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He had this way of talking on the phone that was so intense and animated, his parents could start to believe that he felt some urgent need for co
He was living in Vermont for a while, but then he sent a postcard from Denver. At one point he joined forces with someone who had invented a promising software product, but that didn’t last very long. It seemed jobs kept disappointing him, as did business partners and girlfriends and entire geographical regions.
In 1997, he invited the family to his wedding at a New York restaurant where his wife-to-be worked as a waitress and he was the chef. The what? How had that come about? At home he’d never cooked anything more ambitious than a can of Hormel chili. Everybody went, of course — Red and Abby and Stem and the girls and both the girls’ husbands. In hindsight, there may have been too many of them. They outnumbered everyone else. But they were invited, after all! He said he’d like all of them there! He had used that intense tone of voice that suggested he needed them there. So they rented a minivan and drove north to throng the tiny restaurant, which was really more of a bar — a divey little place with six stools at a wooden counter and four round, dinky tables. Another waitress and the owner attended, along with the bride’s mother. The bride, whose name was Carla, wore a spaghetti-strapped maternity dress that barely covered her underwear. She was clearly older than De
De
Abby made it her special project to get to know the bride’s mother. She chose the chair next to her when it was time to sit down, and the two of them began talking together in lowered tones, their heads nearly touching and their eyes veering repeatedly toward the bridal couple. This gave the rest of the Whitshanks some hope that once they were on their own again, they would learn the inside story. Because what was happening here, exactly? Was it a love match? Really? And when was that baby due?
The preacher, if that was the term for him, was a bike messenger with a license from the Universal Life Church. Carla commented several times on how he had “cleaned up real good,” but if so, the Whitshanks could only imagine what he must have looked like before. He wore a black leather jacket — in August! — and a stubbly black goatee, and his boots were strung with chains so heavy that they clanked rather than jingled. But he took his duties seriously, asking the groom and the bride in turn if they promised to be loving and caring, and after they both said “I do,” he laid his hands on their shoulders and intoned, “Go in peace, my children.” The other waitress called out, “Yay,” in a weak, uncertain voice, and then De
Walking toward the minivan, everybody wanted to know what Abby had found out from Carla’s mother. Not much, Abby said. Carla’s mother worked in a cosmetics store. Carla’s father was “out of the picture.” Carla had been married before but it hadn’t lasted a minute. Abby said she had waited and waited for some mention of the pregnancy, but it never did come up and she hadn’t liked to ask. Instead Lena — that was the mother’s name — had complained at some length about the sudde
On the drive home, Abby was unusually subdued.
For nearly three months after the wedding, they didn’t hear a word. Then De
But the surprise was, on Thanksgiving morning — and De
“I’m not on my own. I’m with Susan,” De
Abby rolled her eyes, and he relented. “Carla’s mother broke her wrist,” he said. “Carla had to take her to the emergency room.”
“Oh, what a pity,” Abby said, and the others murmured sympathetically. (At least Carla wasn’t “out of the picture.”) “How will that work, though? Did she pump?”
“Pump?”
“Did she pump enough milk?”
“No, Mom, I brought formula.” He patted the pink vinyl bag hanging from his shoulder.
“Formula,” Abby said. “But then her supply will go down.”
“Supply of what?”
“Supply of breast milk! If you feed a baby formula, the mother’s milk will dry up.”
“Oh, Susan’s a bottle baby,” De
Abby had been reading books on how to be a good grandmother. The main thing was, don’t interfere. Don’t criticize, don’t offer advice. So all she said was, “Oh.”
“What do you expect? Carla has a full-time job,” De