Fire & Water (17 page)

“Enough about this old bird. This is your day,” she said, smiling at my reflection. “You’d better get your dress on. The car will be here any sec. I’ve never ridden in a limousine that wasn’t following a hearse.”

My hands went to my hips. “Well
that’s
just wrong.” Smiles cut through the stiffness of the nervous faces in the mirror.

After Mary K, I’d told no one about the letter Aaron Bloom sent and of the seeds of hesitation it had planted in my heart. I pushed thoughts of it to a dark recess in my mind.

Alice reached to me and tucked one of my stray curls under the lace of my snood. “This is a big day. Elyse would have been so proud.”

“I’ve never said this, but I think of you as my mother, too—along with her.” I nodded toward my mother’s photo on the vanity. “I suppose I always have. I’d like to think of you as this baby’s grandmother. You’ll be the only one.”

In that second, I could see my future baby cuddling in Alice’s lap, growing up being spoiled with sweets and extra cherries in Shirley Temples—just as I had been.

After a moment we broke from each other and looked at our blotchy faces in the mirror. “Oh Katie, I—”

“What shall the baby call you? Not just Alice. Nana Alice, maybe?”

“Katie, I, oh. I just don’t know. I’m just so sorry about it all, and—” Whether it was the pregnancy, the wedding day, or all of the years of Alice’s mothering, I felt my whole body swell with love.

“There’s nothing more to be sorry about. Nana Alice it is. I think my mother would be pleased.”

“I hope so, Katie. I really do.”

Alice rested her fingers on the silver-framed photo of my mother, pregnant, glowing with joy, her tiny frame rounded by her sixth month of pregnancy. “I guess there’ll soon be a picture of me just like that one, with a huge belly and all.”

Alice looked at the photo. “She was so happy that day.”

We lingered there, weeping together. “It’s official,” I said looking back to the mirror. “We’re a mess.”

“Fear not, I’ve brought the reinforcements.” She pulled a suitcase-size satchel from beside the vanity and began touching up our makeup.

* * *

When we got down to the street, Jake and Dad were leaning against the limousine, swapping stories with the driver. Dad’s silver hair shimmered in the morning light, and his suit jacket was the first I’d ever seen him wear that actually buttoned around his middle. As soon as he saw us, his eyes lit up. In his brogue, thickened by sentiment, he said, “Jake, you’re not nearly as ugly nor nearly as old as me, but I can tell you that you never did a thing to deserve such a lovely lady.”

“Of that I’m certain, Mr. Murphy.”

Dad reached up and put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “After today, I’m supposing that Mr. Murphy won’t quite work, now will it, Jake? We’re family now. You call me what you’d like, Angus or Dad, whichever feels right to you.”

Jake wore a face full of boyish delight. “I’ve never called anybody Dad. I think I’d like that.” Jake looked at me, beaming.

My dad’s pudgy hand gave Jake’s shoulder a squeeze. “Dad it is, then.”

The four of us loaded into the back of the limousine and rode through the curving roads of Golden Gate Park. We passed Stow Lake, the Arboretum, and the Japanese Tea Garden. Dad rolled down the window when we came to the conservatory, which appeared like Emerald City. “Oh, look girls, the tulips are full out. How nice of them to show up a little early this year. Isn’t it grand?”

We seemed to be going in the direction opposite the Palace of Fine Arts. “Jake, where are we going? We don’t want to be late.”

“Relax. We’ve got plenty of time.”

The limousine came to a stop on El Camino Del Mar amidst the palatial estates of Sea Cliff, an elite neighborhood at the northernmost tip of San Francisco’s peninsula. Each house in Sea Cliff stood proud, adorned in bougainvillea blossoms, climbing roses, or red geraniums flowing from crowded window boxes. Filigreed wrought-iron gates separated grand front doors from the sidewalks. The mansions made the humble clapboard places back in the Sunset District around Dad’s pub seem like the houses of the first and second little pigs.

“Thanks, John,” Jake said to the driver. “We won’t be long.”

