Sunday Morning
Jane had a nice long soak in a fragrant bubble bath while Brick showered and shaved and sent texts to the kids to tell them to come for lunch at the house.
Now she pulled on her loosest pair of jeans and her baggiest Christmas sweater, sighing with relief. She was beginning to show. She stood sideways to the floor-length mirror and ran her hand over her belly. Her beautiful complicated miraculous belly.
She found Brick Three in the kitchen.
“Oh, you made coffee,” Jane purred. “Thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek, although the kiss landed on his ear.
“Can you drink coffee when you’re pregnant?” Brick Three asked.
“Yes. Just not more than two cups. I’ll be able to function in the morning.”
“Sit,” Brick Three said. “I’ll get organized for lunch.
I don’t know if Lydia and Jari will show up.
She flew out of here to tell Jari her news.
I’ve texted her about lunch but haven’t heard from her.
Brick Jr. went home to rest after our emotional morning.
My dad has to read the Sunday Times or he’ll explode and Beatrice plans to lie around all day after her exciting visit to the hospital last night. ”
“Mmm.” Jane scanned her phone. “Lucas says he’ll be here for lunch and he’s bringing Sheila. He’s at her apartment now.”
“Did he spend the night there?”
Jane smiled. “No. But I had to get up to pee and I heard him leave the house around six this morning. So I would guess he went there for breakfast.”
“And we’ll be here,” Florie sang out, waltzing into the kitchen.
“Daniel is shaving. We slept late. Our ferry doesn’t leave until six, so we can dawdle around today.
Mmm, coffee.” She poured herself a cup and went around the kitchen.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said, kissing his cheek.
“Hi, Mommy,” she said, kissing Jane’s cheek.
“Hi, baby,” she said, kissing her mother’s bump.
“Want me to make some toast?” Brick Three offered.
“No. I’ll just eat Beatrice’s famous cinnamon polka-dot vanilla bars,” Florie replied. “Daniel might want eggs. Want me to do it, Dad?”
“Well…” Brick Three hesitated.
“Go on,” Jane told him. “You’re as addicted to the paper as your father is.”
Daniel came into the kitchen, said good morning to everyone, and ended up scrambling the eggs himself, adding plenty of cheese, onions, and peppers. While he cooked, Florie and Jane pulled Tupperware boxes out of the refrigerator and decided what they could put out for a casual lunch.
Lucas and Sheila arrived, carrying cheese croissants and almond cookies from Born & Bread. Lydia and Jari came in, carrying a magnum of Dom Pérignon.
Florie shrieked. “Champagne for breakfast? What’s going on?”
Lydia cackled manically in her sister’s ear. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Jari said, “In ten minutes, it is exactly noon. So this is not officially breakfast.”
Brick Three wandered in. “What’s happening now?”
Jane stood up. “Everyone, take something to the dining room. I’ll set out the champagne glasses.”
As if they were still teenagers, Lydia, Florie, and Lucas automatically carried piles of glasses, plates, silverware, and napkins to the table.
Brick Three filled the ice bucket with ice, gave Jari a side-eye, and set the bucket on the table.
Jari placed the champagne in the bucket.
Jane lifted out the sliced carrots, green peppers, and seedless red grapes, and took the time to arrange them enticingly on a platter, wondering if she should remove the carrots because they were orange and not a Christmas color.
Brick Three filled two large glass pitchers with cold tap water.
Even though she was carrying a heavy board with cheese and a couple of knives, Florie managed to catch Daniel handing something to Lucas. She almost dropped the board.
“What is that?” she asked. Why did she suspect that everyone was keeping secrets from her? First Mabel, then her mother, now Daniel?
“It is a poem,” Lucas said.
The room went silent.
Florie raised her eyebrows at Daniel. “You gave Lucas a poem?”
“Florie,” Lucas said, “you’re such a brat.” He exchanged a quick grin with Daniel. “Let’s not tell her.”
“Lucas!” Florie stamped her foot. Then she was truly totally embarrassed for acting like a child. Although stamping her foot had always brought results before.
“Let’s all sit,” Brick Three suggested. “Then perhaps Lucas, or Daniel, one of you will be good enough to tell me what poem you have exchanged.”
