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WHEN I WAS FINISHED feeding Aiden and he was asleep, I left the bathroom and found Helga and Alex waiting outside for me.
“I think we’re good,” I whispered to Helga.
“Boy love his mother,” she said as she took him in her arms. “I try my best, but nothing work. He want you. I sorry, Jennifer.”
“Don’t be, Helga. I’m glad that you came to me,” I said. “Do you think he’ll be alright for the rest of the night?”
“We’ll see. No one knows when it come to child this young.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “I’m still learning.”
“You good mother, Jennifer. This just blip. Now go back to party with handsome husband and enjoy friends. I put baby to bed, OK? We good now.”
“Thank you,” I said to her.
“I appreciate your help,” Alex said. “We couldn’t have done this evening without you, Helga.”
“It no problem,” she said. “Now you two go. You have fun.”
When she took the stairs that led up to the second floor, I sank into Alex’s arms, and we just stood there for a moment holding each other before we returned to the party.
“I can’t believe that Blackwell fell into the Christmas tree,” I said.
“Neither can I. What’s going on with her?”
“It’s Marcus,” I said. “She’s more upset than she initially let on, and she got a little tipsy because of it.”
“Is she OK now?”
“I have no idea. I had to feed Aiden.”
“It’s always something, isn’t it?” he said as he kissed me.
“When it comes to us? Pretty much. But I’m worried about her, so we should go to her. Aiden’s fine now. I think he’ll sleep.”
“I love you, Jennifer.”
I looked up and into my husband’s eyes, and knew from the intensity of his gaze that he meant every word of it. “I love you too, Alex—more than you’ll ever know. Every day, I thank God that I found you. That I found my soulmate.”
Wordlessly, he took my hand in his own and as we walked down the hallway to the living room, I felt my heart swell with gratitude. Regardless of tonight’s mishaps, I knew that I was one of the luckiest women in the world. I had my health and my husband, I had given birth to my first child, and I had my closest friends around me. Not even Ava, in her best attempts to destroy everything I held dear to me, had succeeded in doing so.
How did I ever become so fortunate? I wondered. How did I ever arrive at this point in my life...?
When Alex and I returned to our guests, Tank caught my eye and looked expectantly at me. I nodded at him that it was fine to go ahead with whatever he had in mind for Lisa tonight, and then I wondered what in fact that was.
Despite my best efforts to get it out of him, he’d said nothing more than that he wanted it to be a surprise. But just a few days earlier, when Lisa had opened up to Blackwell and me in my hospital room about the state of their relationship—that she was actually thinking of leaving him because he wouldn’t commit to a wedding date—I had to wonder if this surprise would be good, or if it would just be another disappointment for her.
“I have a present for Lisa,” he said to everyone. “It’s something that I’d like to share with her and with our friends as well.”
“You have a present for me?” Lisa said with raised eyebrows. “Here? When did that happen?”
“When I dropped it off yesterday to Jennifer, who knows nothing about its contents,” he said as he knelt beside the tree and removed a slim, beautifully gift-wrapped box from beneath it. “Would you like to open it?”
“Of course I would.”
Tank moved forward and handed it to her.
“It’s so light,” Lisa said as she lifted it in her hands. “Are you sure there’s something in here?”
“There’s something in there,” he said. “Promise.”
“What are you up to?” she said.
“Open it up and find out.”
“OK, so now I’m dying to know what it is,” she said as she started to unwrap the box.
When the gift wrap was gone, Lisa was left with a simple white box. She looked at it and then at Tank for a moment before she removed the lid and was faced with a plethora of red tissue paper, beneath which was a white card.
“What is this?” she asked Tank. “The front of it is blank...”
“Maybe the inside isn’t, so why don’t you open it and see what it says?” he said as he kissed her.
When she opened it, she looked up at him in confusion. “All it says is ‘June 10th,’” she said.
“That’s right. Otherwise known as the day I’d like to marry you.”
At first, she was speechless. In fact all of us—even Epifania—were speechless. And then Lisa just put her hand to her mouth and said, “Oh my God! Are you serious?”
