coming from somewhere inside the house.
“Richie! That basketball is for outside!”
The steady thumping would be his nephew, bouncing the ball against a wall.
“I’m keeping time for Jessica,” he yelled.
A living-room wall.
He rang the bell. The door was opened by the kids, who immediately shrieked in happy surprise and threw themselves on him. He lifted them both, looping an arm around each skinny waist and balancing their wiry bodies against his hips, then carried them through the foyer, past the living room, to find his sister in the kitchen.
“Well, look at this. Your uncle Dennis is psychic. He knew I needed a break from you ungrateful monsters.”
“I eat monstrous children for breakfast,” he said in his growling voice and gave them a powerful shake that sent their limbs flailing.
“Take them away for a while and I’ll make it worth your efforts,” she said.
He growled again and carried them upstairs, knowing he wouldn’t get a single peaceful word of conversation with Gwen until he’d given them some quality time. An hour later, the kids clean and tucked in their beds, Dennis migrated back to Gwen’s kitchen, lured by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. She brushed a strand of hair out of her tired eyes and slapped a box of Girl Scout cookies onto the kitchen table between two cups.
“Where’s Dick?” Dennis asked.
“In New York, on business,” she said. “The dick,” she whispered, making her brother laugh.
“Had enough mommying for one day?” he asked, sitting down behind one of the cups while she poured.
“You’re the guardian for those two, right? Because I might not live to see the end of this job. God, they should bottle that energy.” She filled the second cup. “Charlene working?”
He sipped. “Mmm, good. Yeah, she has a meeting.” Gwen yawned. “Am I keeping you up?” he asked.
“God, I’m sorry, Denny. I had to work at the school today, plus I took Dick’s turn at Jessica’s soccer practice, and then there was this Brownie meeting about the cookies. You know, THE cookies,” she said, smacking the box till it fell over. “The effing cookies,” she added, again whispering.
“Won’t you be glad when they get a little older and you can swear again?”
“Jesus, you don’t know the half. How’s your life?”
“I’m getting married.”
Her mouth fell open and she was momentarily speechless. “You’re getting what?” she asked when she recovered from the shock.
“Married,” he said again.
He sipped again from his cup while she studied his passive face.
She had wondered if this day would ever come again for her brother. She didn’t want him to be alone. Even though he had her, Dick and the kids, it was not the same as a spouse, a partner. When he’d started dating Charlene, she’d grown excited. Hopeful. But five years had passed in relative sameness, and while they were obviously very close, nothing like marriage—or even living together—ever materialized.
Gwen put her elbow on the table and held up her head with her hand, staring at him while he sipped his coffee. Is this what happened when you were almost fifty and getting married? Matter-of-fact? Is it just another chore? Like deciding to update the will or go see the tax attorney?
She lifted one skeptical eyebrow. “You look ecstatic,” she said doubtfully.
“It seems like the thing to do, don’t you think?” he asked.
“It’s not a colonoscopy, Denny. You’re getting married!”
“I really am happy about it. It’s just that…there’s something I hadn’t accounted for.”
“Lay it on me,” she said, slowly testing her own cup of hot coffee.
“I was completely unprepared for how this would bring back memories of Sarah.” Gwen stopped sipping and gave Dennis her full and, for once, unsarcastic attention. She slowly lowered her cup to the saucer. “Even though I asked Charlene if she wanted to get married two, probably three years ago, it never occurred to me that in saying yes she would unleash so many memories for me.”
“Good ones?” Gwen asked. “Bad ones?”
“All of them, from the time I met Sarah and first held her close, to the time three years later that I held her cancer-ravaged body as we said goodbye.”
“Oh, Denny…”
“I have no idea why this is happening now. Really.”
“Maybe it’s the idea of remarrying,” she offered.
“Sarah died eighteen years ago. And we were only together for three years. It doesn’t feel like remarrying. It feels like that was another life.”
“Well, then, what could it be? Are we close to any anniversaries? Of your engagement to Sarah? Your wedding, her illness, her death?”
“No, thank God.”
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Maybe it’s just time for you to revisit this thing. You know, like post-traumatic stress. Maybe this is how you complete the cycle, bring closure. I mean, is it even possible to marry Charlene without your last marriage crossing your mind?”
“I never thought I’d love like that again,” he said, looking anywhere but at his sister.
A moment of silence passed between them…and stretched out. In a way, Denny and Charlene had been acting like an old married couple since the week they met, but was that a good thing? “And have you?” she asked very quietly, drawing his eyes back to her face.
“Of course!” he insisted. “My God, Charlene is extraordinary. I know you agree.”
“I do,” she said. In truth, Gwen was one of Charlene’s biggest fans, but that wasn’t really the issue here. The issue was her brother, who was morose on the day he announced his formal engagement. Despite his insistence to the contrary, the bold and passionate way he had loved when he loved Sarah had been buried with her. While Gwen was mostly concerned with her brother right now, it did cross her mind that Charlene might be getting shortchanged.
Gwen had been eighteen when her twenty-eight-year-old brother met and fell helplessly in love with Sarah Brown, a slender beauty with dark hair and vivid eyes. Dennis had described his first true love to his sister as kind, patient, good-natured and possessing a dry humor.
They met while Dennis was teaching high-school chemistry. Sarah was the photography and audiovisual teacher at the school and there was such chemistry between them—an intended pun they overused—that the principal asked them to stop looking at each other during school hours. They got married the second school was out—a sweet little ceremony in the park—and spent the summer in Europe.
What they had together was so obvious, so intense, so devoted and delicious, it became the benchmark for what Gwen wanted for herself. Perfect love.
And then Sarah died, a slow and miserable death from ovarian cancer.
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, Denny, but one of the things that I have always most admired about you was…is…your ability to take the pain and disappointment in life and turn it into something positive and beautiful. Like letting the experience of Sarah’s illness and death turn the chemistry teacher into a physician’s assistant who can help people daily. I love that about you.”
He looked wistful, his eyes cloudy. “She was so amazing,” he said.
“Dennis, look at me,” she said.
He obliged. “You’ve told me that a number of times, Gwen. I appreciate it.”