“Ladies and Gentlemen,” she began and all eyes turned to her. “Shortly after I met the love-of-my-life”—cheers all around—”I was told by her that she had discovered a long-lost Aunt.” More cheers. “I was also told that said Aunt was living a life in sin but,” and Kerry quelled the booing that ricocheted around the room, “but”—pause—”I was assured in no uncertain terms that she would, some day in the not-too-distant future, be made an honest woman. And I think, and I spoke to the love-of-my-life about this”—a toast to said love, blushing on a side chair—”and we have come to the conclusion that it has been long enough. And seeing as love-of-my-life and I are pretty smart, and we have the LSAT scores to prove it”—waving a piece of paper, an act that elicited a guffaw and a “what color crayons did you two use for that test?” from the doctor in the house—”I put it to you, Betty, when are you going to make an honest woman of my Aunt Mary?”
Putting aside that Kerry had never before referred to Mary as her Aunt, which Mary and Suzanne immediately appreciated, all eyes shifted to Betty.
Betty stared at her watch. Then at Mary.
“Babe, you got anything on for June 22 at 11?”
“Morning or evening?”
“Well, what happens in the evening depends on what happens in the morning. So, what do you say? I’ll make an honest woman out of you if you’ll do the same out of me.”
“In that case, my calendar is no longer clear. Twenty-second at eleven. AM and PM.”
And with that the room burst into cheers and Betty burst over to Mary and in the end Mary had a ring and a huge smile and shot a loving glare at her two nieces who had been so obviously co-conspirators to the proposal. They, and most of the room, knew that Mary had long been estranged from her brother, Suzanne’s father, and that Suzanne had largely been in the dark for many years about Mary’s very existence. All of that seemed so ridiculously far in the past.
The Chappaqua Spread
The house in Chappaqua was a light-yellow center-hall colonial with green shutters. It was far larger than Eileen’s house in Tuckahoe. It had five bedrooms and a large (and updated) kitchen with a screened-in porch and large patio. It sat on a one-acre lot and had deer fencing around large swaths of the garden.
The Chappaqua Spread was big. On a Saturday in mid-June it was the scene for a pre-wedding party. The same gang-of-nine that was in Tuckahoe before were joined by Betty’s two boys, Peter and Michael, and a number of Mary’s and Betty’s friends and colleagues enjoying a beautiful late-Spring dinner. Tom and Eileen effortlessly assumed the roles of hosts and they did it together as naturally as though they’d been doing it for years.
With the plates cleared and the catering folks standing to the side, the din of plates being cleaned in the kitchen temporarily quieted, Tom clicked his glass. He and Eileen stood.
“Tonight is about Mary and Betty,” he began. “It is about two people who found love but then it slipped through their fingers.” Most everyone in the room knew that Mary and Betty met and fell in love at NYU over twenty years earlier; that Betty had gotten married to Gerard and had two children before divorcing Gerald; and that she re-connected and re-fell-in-love—in fact it was continued to be in love—with Mary.
“They,” Tom continued, “were so fortunate, though, in getting a second chance at love and spending their lives together and perhaps”—he paused and looked at James—”loves ready to take the next step. They have not looked back.
“There are several stories of loves lost and loves recovered or of old loves cherished and new loves acquired in this room, and I am blessed to be part of one of those stories. I look around and I find it difficult, I’m afraid, to see you all as individuals. Instead, I see a wonderful collection of members of one large family, and I am blessed to be part of that family and with those friends.
“So, to Peter and Michael and Suzanne, and mostly to Mary and to Betty, we could not be happier for you.”
And before people had the chance to lift their glasses, Eileen added, “and by ‘we’ he means all of the members of this wonderful family.”
And the glasses were lifted and the drinks were drunk and the toast was had and the din of the clean-up in the kitchen resumed as the catering people brought out the desert.
Suzanne, though, noticed something that neither Tom nor Eileen said. Suzanne wore what had been Eileen’s engagement ring; Kerry had it resized for Suzanne’s finger. Suzanne saw that another ring was where hers had once been. She nudged the love-of-her-life and pointed. Kerry’s eyes, usually so perceptive, had failed her. They were now bulging as if to make up for lost time.
Kerry shot up, and the chair on which she was sitting just a moment before crashed to the floor, drawing everyone’s attention. Evading a caterer pouring coffee, barely, she rushed up to her Mom and draped her arms around the shoulders. Now everyone’s eyes had shifted from the upended chair to the crash of the two women. Quiet reigned. And so everyone heard Kerry’s whisper, “what have you done with the lonely woman who is my Mom?”
Eileen pulled away. She was red. “Mary. Betty. I’m so sorry. This is your night. When Tommy asked and I said yes I should have waited. But—” at which point Betty interrupted.