“I’m absolutely serious. We’ve waited too long to make our relationship official. I know that we’ve talked many times about setting a date, but with both of us so busy, I think it’s finally time that we just set the damned date so we can officially become husband and wife. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of waiting.”
“You are?” she said.
“Of course I am. It’s been two years since I asked you to be my wife. It’s time for me to take a break from Wenn, for you to take a break from writing—and for us to make it official.”
Thank you, God! I thought as a groundswell of emotions came over me.
“I’m so happy,” Lisa said as her eyes welled with tears. “I didn’t know if we’d ever get here. In fact, I was starting to get worried that we wouldn’t. And now you’ve gone and done this...”
“I’ve always seen you as a June bride,” he said. “And since June 10th is a Saturday, we can enjoy the entire weekend together—and likely a couple of weeks after that when we go on our honeymoon.”
“Our honeymoon?” Lisa said. “Where are we going?”
“I know that you’ve always wanted to go Bora Bora—you know, to rent one of those huts that stretch out into the water. The ones you’re always showing me online in not-so-sublte hints. So how about Bora Bora?”
“Totally Bora Bora,” she said.
“And now I’m going to cry,” I said. “Tank, this is the perfect Christmas gift. My girl finally has a date to get married, and to the best man possible.”
“It’s so beyond divoon, I need another word for divoon,” Blackwell said. “Well done, my dear boy. Perfectly executed. And congratulations to you, Lisa. The dark, you see, doesn’t always remain dark. Sometimes, when you least expect it, a sudden ray of light can appear that has the power to make everything light again...”
“What does that mean?” Tank asked.
I knew that Blackwell was referring to Lisa’s concerns about whether she’d ever marry Tank, but still—in pure Blackwell style—she just waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, who knows, Tank?” she said. “Everyone knows that I’m half in the bag, so think nothing of it. I’m likely just running off at the mouth.”
But Lisa and I knew better, and with appreciation and love, we looked at Blackwell. No one could wrap up a moment as profound as this—and with such concise words—better than she.
“So,” Tank said to Lisa. “Will you marry me in June? Can we finally carve out some time for ourselves and nail this down?”
“I’d marry you right now if I could,” she said. “I’ve been waiting so long for this to happen, you can’t even know. This is the greatest Christmas present I ever could have received. I love you, you big lug. I’ll love you to Bora Bora and back, and then even more.”
When she threw her arms around him and gave him one mother of a kiss, I looked on as tears of happiness filled my eyes.
“Why are you crying?” Alex asked me.
“Because they deserve this,” I said. “Because she’s waited so long for this— just to have a date. To have something to look forward to. And because I’m so thrilled for them right now, I could burst. Before long, she’ll be the one giving birth...”
“Jennifer,” Lisa said when she pulled herself away from Tank and looked at me. “It’s here. I’ve finally got a date!”
I was a mess, but I didn’t care. “I’m so happy for both of you,” I said as I wiped the tears from my eyes and walked over to her. “I can’t even tell you.”
At that moment, we crossed the room and held each other for several moments while we whispered in each other’s ears that Tank had come through—and that June was only six months away.
“I’m going to get married,” she said to me.
“And when you do,” I said in a low voice that only she was meant to hear. “Especially to that man? Trust me on this, Lisa, it’s going to be the happiest day of your life. You’ll see, because after I married the love of my life, I already know that to be true. When you marry Tank, you will never be the same again. Not with that kind of love surrounding you. So cheers to you, love. He did the right thing, Lisa. He came through. He finally did it—and with style.” And then, in a voice everyone was meant to hear, I said, “Let’s celebrate!”
“Hear, hear!” Blackwell said. “Somebody give me another martini!”
“You know, after what just happened, I think that I might,” I said.
“Congratulations!” Epifania called out.
“Love to each of you,” Kate said.
“And my love to you, Tank,” Lisa said when she walked back to him. “Thank God we met. Thank God that you gave me a chance when I first met you. And thank you for putting up with me and all of my damned zombies. I’ll love you forever, Mitch McCollister. And that’s a promise I hope you feel in your heart and soul—because I do love you, Tank. And I can’t wait to be your wife!”
