The Christmas Orphans Club(34)
There’s no way he would stick, I thought after my trip.
But he did.
Spencer got a job at Citadel, and Brooke at Credit Suisse. They traded up for nicer and nicer apartments as their combined salaries ballooned. After two years together, they announced they were pregnant the same year I moved to the city. In quick succession, Brooke quit her job, they moved to a house in Highland Park—the town over from where we grew up—and Spencer put a diamond the size of a skating rink on Brooke’s finger.
The next Thanksgiving, there were five of us: me, Finn, Brooke, Spencer, and baby Ella, who screamed her head off the entire dinner until she was a disconcerting shade of purple. After dinner, Brooke and I washed the dishes while Spencer and Finn strapped the baby into the car to drive her in circles around the neighborhood, the only thing that would make her stop crying.
It was the first time Brooke and I had been alone in years—there was always the buffer of Spencer, Finn, or the baby, sometimes all three—and I took the opportunity to ask something I’d always wondered. “Do you ever get sad thinking about Mom and Dad?” She never talked about them, but living in the town next door, she must drive past reminders of our childhood on a near daily basis. I imagined it would be like living in a museum of your own grief.
She heaved out a sigh as she swirled a bottle brush in one of Ella’s dirty bottles. I couldn’t tell if the sigh was due to the general exhaustion of being a new mom or exasperation with me. “You know what your problem is,” Brooke answered, finally. “You need to stop living in the past.”
“Jeez, I was just asking.”
“I mean, sure, I get sad when I think about the fact that Ella will never meet her grandparents, or when I drive past Mom’s old office—it’s a Subway now, by the way. And god, I’d love Mom’s advice on how to get Ella to sleep through the night, or just to hear some reassurance that parenting gets easier, or a hug or a homemade meal when I’ve gone a week without getting more than two hours of sleep at a clip . . .” Brooke trails off, seemingly lost in thought. “But you can’t change the past, so what good does it do to dwell on it? It’s not healthy, Hannah. In order to keep living, you need to move on.”
In the intervening seven years, Brooke popped out two more baby girls and put even more distance between us, moving on with her own life so completely that I’m not sure I have a place in it anymore. When David invited me to Thanksgiving, I felt a mixture of victory and defeat as I declined Brooke’s invitation. Here was proof I was moving on, too, just like she suggested, but doing so meant admitting that Brooke and I would never be close the way I hoped we would be.
* * *
? ? ?
?After dinner, dessert, and three heated rounds of Pictionary, David and I are back in the car, the trunk loaded with Tupperware containers of leftovers. As David pulls onto I-95, he reaches over and puts a hand on my thigh. “My parents really love you, you know.” He lets out a contented sigh.
“They’re great,” I say. “Jen, I could live without, but those gorgonzola mashed potatoes your mom cooked almost made up for her. Oh my god.” I moan in ecstasy thinking about them.
“I’m sorry about Jen. You know that’s just how she is. I said something to her about it after dinner. It wasn’t fair of her to ambush you like that.” He glances over at me, and I can tell he’s nervous, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “But, about what she said . . . would that be so crazy? If we got engaged, I mean.”
I feel my throat tighten. “Not crazy, no. Just soon. Don’t you think?” I only just checked off the milestone of spending a holiday with his family, and we’re already hurtling toward the next one.
We’ve talked about marriage before, but always in the abstract. The same way we talk about taking a trip to Italy we can’t really afford, and I don’t have enough PTO for anyway. It’s always someday.
And what do I know about being a wife—or fast-forwarding even further, a mother—with so many years without any family of my own? What if I fuck it up, and end up with nothing? My leg starts bouncing again as these thoughts dart through my mind.
“I don’t think it’s too soon. This is it for me, Han. I mean, we already live together; it wouldn’t really change anything.”
“So why rush, then?” I counter. “Weddings are expensive.”
“I’d talk to my mom. I wouldn’t let her force you into some froufy white wedding, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know that isn’t you. We could get married at city hall and go to a diner afterward for all I care. It doesn’t matter to me. I just want to be with you.”
I look over at him and smile. I know David just wants a plan. He has five-year plans and ten-year plans and spreadsheets to project his retirement savings. Me, I try not to think too much about the future. Longevity doesn’t exactly run in my family. It’s not that I don’t want to be with him, it’s just that things are good right now, so why mess with that?
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t give me an answer,” he says playfully. “So . . . ,” he starts again, “if I proposed at Christmas, would you . . . say yes?” He asks the last part quietly, like he’s afraid to hear the answer.
“Not to get sidetracked from the main point here, but we haven’t even talked about Christmas yet. It’s Finn’s last Christmas in New York, and—”