Gabby tips her head to the side to regard the pearls. “That was nice of him.”
“I know, right?” I say lightly. “Can you help me lift my hair off my neck?” I ask Gabby, and I hold out a sheet of bobby pins. “I want to show these off.”
I stare at the pearls right up until it’s time to go. Then I go to meet Jake, wearing the pearls his father gave his mother on their wedding day.
53
Jake
I stand at the altar with Pop beside me. Alex is next to him, and Alex is so nervous he can barely stand still. I motion for him to come to me, and then drop down in front of him and straighten his tie. We’re all wearing khaki pants, button-down shirts, and flip flops. Pop said a man doesn’t get married without a tie, so we let Trixie pick them out. We are all wearing the most absurd bowties known to mankind. Pop’s is purple paisley, Alex’s is red with Minnie Mouse ears all over it, Fred’s is a cluster of palm trees, and mine reminds me of a swirly psychedelic hippie flower.
The lake is our backdrop for the wedding. It’s my favorite place in the world, and I couldn’t imagine formally joining my life with Katie’s anywhere else than in this place where we met all those years ago.
I haven’t told her yet about Pop’s offer, and I’ll be happy no matter what her decision is, but I’d be lying if I said I want to go back to New York. I want to stay here, in this magical place, so we can give our children the same kind of childhood I had.
We stand beneath a simple white arbor, and there are rows of chairs draped in ribbons that blow and twirl in the breeze like streamers on a moving bicycle. In the front row we have Adam, and Adam’s twin sister Carole. Genetically, she’s Katie’s mother, and I’m glad she showed up today. She spent last evening with Katie and Gabby, doing girly things that moms and daughters do, and I know she brought a sense of peace to Katie.
Behind them are Jeff’s parents the Stones, and his sister. Jeff’s mother is holding Hank in her arms. He’s jumping and making cooing noises at her, patting her face. She blows into his fist and he opens his mouth wide, landing on her face. She’s glowing. I’m glad they showed up, because Katie needed to see them. She needed their acceptance on this day.
The letter they left for me touched me deeply. I locked it in my safe so that I can keep it forever. When times get tough, I might look back at it and remember Jeff’s suggestions. I’m honored that I somehow have his approval.
The rest of the chairs are filled with people I know from work, a few of Katie’s friends from home, and people from the complex who are now our friends. My police chief is here, too. He walked up to me and looked at me over the rims of his glasses. “I told you to get a dog, Jake. I didn’t tell you to get a whole damn family.”
I shrugged, smiled, shook his hand, told him that the dog was one of the best things I ever did—reuniting with Katie and acquiring her family was the very best thing I ever did—and then someone ushered him to a seat, along with his wife.
Trixie and Sally appear at the end of the aisle. She tells Sally to sit, and the damn dog plops his fat rear end right down. He slurps Trixie up the side of her face and she giggles. I can hear her all the way at the other end of the aisle.
Sally’s fur is still coming in on one side from the emergency surgery that saved his life, and he has some scars that will never fade entirely. Trixie says they give him character. I think he has enough character for a dozen dogs. Right now, he’s wearing a purple tutu and his nails are painted pink.
I hear Carole whisper to Adam, “You two would have a granddog who’s a cross dresser.”
Adam playfully elbows her in the side and she clamps her lips together. I chuckle into my fist. Carole winks at me. I wink back.
Pop, Alex, and Fred stand with me, and I watch as Trixie passes out white carnations to everyone who came to watch us get married. She takes her time with it, and Sally watches her every move. Then she goes to stand with Laura and Gabby, who are waiting on the other side of the altar. Sally sits at her feet.
The music changes suddenly and everyone rises. Katie steps out where I can see her. All the hair on my arms stands up. My mouth goes dry. My jaw falls open. My heart starts to thud.
She’s holding tightly to Dan’s arm. Originally, she asked both her parents to walk her down the aisle, but Adam declined. He said he’d be too nervous to walk, and that he wanted to enjoy it from the aisle seat.
