It was a long, exhausted, miserable ride home. It was rainy, and there was traffic, and I had so much work to do, and Katie (and Ethan) had covered my classes but had not, I was sure, done the grading, but I couldn’t concentrate on lesson plans or anything else. Instead, I was worried about my grandmother. I was worried about me without my grandmother, about how me-without-my-grandmother was even possible. I was worried about falling asleep while I was driving and how much this would piss off my parents who had begged me to wait and go home in the morning. I was worried about how I wasn’t helping Katie enough with her wedding—what kind of a best friend was I? I was worried that Atlas would have forgotten me in the week since I’d seen him. I was worried that Daniel would come and take him away or take him and Jill away, and which would be worse? I was worried about deciding. I was worried about when I would grade and what the hell I might teach next week and when I would figure it out. I was worried about what I was going to find to wear to Katie’s wedding. Did I need a formal dress? Would a sundress do? What about a skirt and a fancy top? How would I decide things like this without a consult from my grandmother who knew all about etiquette and other crap like etiquette? I was worried about how Jason and Lucas were having a baby and Jill had a baby and Katie would probably have like fifteen babies any minute now and even Daniel Davison had a baby, but I might never ever have a baby. I was very, very worried about how, in the middle of the night, from the depths of my first sleep in two weeks, I’d told Ethan that my grandmother thought we were going to get married. You should never talk to people in the middle of the night. And there should always be at least a fifteen-minute window between waking up and getting on the telephone.
I pulled into the driveway and my phone rang, and my heart stopped at my parents’ number on the caller ID, but my mom, not counting on traffic and thinking she should have heard from me that I’d gotten home safe more than an hour ago, was panicked only over my whereabouts. My grandmother was fine. I was fine. Everything (nothing) was fine.
“Go to bed,” she said.
“I’m still in the driveway,” I said.
“Go inside and go to bed,” she said.
“I have so much work to do.”
“Do it tomorrow,” she said. “They’ll wait an extra day to get their papers back. It will be fine.”
“I can’t sleep anyway,” I said.
“Lie in your bed and see what happens,” she advised.
Inside, it was the end of Sunday-night dinner. I had forgotten. It is amazing how the world—even your immediate world—goes on while your own seems stopped. It is amazing too how people manage to eat even when you don’t cook for them. (In fairness, they seemed to have ordered sushi.) Even Atlas was still awake. Everyone jumped up when I came in. Everyone crowded around and asked how I was and how my mother was and how my grandmother was. Atlas reached out from Peter’s arms to me. Uncle Claude humped my leg. Three people tried to give me food. I was really glad to see them. I was. It felt as much like coming home as going to my parents’ house, and I’d lived there for eighteen years. But I couldn’t do it. I was just too tired. I made apologies and explanations, ate one piece of spicy tuna, and went to bed. Ten minutes later, Ethan knocked on the door.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I just wanted to say hi before you fell asleep this time.”
“Hi,” I said.
He sat on the bed next to me and brushed my hair lightly with his hand for a while.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Okay,” he said. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I closed my eyes. There was a knock on the door. It was Jill.
“Are you okay?” she said.
“I’m fine. Just tired.” My mantra.
“Poor Janey.” She sat down on the bed. “Can I help you?”
“Not really. I just need to sleep.”
“So what’s going on with you and Ethan?”
“What? Nothing. Why?”
“Among other things, because he came up here right after you went to bed.”
“He probably came up to use the bathroom,” I said.
“Yeah right,” she said.
“How’s everything here?” I asked.
“Fine. Quiet. No news.”
“Daniel?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“Good.” I smiled and hugged her waist. She kissed me on the head and whispered good night. I went to sleep. There was a knock on the door. It was Jason.
“I have a meeting early tomorrow. I decided to stay over,” he said, climbing into bed with me.
“There’s a sofa downstairs.”
“Katie and Peter are making out on it,” he said. “What time did you set the alarm for?”
“Eight.”
“That works for me. See you in the morning.”
I was too tired to fight with him. “Good night, Jason.”
“Good night. Hey Janey? Are you really okay?”
I started crying. I don’t know why then. I don’t know why then and not when I’d said goodbye to my grandmother that morning and not on the long ride home and not in the driveway when I heard my mother’s voice and not when I walked into my house and this family and not when Atlas reached his little arms out to me and not when Ethan came up to say . . . whatever he’d come up to say and not when I’d hugged Jill good night. Jason made soothing noises, held my head on his shoulder, fed me Kleenex. Jason said it would be better tomorrow, and I just needed sleep, and it would be okay okay okay. Jason said my grandmother was one of the most amazing people he had ever met. He said he wished his grandmother—to whom he hadn’t spoken since she’d banished him to hell when he came out to her—could be like mine. He said she was one of the strongest people he had ever known, and he’d never seen her not get what she wanted. He said if she were here, she’d tell me to get some sleep. I snotted and sniffed and said thanks. I wiped my nose and eyes and tried to sleep again. Jason said, “Janey, what’s going on with you and Ethan?”