Jake guided Alice, Dad, and me to the enclosed courtyard of an expansive Mediterranean house. Fuchsia blossoms filling hanging planters dangled like jewelry from the eaves. Flower beds exploded with foxgloves, hyacinth, and roses. The sugary perfume of jasmine filled the courtyard and drew us to the oversized oak door. Dad’s eyes bugged out, taking in all of the blossoms. “Will you look at this garden,” he sighed. “Why, this has been tended by a hand that knows.”

“I’m not up for visiting anybody right now,” I whispered to Jake. “I’m already too nervous.”

He smiled and opened the front door. “Nobody to visit. I just wanted you to see where we’ll be spending our first married night together.”

Jake said he’d arranged a local honeymoon because I only had a few more days before my residency started. We stepped into the house, gawking at the massive rooms and high ceilings. I surmised that the owner was a customer of Jake’s, because his sculptures sat prominently in the living room. The rooms each burst with an explosion of art of all kinds. In the kitchen, a breakfast nook nestled into one of the bay windows. From the table, through diamond-shaped window panes arranged in an arch, was a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands to the north, the vast Pacific to the west. A huge atrium sat across the massive foyer on the other side of the house.

Jake led us all up the grand staircase, showing each room. The master bedroom had rich ebony wood floors; the bed was a huge marshmallow of pillows and down comforters.

We followed Jake like mute zombies, finally ending up in a sunny nursery painted in pale apple green, the entire ceiling filled with delicate, suspended mobiles fashioned of origami leaves hung by filaments so fine that the leaves appeared to float. The mobiles swayed gently as our bodies stirred the air and cast dancing shadows over the crib.

“It’s beautiful, Jake. Amazing, really. I would never have thought you could rent this kind of place for a weekend.”

“I didn’t rent it for a weekend.”

“For how long?” I began to panic. The thought of how many thousands of dollars such a place would rent for made me feel weak.

Jake pulled a small box from his tuxedo pocket. “Here. My wedding gift.”

Inside the box, on a bed of tiny white pebbles, rested a single key.

Dad and Alice wore faces with stunned expressions. “But Jake, the rent on this place has got to be outrageous. I don’t—”

“I bought it. It’s my gift to you and to our baby.”

I buckled into the willow-wood rocker poised in the corner of the nursery. Jake kneeled beside me. “That’s where I want to see you,” he said. “I want you and our baby to have this home.”

“But this is too much. I’ll have to take some time off. My residency doesn’t pay a lot and I’ve got student loans and—”

“It’s only money. Burt manages all of that. We’ll pay off your loans. Don’t worry so much, Kat. Do you like the house?”

I looked over at Alice and then at my dad. I imagined the sound of our baby’s laughter coming from the nursery. Jake would use the atrium as a studio. I could see it all. But the whole house was so grand. The bar and the flat upstairs had always felt like plenty to me.

“I’ll work right here at home while the baby is little. I’ll be Mr. Mom. I can see it all. All of it, right here. Oh Kat, it’ll be
perfect
.”

* * *

The sorrel dome and curved colonnades of the Palace of Fine Arts admired themselves in the reflection of the lagoon. A breeze swayed the graceful limbs of the willows and carried flower-scented air to greet us as we stepped out of the limousine. The springtime sky had shed all her gray garments and wore celebratory blue. Vivaldi’s timeless melodies lauding the season sung from the strings of the violins, cellos, and violas poised between the Corinthian columns of the Roman rotunda. Pink cherry blossom petals carpeted the walkway.

Open to the public, the early spring day had invited tourists to the grassy hills beside the lagoon. They watched our arrival from a polite distance. Dad would walk me down the aisle, and Burt and Alice, our best man and matron of honor, would walk together. Our small gathering of friends waited for us inside.

We stepped from the car onto the grassy bank. Burt was there to greet us, always the consummate events arranger. “Here,” he said grinning, holding out a package wrapped in brown paper.