Katie smiles at me as she walks slowly toward me. Her dark hair is piled high on her head, exposing her long, slender neck. Dampness burns my eyes when I see that she’s wearing my mother’s pearl necklace. I’d recognize it in my sleep. I’d recognize it with my eyes closed. I’d know it anywhere. I even know it around Katie’s neck.
I look at Pop and find him choking back tears. “You’re welcome,” he whispers. I wipe my eyes and clear my throat.
Damn, she’s beautiful. And having her here, in this place where it all started…well, that makes this even better. It makes it perfect.
She and Dan step up beside me. “Hi Jake,” she says. She sniffs and wipes her cheek. “You look very handsome.”
“You take my breath away,” I mutter.
“You guys want to wait until I go sit down?” Dan asks out of the corner of his mouth.
“Not really,” I say at the same time Katie says, “No, thank you.” We both laugh, and Dan lets out a chuckle too.
The pastor starts the ceremony, and asks who gives this woman to be married. Adam jumps to his feet and he, Dan, Gabby, Alex, and Trixie all scream at once, “We do!”
Katie laughs and Dan kisses her cheek, places her hand in mine, and goes to sit. I see him slip his hand inside Adam’s, and Adam leans against him for support.
We get to the vows, and Katie turns to face me.
“Hi Jake,” she whispers.
“Hi Katie,” I whisper back.
“The couple has written their own vows,” the pastor says. He motions to Katie.
“Hi Jake,” she whispers again.
“Hi Katie,” I whisper back. Again.
Katie’s voice is strong and sure when she goes on. “I fell in love with you when I was sixteen years old, Jake. And right then, I wasn’t ready to be your wife. I needed to do a few things, meet a few people, have a few children, and then I had to find my way back to you. But when I got here, here you were. You were open and willing, and I think you fell in love with my kids at the same time that you fell back in love with me.”
I chuckle. “I did.”
“I promise, Jake, to love you through all things, forgive you through all things, and persevere with you through all things. I promise to forgive easily, to love honestly, and to value you always. I love you, Jake, and I want to feel like this forever. I hope you’ll be a father to my kids, a husband to me, a friend to everyone, and I hope we die still loving one another the same way we do today, if not more.”
She wipes her eyes again. “Your turn,” she whispers.
“I fell in love with you, Katie, when I was sixteen years old. I wasn’t ready then, though, because we both had a lot to learn. We had to grow and change so we could be ready for one another when the time came, and I have to tell you, Katie…” I lean toward her and say loudly, “I am so ready for you!”
The wedding guests let out a tiny ripple of laughter, but I carry on. “I promise to listen when you talk, I promise to talk in a way that will make you want to listen, and I promise to work together with you on all things all the days of my life. For as long as I get to keep you, I will cherish you and the children you bring with you into this marriage. I know I won’t be their father, but I hope I get to have a special place in their lives. But even more than that, I promise to love you, Katie, in the best way I know how.”
Katie smiles at me.
“Oh,” I say. “I also promise to humanely trap and release every rodent that ever tries to do you harm, and I promise never to let those gnarly beasts harm your kids in the process.”
Katie tosses her head back and laug
hs. A wave of laughter spreads through the wedding guests.
The pastor speaks for a few more minutes, we exchange rings, and I finally get to kiss her. She lifts her arms around my neck, holds on tight, and kisses me back. I lean down close to her ear. “You feel like summertime,” I tell her. I watch her eyes. They tell me everything.
Mrs. Stone passes Hank to Katie. She motions to her kids, and they come to join us. I kneel down and wrap my arms around all of them and Sally licks the side of my face. I scoop Trixie up. “Why did you put my dog in a tutu?” I ask her.
“He likes the tutu,” Trixie says, as if it’s obvious. “And he looks really pretty in a tutu.”
I never thought I could be this happy. Summertime for a lifetime.
