June raised one eyebrow. “You always wondered that, or you maybe just recently wondered that?”
“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” Laurie said, narrowing her eyes. “I’m just saying it seems like they didn’t have to make such a big deal out of whether she did or did not have a grand romantic destiny.”
“I mean, it’s a romantic comedy.”
“I know. I know. I just had this moment where I envisioned myself telling Billy Crystal that I called off my wedding, and saying, ‘And I’m gonna be forty.’ And then I see him say, ‘When?,’ and I say, ‘In a month,’ and he just says, ‘Yikes.’？” June’s chuckle was so good, so small and melodic. It really had been too long. “Don’t laugh when I’m railing against ageism.”
“I’m sorry. I just think…it has nothing to do with you. You wouldn’t be crying in a bathrobe. You would be pouring drinks and watching a movie, you know? Meg Ryan was single and despondent. You’re just single.”
“Well, that’s true. I mean, I feel bummed that we lost some of our deposits, and I feel regretful about the hours of my life I spent sending back gifts, but I cannot claim to be despondent.”
“Well, then, be at peace. Nobody asked Billy Crystal for his opinion anyway.”
Laurie said, around an ice cube in her mouth, “Did you worry about getting married before you did it?”
June looked up at the ceiling, then back at Laurie. “Not really, I don’t think. I worried about the wedding DJ, and I worried about logistics, like whose family we were going to spend Christmas with and whether any of our relatives were going to flip out if I didn’t change my name. But I’d been living with Charlie for a couple of years by then, so I didn’t think it would be that different.”
“Was it different?”
“Not really. A lot of the time, I sort of forgot that we had gone from not married to married.”
“You two are amazing. It’s like after you met in college, you just floated from there to here.”
“Oh, hardly. I got completely freaked out when we were having Bethie. That was a whole other person puking and pooping and yelling at us all the time. That was different. Even though she was a good baby. And Tommy was also a good baby, very mellow and quiet, although for some reason he smelled worse more of the time. I don’t know. I guess I’m saying everything’s an adjustment.”
“I haven’t seen your kids in so long, when I walked in the other day, I was sure for a second you had traded them for other, much older kids.”
“I think that sometimes, too,” June said.
“Do you miss when they were babies? They were so cute.”
“I liked it when they were babies,” June said. “But now they’re old enough that they have backpacks and frenemies and real opinions about things besides hating everything when they’re tired. And that’s fun, too. I’m glad they got to see you. I think after all this time, they thought you lived in Skype.”
Laurie had learned to knit so she could make a blanket for Bethie, and then she never did it again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around more. I feel like I wanted to be Aunt Laurie, and I ended up being somebody they barely remember.”
“That’s not true. Even if it was, what are you going to do? It’s a long flight here from Seattle. And you travel so much for work already.”
“Yeah.” Laurie picked up the duck, which had been sitting next to her on the couch. “I am so in love with this thing.” She ran her thumb along its back, looked at the painted feather patterns, felt the bright green head with her fingertips. “I think it’s a wood duck.”
June put down her drink on a crocheted coaster on the side table. “It looks like wood.”
“No, not a wooden duck, a wood duck. A kind of duck that can nest in the woods.” Laurie looked at the bottom, which was a plain light wood with a faint mark that looked like a circle with the initials CKM inside. “CKM,” she said quietly. “It says ‘CKM’ on the bottom.”
“Calvin Klein…Mallards?” June offered.
“Outstanding guess, but probably not. I honestly have no idea where this would have come from or why Dot would have it.”
“It’s a decoy, right?”
“Yeah. And even though I’m embarrassed by how little I knew about big parts of her life, I’m pretty sure she didn’t have anything to do with hunting.” She kept running her finger over the mark on the bottom. “Baby wood ducks can jump fifty feet out of trees.”