Chapter 13

Upstate New York

2010

My grandma Peggy is sensitive and sweet, but she’s not always subtle. And Grandma Peg most certainly was not subtle when it came to Dave, nor did she hide the fact that she loved my boyfriend.

In college, during one of Dave’s trips to my parents’ home, we had a nice visit with Grandma. Peggy is my father’s mother, and for most of my childhood, after my grandpa passed away, she lived adjacent to my parents’ home, an ever-present fixture of unconditional love and stability for all four of us children. The daughter of an Irish immigrant mother and an Italian immigrant father, Grandma Pataki grew up with so little that her life’s purpose became to support and provide for the future generations of her family. Her own lifetime of hard work and self-sacrifice was worth it to her because our success was her success, our joy her joy.

During this one particular visit, Grandma was in the kitchen, cooking eggs for me and Dave (her love of frying eggs was a remnant of her years working the night shift in a diner during the Great Depression as a teenager). “Snap a picture of us,” Grandma said, a coy smile turning up her ninety-year-old features as she put down the spatula and wiped her hands. “I want a picture with David.”

“OK,” I said, hoisting the nearby camera. Grandma then sidled up to Dave, folding into his arms. Dave returned the gesture, wrapping his arms around her, and the two of them were soon knit in an embrace entirely fitting for a prom pose or a honeymoon snapshot. Grandma had a girlish glimmer in her eyes—that was often the case when Dave was around.

They loved each other, Grandma and Dave. They did right from the start. “Your grandma is the first member of the Pataki family to truly welcome me in, to make me feel like I’m a part of the family,” Dave confessed to me.

I was glad of it; in winning Grandma’s glowing approval, Dave had unknowingly cleared a major hurdle. My grandma has always held a special place in my heart—a kindred spirit of sorts. A soul mate to predate the compatible soul-pairing that Dave also offered to me. So I loved that two of my kindred spirits found such an easy and natural affection in each other.

“When are you two going to get married?” my grandmother took to asking me whenever I came home and Dave was out of earshot.

I would roll my eyes, smiling exasperatedly at Grandma as I answered: “It’s the twenty-first century, Grandma. People don’t get married as young these days.”

“Why not?” Grandma would shrug. “A man who smiles at you like that? Don’t let him get away.”

The years went by. We graduated from college. Dave slogged his way through the early years of medical school. “When are you two going to get married?” Grandma would ask every time she saw me.

“Not while he’s in medical school,” I answered.

“Why not?” she’d ask.

“Medical school is just so hard. He’s working so hard. He’s still a student.”

So then Grandma’s question became, at every subsequent visit: “How long until Dave finishes medical school?”

Subtle? Not entirely.

“Grandma, how did you know that you wanted to marry Grandpa?” I asked one afternoon.

She thought about it a moment, her eyes wandering toward the rows of old black-and-white photos, images of her as a smiling girl, a bride, a young mother, a grandmother and then a great-grandmother. “You reach a point,” she said, “when you realize that you just don’t want to imagine life without him.”

“You felt that way?” I asked.

“Oh, sure. Besides,” she said, shrugging, “I knew that he could not live without me.”

Finally, on one visit, Grandma put aside even the pretense of subtlety. “How long until he’s done with medical school?” she started in.

“A couple of years,” I answered, knowing what she was really thinking.

Grandma’s eyes went wide. “A couple of years? You’re not going to make him wait that long, are you?”

“Why not?” I asked. “What’s the rush? We’re so young.”

She knit her hands together, rubbing the crinkled ring finger on which she still wore the small diamond my grandfather had given to her so many decades before. “Alli, when you have a guy like Dave, you have to appreciate what you’ve got. Don’t wait too long. Some other girl might come along who sees how great he is, and he might realize that he’s tired of waiting.”

It sounded quaint and archaic, precisely the type of cautionary advice one might expect from a grandmother who courted and married during the Great Depression, before women had won widespread opportunities for higher education or careers of their own. But even as I chuckled, shrugging the warning aside, I did notice a slight uptick in my pulse.

Someone else? Someone else for Dave? Dave deciding to marry someone other than me? Was such a thing possible? The thought filled me with panic. I didn’t want to think of it. You reach a point when you realize that you just don’t want to imagine life without him.

I didn’t want to imagine a life in which Dave was with anyone but me, or me with anyone but him. I had always just assumed that it would be us. I had always taken it as a given, even as I’d brushed Grandma’s questions and hints aside.

Maybe Grandma was more right than I had realized—maybe with her age and her wisdom she knew something I didn’t. Maybe when it came to choosing a life partner, it was important not to take anything, especially the other person, for granted.

Perhaps Grandma had seen Dave and picked him for me, even before I’d known to pick him for myself. One thing I knew for sure, thanks to Grandma: I realized then that I did want to marry the guy. More than I had admitted to my grandmother—or to myself.