"But you'll have a baby," Mira said.
"Maybe," Mama said. "The other time--"
"This is not up for a vote," Conlan said, and that shut them up.
They all looked at Lauren again, then, one by one, they started talking about other, more ordinary things.
Angie released her breath. The storm had been faced and survived. Oh, there would be gossip through the family, burning up the phone lines as each of them dissected this news and formed an opinion. Those opinions would be tossed back and forth on a daily basis. Some of it would filter down to Angie. Most of it would not.
It didn't matter. There was nothing they could come up with that Angie hadn't worried about and foreseen.
Some things in life, though, couldn't be gone in search of. They simply had to be waited for. Like the weather. You could look on the horizon and see a bank of black storm clouds. That didn't guarantee rain tomorrow. It might just as easily dawn bright and clear.
There was no damn way to tell.
All you could do was keep moving and live your life.
CARS HAD BEEN ARRIVING STEADILY FOR THE LAST hour. Every few minutes or so the front door cracked open and new guests streamed into the house, carrying boxes of food and presents wrapped in pretty paper. There were men in the living room, watching sports on the aged television and drinking beer. At least a dozen children were clustered in the den; some were playing board games, others had Barbies dancing with Kens, and still others played Nintendo.
But the heart of the action took place in the kitchen. Mira and Livvy were busy making the antipasto trays-- provolone, roasted peppers, tuna fish, olives, bruschetta. Maria was layering homemade manicotti in porcelain baking dishes, and Angie was trying to make ricotta cream for the cannoli. In the corner, on the small kitchen table that had somehow once held the entire De-Saria family for casual meals, a three-tiered white wedding cake rose above a sea of napkins and silverware.
"Lauren," Maria said, "start setting up the buffet in the dining room."
Lauren immediately went to the little table and started picking things up. Silverware and cocktail napkins first.
She carried them into the dining room and stood there, staring at the huge table. A pale green damask tablecloth covered it. A vase full of white roses was the centerpiece.
There would be photographs taken of this table. She needed to do it right. But how?
"The silverware goes here, at the beginning," Angie said, coming up beside her. "Like this."
Lauren watched Angie arrange the silverware into a pretty pattern, and it struck her all at once, so hard that Lauren drew in a sharp breath: I'll be leaving soon.
"Are you okay, honey? You look like you've just lost your best friend."
Lauren forced a smile, said quickly, "I don't think you should be setting the table at your own wedding."
"That's the great thing about remarrying the same guy. What matters is the marriage, not the ceremony. We're only doing this for Mama." She leaned closer. "I told her not to bother, but you know my mother."
Angie went back to setting out the silverware.
Lauren felt her move slightly to the left, and it seemed suddenly as if there was a vast space between them. "Do you want a boy or a girl?"
Angie's hand froze in midair, a pair of knives hung suspended above the table. The moment seemed to draw out. From the other rooms, noise surrounded them, but here, in the dining room, there was only the sound of two women breathing slowly. "I don't know," she said at last, then went back to placing silverware. "Healthy is all that matters."
"That counselor you sent me to ... she said I should feel free to ask you questions. She said it's better to have everything out in the open."
"You can talk to me about anything. You know that."
"That adoption plan we made ..." Lauren started to ask the question that had kept her up all last night; halfway into it, she lost her nerve.
"Yes?"
Lauren swallowed hard. "Will you stick to it? Send me letters and pictures?"
"Oh, honey. Of course we will."
Something about the way she said honey, so gently, broke Lauren's heart. She couldn't hold it inside anymore. "You'll forget me."
Angie's face crumpled at that. Tears glistened in her eyes as she pulled Lauren into her arms and said fiercely, "Never."
Lauren was the first to draw away. Instead of comforting her, the hug had only made her feel more alone. She put a hand on her belly, felt her baby's fluttery movements. She was just about to ask Angie to touch her stomach when David walked into the living room. She ran for him, let him take her in his arms.
The loneliness that had gripped her only a moment ago released its hold. She wouldn't be alone after the baby. She'd have David.
"You look great," he said.
It made her smile, even if it was a lie. "I'm as big as a house."
He laughed. "I like houses. In fact, I'm thinking about architecture as a career."
"Smart-ass."
He looped an arm around her and headed for the food. On the way there, he told her all the gossip from school. She was laughing again by the time the music started and Maria herded everyone to the backyard, where a rented white arbor was entwined with hundreds of pink silk roses.
Conlan stood beneath the arbor, wearing a pair of black Levi's and a black crewneck sweater. Father O'Houlihan was beside him, dressed in full robes.
To the strains of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" Angie walked down the flagstone path. She wore a white cashmere cable-knit sweater and a gauzy white skirt. Her feet were bare and the wind whipped her long, dark hair across her back. A single white rose was her bouquet.
Lauren stared at her in awe.
