As we turn off the interstate toward Philadelphia, Drew and I begin to panic about the flower girl dress. For weeks, it’s all we’ve been talking about. The gray sash. The silky fabric. The fact that it’s so special you only get to wear it on one very important day. Every time we mention it, Sutton acts like she might spontaneously combust from a surge of little girl glee. If we mistakenly say that the dress is white, she’ll quickly correct us. “It’s cream-colored.” Right now, the dress hangs from a hanger in the back row of our minivan, blocking Sutton’s view of the window. She doesn’t mind, though. She’d rather stare at the dress than the Jersey Turnpike. The dress is elegant, shimmering, perfect. The problem is that we only have one of them.
“I’m going to be a flower girl, too!” Bennett insists. Now just over three years old, our son is sweet, sensitive and incredibly stubborn. “I want to wear a dress!” Perhaps we’ve made too big a deal about the dress.
“You’re a ring bearer,” I remind him. “You get to wear a white shirt and some really handsome suspenders and . . .”
“No!” he shouts. “I’m a flower girl!”
Sutton does not help our case. “I think you’d make a beauuuuuutiful flower girl, Bennett!” she coos.
It’s not that Drew’s brother Peter or his fiancé Ali would mind having a male flower girl at their wedding. After his initial hesitation about our plans to make a family, Peter has rallied to become our biggest champion. He dearly loves his nephew, a tough, outgoing boy who loves to play with both trains and dress up clothes. One thing my son excels at is his ability to defy people’s expectations of him. If that’s a result of him having two dads, it’s one I fully embrace.
This wedding is one of the reasons we moved back to the East Coast. After nearly two decades in Los Angeles, Drew and I packed up everything and relocated to the suburbs of New York so we could be closer to our families, so we’d be here for all the weddings, births, and happy moments. Just as everyone had warned us, having kids upended our priorities in ways we never expected.
When we arrive at the hotel, we’re greeted like celebrities. All of Peter’s friends and Ali’s family are eager to meet us. Peter has been sharing our story with them for months. “You guys, this is my brother Drew,” he announces proudly, “and his family.”
We’re not the only ones to upstage the bride and groom, though. “Grace!” Sutton squeals, darting across the room, almost as excited as she was the first time she saw the flower girl dress.
Drew and I gaze over at one of the other reasons we moved back to the East Coast, a tiny, gorgeous girl with giant happy eyes who’s carried into the room by Susie, her mom.
“Grace, you look so beautiful!” Sutton says.
After all of Dr. S’s warnings, Susie got pregnant without even trying. She had just moved in with her boyfriend and was taking birth control. Somehow, though, Grace’s need to be born was stronger than Susie’s fertility issues, stronger than the pills. My sister-in-law wasn’t quite prepared to be a mom, but when she learned the news, she embraced it fully. Things didn’t work out with her boyfriend, and now she was living back at home with her parents.
Nothing about Susie’s life has been a fairy tale, except for motherhood. She’s only been a mom for six months, but already, she doesn’t look complete without Grace in her arms. They dance together, laugh together. They own the room.
A moment later, Drew is hugging Susie tightly. They’re both in tears, as they are nearly every time they get together. Nothing is said, yet they manage to communicate everything they need to.
It’s almost too perfect a moment. Drew and Susie hugging, just a few feet from Bennett and Sutton, who are singing songs from the Broadway musical “Matilda,” which they’ve learned by heart. Sutton is performing the role of Matilda, and Bennett is playing Miss Honey, her good-natured schoolteacher. It’s taken me three years to appreciate it fully, but what Susie has given us is so much more than just a couple of eggs. It’s something more special than we’d imagined, more wonderful than I’d ever realized. It’s a brother and sister, tiny, perfect, and gradually forming a special bond all their own.
A moment later, Drew is hugging his brother Matt. Together, they’ll be Peter’s Best Men, alongside a half dozen of Peter’s macho buddies as groomsmen. Privately, I joke to Matt’s partner Casey that we got left out because the wedding party had filled its gay quota.
While the brothers bond, Casey and I talk about fatherhood. He and Matt are right where Drew and I were a few years earlier, trying very hard to have a baby with a surrogate. Susie offered them her eggs, of course, but Casey nixed the idea. They went with an anonymous egg donor instead.
Casey shakes his head, informing me that their third in vitro attempt just failed. They need to find a new surrogate, but the laws are trickier in New York. It’s illegal there to pay someone to carry a baby for you. Virtually the only way to make an agreement is to find someone you know who’ll do it purely out of love. They were lucky to find their first surrogate. How would they ever replace her?
“I’ll carry the baby for you,” a voice says from beside us. We don’t even have to look over to see who it is.
“Susie, are you serious?” Casey asks. Susie just smiles and shrugs. We all know the answer.
The next day, Bennett marches down the aisle in suspenders and a white shirt, soaking up the compliments about how spiffy he looks. Behind him, Sutton spreads rose petals for her new aunt to walk on. Drew and Matt stand at one side of the altar beside Peter. Susie is on the other.