t want me. I believed that.”

“I’m sorry, Bronwen. I’m so sorry.”

“I said horrible things to you.”

“They’re forgotten.”

“They’re not,” I sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Bronwen,” he said and held me tight. “It’s okay. It’s really okay.”

“It’s not.”

“Then I’ll make it okay,” he said. “Because that’s what dads do.”

And I bawled and begged him, “Don’t let go just yet.”

“I won’t let go ever.”

After a few seconds, I stepped back and half groaned at the wet marks I left on his shirt as he handed me another paper towel.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said at last. “I sound like such a child.”

“No, you don’t. You’re young in so many ways, Bronwen, and old in others.”

“I don’t know what I am lately. Or what I’ve been doing.”

“You’re eighteen. You’re allowed not to know. In fact, I’d be surprised if you did,” he said through a beautifully understanding smile.

Was it mine—that smile? All mine?

“So what do I do now? You. Mother. Jared? Oh, Jared. I just—I couldn’t—I know I hurt him, but I just couldn’t…I don’t know what to do about anything.”

“Let’s work on it together. You and I,” he said. “What do you think?”

“Together? You and I?” I managed some kind of smile back. “I’ve been waiting for that for five years.”

This was the kind of Us I wanted to be just then.

So that night, when I finally fell asleep, I did it vowing to stop speaking to Mother for all eternity.

I made it to Wednesday.

Even if I hadn’t excommunicated her, I had little energy for talking. It required an effort just to drag myself out of bed and a few feet over to my desk chair. There I sat for hours each day, staring at a blank computer screen, wondering what on earth to write to Jared to fix every single thing I had made so wrong lately. His life. And mine.

Nothing.

I didn’t even turn the computer on.

I couldn’t fix this for either of us. Still, I sat for whole chunks of days, wishing I could. And when that wasn’t enough, I tortured myself by mentally replaying every single second of Saturday afternoon’s breakup, thinking at the end of each playback,
What have I done?

Mother barely noticed her shunning. She had promptly entered Efficient Mode and canceled wedding reservations, and forfeited deposits, and returned dresses, and made phone calls. Fortunately the invitations had not gone out yet, so the phone calls she made were mostly to family and friends, by which I mean all of East Grand Rapids.

Tuesday night, long after Mother had gone to bed, I found Whitt in his study and asked if I could come in.

“You never need to ask,” he said as I dropped myself into a cushy wing chair opposite him.

“I heard Mother on the phone today,” I said. “Canceling stuff. I’m sorry about the money.”

“Don’t worry about the money. How are you today?”

“A wreck,” I said and cried some. “Did Jay say anything about Jared?”

“Mm-hmm. He’s hurting, but I told Jay today that I was going to keep my conversations with you out of the office, and he agreed.”

“Yeah? Thanks,” I said.

I said
good night
and started to leave. Habit. But then I turned, walked straight to Whitt, hugged him, kissed his cheek, and said, “I love you,” before going to bed.

Mother greeted me the next morning with red-rimmed eyes, standing right in front of me before I reached the final step into the kitchen.

“I do love you, you know,” she said.

“I know.”

She reached a hand toward me, and let it fall on my forearm when I didn’t reach back.

“I’m so sorry, Bronwen. About Jared too, and…I never meant to…I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Neither one of us knew what to say next, so we said what we always said.

We said nothing.

Sometime later that week, I sent Jared a brief but earnest apology and asked him if he was okay. He returned a brief and earnest thank-you and added that he’d be too busy to communicate for a while, what with his move to Columbus coming up. He ended the note by saying, “It’s probably best.”

Yes. For both of us.

But I sat at my desk just crying.

Caitlyn called me the following Friday about that belated graduation party she was throwing. Thirty-five people. Her parents’ cottage. No Chad. Couple of his ex-girlfriends, and would I like to come?

“It’ll cheer you up,” she said.

“Sure,” I said.

“Your mom called my mom,” she confided. “I’m really sorry.”

“Thanks.”

But then I could practically hear her bounce when she added, “Okay, enough of that. We’ll have so much fun tomorrow, and I’ll pick you up.”

She whisked me away about nine thirty that perfectly blue and cloudless—and hot—June day. We headed to Grand Haven, about twenty miles north of Holland and with just as much gorgeous beach. There I saw the faces of friends I had not seen since the night of graduation, just a couple of weeks earlier. Or was it years?

Kirsten was there, talking with three other girls. She and I nodded hellos at each other. Then she returned her attention to her circle, and I spent most of the day as Caitlyn’s shadow. By the time everyone arrived, we had three coolers, five umbrellas, and too many iPods to count.

We swam, ate chips, played volleyball. Kirsten and I didn’t play at the same time. Some of us strolled in groups to and from the snack bar, strolled in groups up and down the beach. And all day long, no one—not one person—asked me about Jared or the wedding.