As Angie passed Lauren, she smiled. Their gazes met, held for the briefest moment, and Lauren thought: I love you, too.
It was crazy....
Angie handed Lauren the rose and kept walking.
Lauren stared down at the rose in disbelief. Even now, in this moment that was Angie's, she'd thought of Lauren.
"You see how lucky you are," she whispered to her baby, touching her swollen belly. "That's going to be your mom."
She wasn't sure why it made her want to cry.
THIRTY
ON A RAINY MONDAY IN LATE APRIL, MARIA DECIDED that Angie needed to learn how to cook. She showed up early, carrying a big cardboard box full of supplies. No amount of arguing could change her mind. "You are a married woman ... again. You should cook."
Lauren stood in the doorway, trying not to laugh at Angie's protests.
"What are you laughing about?" Maria demanded, putting her hands on her hips. "You are learning, too. Both of you get dressed and be back in this kitchen in ten minutes."
Lauren ran upstairs, changed out of her flannel nightgown and into a pair of black leggings and an old Fir-crest Bulldogs T-shirt. When she skidded back into the kitchen, Maria looked up at her.
Lauren stood there, smiling uncertainly. "What should I do?"
Maria walked over to her. Shaking her head, she made a small tsking sound. "You are too young to have such sad eyes," she said quietly.
Lauren didn't know what to say to that.
Maria grabbed an apron out of the box and handed it to Lauren. "Here. Put this on."
Lauren did as she was told.
"Now come here." Maria led the way to the counter and began pulling ingredients out of the box. By the time Angie made it back to the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, there was a mound of flour on the butcher block and a metal bowl full of eggs alongside it.
"Pasta," Angie said, frowning.
For the next hour, they worked side by side. Maria taught them how to scoop out the center of the flour and fill the hole with just the right amount of eggs, then to work the dough carefully so it didn't get tough. While Lauren was learning to roll the dough into sheets, Angie went into the living room and turned on the music.
"That's better," she said, dancing back into the room.
Maria handed Lauren a metal sunburst with a handle. "Now cut that pasta into strips, maybe two inches square."
Lauren frowned. "I might screw up. Maybe Angie should try."
Angie laughed at that. "Yeah. I'm certainly the better choice."
Maria touched Lauren's face gently. "You know what happens if you make a mistake?"
"What?"
"We roll it out and try again. Cut."
Lauren picked up the scalloped pastry wheel and began cutting the pasta into squares. No chemistry lab had ever been undertaken with more care.
"You see this, Angie?" Maria said. "Your girl has the gift."
Your girl.
For the rest of the morning, those two words stayed with Lauren, warmed her. As they filled the tortellini and finished the pasta, she found herself smiling. Laughing sometimes, for no reason.
She hated to see the cooking lesson come to an end.
"Well," Maria said at last, "I must go now. My garden is calling to me. I have planting to do."
Angie laughed. "Thank God." She tossed a wink at Lauren. "I think I'll stick with the restaurant's leftovers."
"Someday you will be sorry, Angela," Maria sniffed, "that you ignored your heritage."
Angie put an arm around her mother, held her close. "I'm just kidding, Mama. I appreciate the lesson. Tomorrow I'll get out a cookbook and try something on my own. How would that be?"
"Good."
Maria hugged them both, said good-bye, and left the house. Lauren went to the sink and started washing the dishes. Angie sidled up beside her. They washed and dried in the easy rhythm they'd created recently.
When the dishes were dried and put away, Angie said, "I need to run down to Help-Your-Neighbor House. I have a meeting with the director. The coat drive went so well, we're trying to come up with another promotion."
"Oh."
Lauren stood there, drying her wet hands, as Angie hurried through the house and then left. The door slammed shut; in the yard, a car started up.
Lauren went to the window and stared out, watching Angie drive away. Behind her, the CD changed. Bruce Springsteen's gravelly voice started up.
Baby, we were born to run ...
She spun away from the window and ran for the stereo, clicking the music off hard. A sharp silence descended. It was so quiet that she thought she could hear the tapping of Conlan's fingers on the laptop upstairs, but that was impossible.
She tried not to think about her mother, but now that was impossible, too.
"I thought kids your age loved the Boss," Conlan said from behind her.
She turned around slowly. "Hey," she said.
In the weeks since the wedding, Lauren had tried to keep her distance from Conlan. They lived in the same house, of course, so it wasn't easy. But she sensed a hesitation in him, an unwillingness to get to know her.
She kept her back to the window and stared at him, twisting her hands together nervously. "Angie went to town. She'll be back in a while."
"I know."
Of course she would have told her husband. Lauren felt like an idiot for having said anything.
Conlan crossed the room, came up closer. "You're nervous around me."
"You're nervous around me."
He smiled. "Touche. I'm just worried, that's all. Angie is ... fragile sometimes. She leads with her heart."