Inside was a black-and-white framed photograph of Jake and me, lying on the soft grass of Japan’s countryside. Our bodies were entwined and Jake’s hand rested on my belly. No world existed outside our gaze for each other and the baby we knew I held. Titled “The Nest,” the picture bore Burt’s flourished signature. I couldn’t imagine how he’d snapped the picture without us knowing he was there.

“I know you’re not much for pictures, Jake-O, but I thought I’d give you your first family portrait.”

Jake’s eyes moistened. “Beautiful, Burty. Just beautiful.”

“Oh Burt,” I sighed. He wrapped his massive arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “No crying now or we’ll all be a puddle.”

The florist stepped toward us, ready with giant bouquets of white tulips for Alice and myself, the one detail my dad insisted upon handling.

“Ah, the
Tulipa
from the family of
Liliaceae
,”
he sighed when he saw them. “Beautiful, elegant, and graceful. Perfect for my two favorite ladies.” Dad lifted the blossoms from their boxes. “The blooms are without fragrance, though. I suppose the Creator didn’t want to show off.”

With my flowers in hand, I spotted Mary K in the distance. She wore a crisp white shirt and black tuxedo pants, her strawberry strands whipping in the wind. Her tilted gait was more pronounced than a week ago, and she used a cane. She snuffed a cigarette in the grass. I looked at Jake. “Can I have a minute?”

“Of course,” he said, kissing my cheek.

* * *

“Quite the shindig,” she said as I approached. “Nice threads.”

“You shucked your scrubs.”

“I clean up okay.”

“The cane? That’s just to make me feel sorry for you, I assume.”

She shrugged away my inquiry. “Look, Murphy. I’m not wild about this whole wedding. But it’s not for me to say, right?”

“No, it’s not.”

“I figure you’ve stood by me while I’ve made my share of mistakes. Even if I think this is fucked up, it’s your funeral. I couldn’t miss my best friend’s funeral, right?”

It was the most left-handed gesture of conciliation I’d ever heard, but perhaps the biggest one I could expect. “I’m glad you’re here. It wouldn’t have felt right without you.” I looked down at the cane. “Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing. Just God thumbing his nose at me a little to keep me humble.”

“I said some things I regret the other day,” I said.

“You said the truth, Murphy. Truth is harsh sometimes. I figure we don’t need to be enemies. Friends are too hard to find.” She jutted her jaw. “Seems like you should get going. You’ve got people waiting.”

Over Mary K’s shoulder, I spied Jake smiling at me in the distance. Mary K turned and looked at Jake. “I think we’re holding up the party.”

I nodded and walked toward the music. Just then the violin melody shifted seamlessly to
My Wild Irish Rose.
With Alice and Burt ahead of us, I took my dad’s arm and followed them into the crowd of our loved ones under the dome of the rotunda.

“Ready, Kitten?” Dad whispered. I realized only then that I’d halted my steps. Together, we walked through the arch of the dome. From the corner of my eye I watched Mary K as she wiped her eyes.

Waterfalls

“I can’t believe how good you make food taste.”

“I’m not exactly flattered,” Jake said, pouring himself a glass of wine. “You’ll eat anything since your second trimester started. From the looks of your plate, I think the baby likes morel mushroom risotto.”

In the three months since we’d returned from Japan, my appetite had grown right along with my pregnancy. All of my senses were more acute. I could become so overwhelmed by smells that I could barely walk down the detergent aisle in the grocery store, and my taste buds had become highly tuned for nuances of flavors I’d barely noticed before. But Jake’s cooking was—just like everything he created—an exquisite work of art. “What are these?” I asked, popping a mysterious item into my mouth.

“You ask after you’ve already got it in your mouth?” He laughed. “Fried zucchini blossoms.”

“It’s been frozen burritos and Pop Tarts for me since med school. You’re spoiling me.”

“That’s my job.”

“Did you call Burt back?” I asked. “He’s left about twenty messages.”

“Burt
Schmirt
. I’m at home pampering my pregnant bride. Who cares about some installation in Timbuktu? Besides, I want to finish the garden and have everything perfect for the baby.”