They all pulled out their chairs and sat.
“I bet I know what it is,” Sheila announced.
The entire group turned to stare at Sheila, the newcomer at their table.
“How could you possibly know?” Jari asked.
Sheila smiled pleasantly. “Because I’m a nurse,” she said. Looking across the table at Lucas, she said, “I think the poem is ‘The Wound-Dresser’ by Walt Whitman. It is a poem he wrote after being a wound-dresser, a nurse, in the Civil War.”
“You’re right,” Daniel said. “I’m astonished.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised what nurses know,” and she grinned at Lucas, who sat entranced.
“How wonderful!” Jane clapped her hands. “Daniel, can you read it to us?”
Daniel shook his head. “It’s not exactly appropriate for a Christmas celebration. I’ll have copies made for you.”
Brick Three said, “I’d like to know why you brought champagne today, Jari.” He was very smug when he spoke and he felt very smug because he knew why Jari brought champagne. Lydia was going to join the family company.
Jari rose and went around the table, pouring a glass of champagne for everyone. He stood behind Lydia and said, “I’m toasting Lydia Parsons, who is joining the Parsons Insurance Company.”
Lucas, Sheila, Florie, and Daniel said, “What?”
Lydia couldn’t help it. She was so happy and excited and proud and still astonished at her own decision. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m resigning from Golden Resorts. I’m returning to the island to work alongside Dad at the company.”
“Hooray!” Jane cried and raised her glass and drank. Pretended to drink, really, because she was pregnant.
Everyone else drank the icy celebratory champagne. Jari sat down and whispered something to Lydia and everyone attacked the food as if they hadn’t eaten for days.
Florie raised her glass in a toast but was too choked up to take a sip. She forced herself to smile and nibble on the goodies, but in her heart a little girl was stamping her foot and yelling, Wait a minute!
And then Lydia announced, “Jari likes Nantucket so much, he’s decided to look at houses here.”
“But what about his work?” Florie asked. “Doesn’t he have important international work?”
“He does,” Lydia replied. “But he can do most of it from his computer at home.”
Jari added, as if he were announcing a business merger, “And Lydia and I will live together as man and wife. We have yet to consult on the details.”
“You’re getting married, too?” Jane asked Lydia.
Lydia nodded back, not speaking or smiling, trying not to upstage her sister, the sister who’d become formally engaged during the Christmas Stroll. And after all, Jari had yet to go down on his knee. She met his eyes and stifled a grin. She knew a big rock was in her future.
“Calm down, Janie,” Brick Three muttered.
Everyone stared at Jane, who had tears sliding down her face. “I’m just so happy. Lydia and Jari are going to live on Nantucket.”
“Maybe they won’t be able to afford a house,” Florie said, feeling very much like the thirteenth fairy at Sleeping Beauty’s party.
“Florie,” Lucas said gently, “Jari can afford pretty much any house on the island.”
Daniel spoke up. “Florie and I will probably rent an apartment in the city, one with a view of Lake Michigan. I’ve found several possibilities on the website.
I’ll be able to walk to the university. Also…
” Daniel paused, focusing his gaze on Florie.
“Just in the last few days, I’ve been invited to give some talks.
We’ll be in Paris this April. I’m speaking at the Sorbonne.
After that, I’m giving a poetry seminar in Amsterdam.
And in August, Oslo. I haven’t responded to the invitations yet, Florie, because I wanted to talk it over with you. ”
Florie was google-eyed. Weakly, she confessed, “I forgot where Oslo is.”
“Norway!” five people sitting at the table told her.
“That sounds amazing, doesn’t it, Florie?” Lydia said.
“It does.” Florie was struggling to understand it all.
Lucas thought he knew why Florie was so dumbfounded. “But what about Florie’s work? What can she do? She can’t keep a job and follow you all over the globe.”
“Actually, she can,” Daniel replied, his tone completely friendly. “More and more businesses—and educational institutions—are outsourcing their work to people who work at home. Florie will be able—if she wants to—to work from anyplace in the world.”
Florie was still frozen, so Lydia said, “Damn, Florie, Paris? Amsterdam? Oslo? I’m jealous!”
