In 2011, we visit Alan and Jan again in London, and they give us an update on the adoption. It could be months. Or it could be years. It could be never. Alan is turning forty soon. Jan somewhere past that. Their wanting holds strong.
“So we’re trying something else. A surrogate.”
A donation. Sperm. Tiny tadpoles of life.
“First one didn’t take,” Alan says. “But it’s possible we’ll be calling you with news in a few weeks.”
The night before we leave London, we celebrate their anniversary and talk of their beautiful sunset wedding in Greece. We have dinner and wine and champagne. Bill and I make moves to go up and finish our packing.
Jan says, “There’s one last thing we want to do.” She and Alan take us to their backyard. It’s a lush and varied and smells of roses and green. Ever since I first saw it, I’ve pictured children running in all that grass, picking the flowers, scaring the wood pigeon that parades in the mornings like he owns the place.
“We have these Chinese lanterns.” Jan holds out two plastic-wrapped squares of white paper. “We light them and let them go into the sky. You’re supposed to make a wish.”
“Well, we all know what we’re going to wish for,” I say. I am a little drunk, and a lot happy.
The white lanterns are tissue paper and wire. One for Bill and me, and one for Jan and Alan. They unfold theirs first. Jan holds it while Alan touches the lighter to the wick. It won’t go to flame. Then it lights low and goes out. Then the flame from the lighter burns the tissue. “Oh, no.” Jan’s voice breaks, like all her loss and waiting has come down to this: a lantern with a wish that won’t fly.
Bill nudges me with his elbow. “Hold this.” I take our lantern from him. He takes theirs, drops it on the flagstone, and kneels down. He begins to tear at Jan and Alan’s lantern.
“What are you doing?” I say, worried that he’s ruining the moment.
He doesn’t answer. He keeps tearing until he holds the fuel packet in his hand. “Hold up the lantern.” He points at ours. “You and Jan,” he says. “Hold it up.” The paper is thin, and I hold it with the end of my fingers. Bill puts the fuel packet from their torn up lantern onto the fuel packet of ours. “Light it,” he says to Alan. Bill reaches for another corner of the lantern, so it expands. I trust him, and feel drawn to his confidence.
We’re all quiet, holding our corners, looking down to where Alan holds the flame. The flame takes. It comes up fast and strong. The lantern glows yellow. It pulls and lifts. “Let it go,” Jan says.
We stand, heads tilted back. The white light goes up and up and up, over the roof, holding there for a moment, then past the roof, up and out, higher and smaller, but still bright.
Jan and Alan deliver the news to us on Skype. Their faces are fuzzy on the screen. Bill and I are side by side, our faces tiny in the corner of the screen. “Twins,” Alan says.
Bill is smiling. “I’m excited,” he says and his voice lifts in a way that I recognize. He is excited.
Two heartbeats. Double lantern flame.
“We’ll have our hands full,” Alan says. “We’ll want you in their lives.”
To see them have what they’ve wanted for so long.
“We’ll be there.” I’m being pulled into something new, all these miles away, across all the land and water, and I can’t turn from the pulling.