Epilogue
Katie lies naked on the bed of our hotel room, her arms flung open wide. I stand in the doorway and stare at her. I saw her when she was pregnant with Hank, but I only got to experience the end of that pregnancy. This time, I got to experience it from start to finish. I got to hold her hair back every time she puked from the smell of eggs in the morning. I got to watch the little flutters of the baby’s heart when we had the first sonogram. I got to see Katie’s face when she felt that first tiny little jolt in her belly when the baby moved.
That day, we were sitting on the couch watching a movie with the kids. She suddenly gasped and reached for my hand. She smiled at me, lifted her shirt, and said, “Can you feel that?”
I couldn’t feel anything but the soft skin of her belly, but she could feel it and that was all that mattered. It was another month before I felt the first kick. But as the days passed, her belly grew bigger, and the life inside her became real. It was a life that we created together, and it was my first baby, but this baby wouldn’t be my first child.
You see, I already have four children, and they are mine in every way, including in name. They hyphenated their last name, adding Jacobson to it, when I adopted them all. But they had my heart long before that.
Gabby will start college in the fall, and while she’s a brilliant, beautiful, sweet girl, she is still a teenager, and teenagers are challenging by nature. She wants to grow up, and I desperately want to keep her a child. I’m not getting my wish. She’s becoming her own person, and she’s leaving Katie and me behind.
Alex just turned eleven, and he’s still obsessed with sports. I’m coaching his Little League team and his football team. Sometimes I have to do it with Hank strapped to my chest, but we get the job done. Alex is still hesitant to call me Dad, but when he has to make portraits of his family in art class, he makes me the biggest figure in the picture, and I know I play a very important role in his life.
Trixie, on the other hand, started calling me Daddy as soon as we signed the adoption papers and the court granted the name changes. There is nothing that warms my heart more than having that little girl look up to me and take my hand. Every now and then she still asks for blue raccoon spray. It’s usually when Alex runs into her room and farts on her, but still…
Hank is turning two this weekend, and he’s walking and getting into everything. You can’t set him down without having him take off and run in the opposite direction. Thankfully, we still have Sally, and we’ll have him for many years to come. Just last week, Hank ran away from Katie when she was unloading groceries from the car and Sally dragged him back by the tail of his shirt, with Hank kicking and screaming the whole way. He flopped down on his diaper and screamed bloody murder. Sally licked up the side of his face, and Trixie patted Sally on the head and promised him a new tutu for saving her little brother.
We did decide to move to the lake at the end of the summer. We moved right in with Pop. I’ve never regretted it. Pop’s health is good, and he’s just as cantankerous as ever. He keeps the kids entertained, and he has Trixie and Alex fishing with him every afternoon. As long as Katie’s not around, they get to keep the fish.
Right now, we’re in New York to attend Fred and Laura’s wedding. Katie was way too pregnant to fly, so we drove all the way up. Imagine driving for a whole day with four kids, a dog, a very pregnant wife, and a grumpy old man. We tried to board the dog at the kennel, but Trixie cried so hard when we left him that we had to go back and get him. We paid a big pet deposit so he could stay in the hotel with us. If he craps on the floor, we’ll all be in trouble.
I set his leash on the side table. “Are you hungry?” I call out to Katie. I walk to the mini fridge and get a bottle of water. Katie’s lying on the bed, bare-ass naked, and the dog climbs up on the couch in the living room. They’re both flopped out like they’ve never seen a bed before.
“No, I’m not hungry,” Katie calls back. “My back hurts, though. Come and rub it for me.”
I smile to myself. I am chief cook, bottle-washer, and back-rubber around here. You should see me when I clean. I am too sexy for my shirt.
“When are the kids coming back?” I ask.
“Not for hours,” she says as I rub her back. “That feels nice.”
My wife is completely naked and we are all alone. “Hey,” I say as I scoot up closer to her, “do you realize that we’re all alone?”