Florie blinked. “Well, that makes it all worthwhile,” she said to her sister and they both knew she was only half-joking.
Daniel put his hand on Florie’s shoulder. “Does this bother you? I don’t have to accept…”
Florie moaned. “Oh, Daniel, you have no idea. I am over the moon and all the planets. I’ve been jealous all my life of my best friend, Mabel, because her grandfather took her all around Europe when she was a teenager.
When you mentioned traveling to give poetry readings, my first thought was, ‘Ha! Mabel, look at me now.’ ” She turned her head and kissed Daniel’s hand.
“I’m just so shocked. I feel like I’m in a fairy tale. ”
“You won’t feel like that when you’re sitting in…” Brick Three started off. “I can’t think of a small foreign airport.”
“Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway,” Jari said.
“You might actually stop there on your way to and from Oslo. It is an island of twenty-four thousand square miles, so it is over two hundred times larger than Nantucket. It has four months of night, and everyone must carry firearms because of polar bears.”
“We probably won’t ever have to land there,” Daniel assured Florie.
Florie smiled at her fiancé. “I’ll go anywhere with you.” She lightly kissed his mouth.
Brick Three frowned at his plate. He was trying to imagine a place actually named Longyearbyen.
“Speaking of traveling, we should pack,” Lydia said. “Lucas has to finish the semester so he can start at Sargent nursing college next fall. Florie has one last semester to struggle through so she can graduate this spring. I’ve got to make it through one more semester to earn my master’s.”
“Yes,” Florie said, “and Daniel has one more semester to teach.”
“But wait,” Jane said. “What are your wedding plans, Florie?”
Florie looked at Daniel, wide-eyed. “I don’t know. Everything is so complicated. We thought maybe Boston in the spring after we all finish our coursework, so Daniel’s family can come from Wisconsin and Dad and Mom can come up from Nantucket, but now…”
Daniel said, “Maybe we should just have a small wedding at a justice of the peace. We can do that anytime.”
“Sure,” Florie agreed, smiling. “That’s a good idea. That will save a lot of fuss.”
“Wait a minute!” Lydia yelped. “Florie, you are all about fuss! Look. Mom will have the new kid in—what month, Mom—May? Florie and Daniel are traveling all summer.”
“I’m taking summer courses,” Lucas said.
“Good, fine.” Lydia opened her phone to the calendar.
“So. Florie, you and Daniel have your small legal wedding wherever, Mom has her baby, Jari and I get settled here on the island, you guys go to Europe, Lucas takes his courses, and that will give us time to organize a great big destination wedding here on the island in early September.”
Florie frowned. “That means Daniel’s family and friends will have to travel all the way to Nantucket.”
Lydia smiled gently. “Sometimes people like to come to Nantucket.”
“But…” Florie looked at Daniel.
Daniel said, “I think it’s a wonderful idea. My family would love to see Nantucket.”
“And, Florie,” Lydia continued, nearly exploding with excitement, “you could have the great big elaborate fancy wedding you’ve always talked about.
Ceremony at St. Paul’s, hundreds of guests—think of all the wedding presents!
—zillions of flowers, Mabel as your second maid of honor, because I’ll be your first maid of honor, reception at the White Elephant with a live band, dinner and dancing, champagne waterfall—”
Florie was laughing and crying a bit, too. “But the planning! The expense!”
Lydia was smug. “Girl, you just leave it to me. I know exactly what to do. It’s my field of expertise. And Dad will be the one worrying about the expense. He’s the father of the bride.”
“Slow down, now,” Brick Three said. “This is getting out of control.”
“No, Dad,” Lydia said sweetly. “It’s just getting out of your control.”
Seeing the confusion flash over her husband’s face, Jane put her hand on his arm and said, “That’s all right, isn’t it, Brick Three? We’re going to have our hands full with the new kid.”
Brick Three shook his head, like a dog shaking off water. He smiled. “I don’t think our life is ever in our control. One daughter is marrying a poet, one is moving here with a Finn, our son is going to be a nurse, and we’re going to have a baby.”
“And one daughter is joining the Parsons Insurance Company,” Jane reminded him.
“Are your Christmas Strolls always so…exciting?” Jari asked.
Lydia grinned. “Just wait till next year.”