I found it all very odd.

At the end of the day, when we were all packing up to go home, I finally asked Caitlyn why.

“Kirsten told everyone not to,” she said, pointing over my shoulder.

Kirsten stood a few feet behind me, and I just hugged her, and before I could thank her and apologize
all at once she said, “But you know we’re all dying to know.”

We laughed, and I spent most of the next afternoon with her and Caitlyn and a couple other friends at the Java Bean, explaining everything, blaming myself, crying often, and sharing the cookies we all kept buying.

Toward the end of that month, I discovered that Jared had removed me from his Facebook page, and his e-mail program bounced my feeble attempts at communication back to me.

“Hi. Just want to know if you’re okay,” I had written.

I knew he wouldn’t take my calls.

His silence did not surprise me. I knew his position on postbreakup friendships and timeliness and everything. But I found I didn’t agree. Not with everything.

I didn’t expect us to return immediately to warm chats over hot coffee. I expected awkwardness. I expected hurt feelings. I expected I’d be able to soothe some of them or at least be allowed to try. I expected we would still want to know each other.

Instead, I found myself growing increasingly perplexed and fretful over this summary excommunication, particularly as it appeared to be lasting.

And I found myself crying all the time.

Fortunately, I was able to work out—to start to—these and other conflicting feelings in therapy. Whitt insisted. He began at once doing what I had hoped he
would do, what he initially tried to do, all those years ago when he first entered our lives. He began putting us back together as a family, such as we were or ever could be. He began being a dad. My dad.

Right around the end of June, Mother, Whitt, and I met for the first time with Dr. Vicente Alvarado, a psychiatrist originally from El Salvador but transplanted first by college, then by marriage to East Grand Rapids, Michigan. He spoke English as if the words were sharp in his mouth and would, if he weren’t careful, slice his tongue.

He was careful.

I whispered to Mother in the waiting room, “You do realize he won’t be blond, don’t you?”

“That hardly matters.”

“For everyone but me, right?”

And so began our first appointment.

It could not have gone better. Or worse, especially since Mother politely insisted for an hour that nothing, absolutely nothing, was wrong with her, thank you very much.

We all felt headachy and tired afterward.

Right at the end of that session—with three minutes left on the clock—Dr. Alvarado asked my mother one question, possibly the only question, that struck some maternal chord in her and actually caused her expression to change. To soften, slowly, into sadness.

“Jacquelyn,” he said, “would you like the same relationship with Bronwen that you have with your mother, or would you like one that’s healthy?”

“How did you know—” she began but stopped herself. “Healthy.”

“Good,” he said.

Just
good
, and then, “Can you meet this time every Thursday?”

We could.

Initially, we met Dr. Alvarado as a family threesome, or rather as a threesome trying to become a family. Peter said no thanks to the offer of therapy Whitt made.

nah, i’m great, thanks, but i completely support it for anyone who needs it.

Later, we met with Dr. Alvarado individually. Mother and Whitt kept up their weekly appointments. Once I went to Hope in late August, I drove back one Saturday a month for an in-person tune-up—Dr. Alvarado called it that—and stayed in touch with him weekly by phone.

None of us ever mentioned this to Gram or Granddad. Granddad called psychiatrists
head-shrinking bastards
, and Gram believed they implanted subliminal messages in all their patients, making them quack like ducks every time someone said the word
shuttlecock.

Dr. Alvarado slowed us down and kept us focused when we wanted to rush, especially me in my fruitless effort to make up for lost time. He called that impossible, and said the best we can do is give the correct
meaning to the past and grieve it in order to live a healthier present.

He also suggested we make no major changes in our lives for one year, which is why it was not until the summer after my freshman year at Hope that Whitt and I signed those papers legally making me his daughter.

We attended a private session with his attorney and a judge at the county courthouse downtown.

Mother did not join us. The truth was she still wanted a blonde daughter who liked ketchup and Peter as much as she did. I guess in therapy she was figuring out why and what to do about it.

That’s her business.

I don’t know that we’ll ever be the family I dreamed of, or the family I thought I once had. I’m not entirely sure we ever were that particular family, even when my dad was alive. Was it more than a fantasy? Isolated snapshots of happy times? I was a child, and my parents were young. Their marriage hadn’t been tested, and neither had they.

I do know this: My dad never would have handed me the ketchup bottle, and he would have been annoyed with Mother for doing it.

She and I might never be close, but that’s much easier to live with now that I have a dad.

So after the judge signed the papers, Whitt took me to lunch, and we drove down to Holland and walked on the beach, and we Made a Day of It.

I was three months away from turning twenty, a little old to be adopted—I know—but it mattered to me. And it mattered to Whitt, and that made it matter even more.

He was officially Dad.

I was officially his.

I still smile at the sound of that.