She smiles at me over her shoulder. “Did you have something in mind?”
I kiss her naked shoulder. “Only if you fee like it.”
“I feel like it.”
I get up to go and close the bedroom door, because Sally’s on the couch, and just in case the kids come back too soon, I want to be prepared. We’ve become really good at doing this quickly. When you have four kids, you learn some shortcuts.
I reach into her luggage, get out her shiny little toy, and carry it to the bed. I toss it to her and she turns it on. She doesn’t roll over. She’s too pregnant and that belly gets in the way. She just places it on the right spot and sighs a happy little sigh.
“Don’t start without me,” I complain. I shuck my clothes quickly and slide in behind her, and then I slide inside. And within minutes, she’s coming apart around me, and I’m finishing inside her.
I’ll never forget to be grateful that I have this every day.
“What do you want to do now?” I ask her. “You want to sleep?”
She rolls onto her back and her big belly stands up tall. “No, I don’t think I can. I’m hurting a little.”
“Hurting how?”
“Hurting like tightening up. That’s all. It’s probably nothing.”
“You should have told me. I wouldn’t have done what we just did.”
“What we just did is good for us, Jake.” She turns her head to face me. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“You want to go walk around some?” she asks. “I haven’t seen this part of the city.”
We’re in the heart of New York.
“You know that place that they film for TV, the tattoo shop, that is near here. I think it’s called Reeds’.”
I know exactly where it is. “You want to go see it?”
She shrugs and holds out her hand so I can pull her to her feet. We both get dressed. I leave a short note for Pop and the kids to let them know we’ll be back soon. Sally looks up at us once before we go out the door, then he lays his head back down with a heavy sigh.
We take the elevator down to street level and start to walk. I get between her and the street, and between her and all the elbows. Then we see the flashing neon sign that says Reeds’.
Katie rubs her hands together. “I’m so excited.”
“You want to go in?” I ask.
“Can we?”
I shrug. I don’t tell her that I know these guys from when I used to work in this area. I’d rather surprise her.
We go inside and find not just one Reed, but all five of them. And Friday Reed is there too. The Reeds are five brothers who own a tattoo shop in the city. They do a lot of good in the neighborhood. They also are the stars of an extremely popular reality TV show. The oldest one is Paul, who’s married to Friday. Friday is a brunette bombshell in fishnet stocking
s, a short skirt, and sky-high heels. All the brothers are blond, and the youngest two are twins. They all come out to shake my hand. I used to work security for their events, so I know them pretty well.
“What are you doing here, man?” Paul asks. “We heard you moved away.”
Katie stands completely star-struck, unable to utter a word.
“I was just showing my wife the city.” I introduce Katie and she finds her tongue long enough to say hello to them.
“So,” I say. I rub my hands together. “I was thinking about a tattoo.”
Katie smiles and rolls her eyes.
“Can you guys hook me up?” I already know they’re booked up for months in advance.
Logan Reed, the middle brother, the one who got the cochlear implant a few years ago, says, “I can do it.”
“Really?”
“My last appointment just cancelled.”
Katie grabs my arms. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks.
I raise my brows at her. “Unless you don’t want me to.”
Paul punches me on the arm. “Pussy-whipped mother—” Friday pinches him. Hard. “Sorry,” he mutters.
I wrap my arm around Katie. “It’s all right. I don’t mind. I live for her. If that means I’m pussy-whipped, then I’m damn delighted to be pussy-whipped.”
“Damn straight,” one of the twins says. I can never tell them apart.
“Come on back, so you can tell me what you want,” Logan says. “I’ll doodle something up.”
Logan is the best artist in the city, and he and Friday listen to what I want. I tell them the story about how Katie and I met when we were sixteen, how we didn’t see one another for a long while, and how we came back together. Then they put their heads together and start to draw.
When they’re done, they show me what they’ve come up with.
I smile and show them where I want it. “Right here.” I point to my shoulder. It will take up the whole area.