Chapter 25
CATARINA
Dustin had a late afternoon workout, so I had the house to myself for a few hours.
I called Pheobe to catch up, a little bit, then logged into my work computer for a while and got up-to-date on a few journals I had been needing to read.
Because of the time Dustin and I needed to spend together to get to know each other for our big visa interview coming up, I rolled back my work schedule slightly.
I missed my patients, but I also worked in one of the top hospitals in the country so I knew they would be in good hands no matter who was taking care of them.
After a while of reading and lounging, I had to admit I wasn’t exactly hating the housewife life.
Though I wondered if it was only a temporary feeling.
I had the kind of mind where I could spend one, maybe two days without working, but by day three I felt antsy.
I guessed it wasn’t workaholism if you loved your work.
Since I had some extra time, I organized the bottles of liquor that were in Dustin’s bar, then did the same for his bookshelf. I was surprised to find he had a big section of non-fiction psychology.
Then, because I was in a good mood, I went all out and cooked a big plate of paella—seafood with rice—and sliced some traditional Spanish jamón y queso, then popped a bottle of delicious, dark red wine and started sipping a glass just before he came in.
When Dustin rolled through the door as the evening set in, a look of surprise crossed his face. “What’s that smell?” he said.
I was sitting with my legs up on the couch, reading a book. “Hey! I made dinner. Surprise.”
He set his bag down tentatively and took off his shoes.
“Did you . . . mess something up? Or something?” he asked.
“No, but I did organize your liquor bottles in the house bar so top shelf is actually on the top shelf now. And I put the books on your shelf in author order, by genre. It was an OCD moment. I didn’t know if that was my place, but it was bugging me.”
He sat down on the couch next to me and stared at me like I was an alien.
“Do I have something on my face?”
“No,” he chuckled. “But I do just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I shrugged.
“I just wasn’t expecting all this.”
“Well, maybe you should raise your expectations.”
“I could. But then you wouldn’t be able to constantly make my day with your little surprises.”
“We’ve finally got some momentum going in this marriage, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I mean, a puck bunny dress up, a delicious meal . . . how will I ever repay you?”
“Maybe you’ll repay me by realizing that it’s just fun to do nice things for people.” I was about to say, you could tell me about the woman you were thinking of earlier, but I held my tongue.
We ate dinner and he said it was the best paella he’d eaten in his life. We finished the bottle of wine and had another half-bottle, and then we fell asleep on the couch, watching Ghost, with Dustin’s big arm draped around me as we slept.
Though worry crept in for the call we needed to have tomorrow.
Although my family had seen the viral video, I’d done a fantastic job during the first month of making only small talk and keeping the conversation light when they asked about Dustin.
When are we going to meet him? My Aunt Sabrina had texted at least ten times.
The truth was, I had been putting off this call.
I was fine with lying to the immigration office all day about the depth—and the rationale—behind our quick marriage.
But my family—especially my aunt—had a penchant for sniffing out the truth when it came to matters like this.
And I felt horrible lying to them. But two thoughts saved me:
One, I wondered what my dad would do in this situation. He would say, do what you have to do to keep your position. I know he would.
Two, I was starting to think I wouldn’t have to lie too much when it came to Dustin and me.
Our marriage obviously wasn’t traditional. But there was also a palpable attraction—no, something beyond attraction between us. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what that was.
Maybe it was a pleasant thought of what we could be. Maybe it was his arm wrapped firmly around me.
But I slept like a baby.
The next morning, we sipped coffee and I showed Dustin pictures of my family back in Spain, to get him prepped for the morning’s Skype call.
The picture was of my family from when I was six.
Coincidentally, it was the day before my dad had gotten the diagnosis that changed everything.
We had just driven to the Pyrenees to go mountain climbing, and my parents had regretted bringing us, in a way.
You could see it in their eyes, the way they smiled in a tired manner, while I smiled exaggeratedly and my little sister cried while being held by my aunt.
My father looked ominously exhausted from the hike. The next day, we would find out why.
Dustin held the frame in his hand—I always carried a framed copy with me wherever I went.
“So that’s your closest family?” he asked. “Your mom, your aunt, and your sister?”
“And my Grandmother on my mother’s side,” I said.
“So . . . no men?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I visited my dad’s family in Ireland years ago, but we’re not as close.”
“I’m sorry you had to lose your dad so early. I mean, I know people probably tell you that all the time, but that really sucks.”
I felt a ball of emotion welling in my chest, but I pushed it down. “Thanks,” I said softly. “I actually don’t talk too much about this stuff to most people.”
He wrapped me up in a big hug and held me for a few moments. A tear rolled down my cheek while I rested my chin on his shoulder.
“You’re not as big of a dick as you pretend to be,” I eeked out, wiping the tear so he couldn’t see it.
I took a deep breath. “You know what’s funny?
I went to a therapist once, who told me the reason I’ve never had a real long-term relationship was because since my dad died when I was eight, I unconsciously decided to back away from relationships just when they get close. ”
“That’s perfect. Because I do the exact same thing. It’s like we’re a match made in heaven.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s how this works.”
“It’s nine thirty-one,” he said, looking at his watch. “Aren’t we supposed to be Skyping with your family right now?”
“Oh, crap,” I said, then pulled up Skype on my computer. Spain was seven hours ahead right now, so it was around the siesta time there. My heart beat a little faster than normal as we listened to the ringer, waiting for them to pick up, watching ourselves in the screen.
“We look so cute,” Dustin remarked. “You in your glasses. Looking all smart.”
“With my big brain,” I grinned.
“I mean, how can you miss it?”
“You, with your big muscles.”
“And that’s not all.”
Before we could keep going back and forth, my sister Norma answered the phone.
“Hola! Hello!” she said in Spanish and English.
“Hola! Me llamo Dustin,” Dustin said. “Un placer.”
My grandmother, mother, and sister all blushed feverishly. They all knew English, thanks to having been around my Irish dad, so we had decided to conduct the call mostly in English, for Dustin’s benefit.
“Wow! His Spanish is so good!”
“Gracias,” Dustin winked.
“And wow, you picked a very handsome husband, Catarina.”
“I picked her, actually,” Dustin said, wrapping his arm around me. “Ella es muy bonita.”
Now I was blushing as red as a rose.
“Ooooo,” my mother said. “Hablas espanol muy bien.”
I cleared my throat. “Anyway. What are you guys up to?” I asked.
“Well,” my mother said, “Zelda just got back from a church fundraiser, I’ve been working on knitting a new sweater, and your sister Norma is going to switch jobs soon to work in technology.”
“And we’ve been looking forward to this call all week!” Aunt Sabrina chimed in. “So, Dustin, tell us. How did you and Catarina meet? We want to hear your version of the events.”
Dustin cleared his throat and told them the story about our meeting in college, that we had down pretty well by now.
“And you play the hockey?” Zelda asked, making a movement with her arms that looked more like she was waving a flag in the air than flinging a hockey stick. But hockey wasn’t exactly the number one sport in Spain, so I applauded her effort.
“Sí,” Dustin said. “Yo juego el hockey.”
They giggled like schoolgirls whenever he said even the littlest sentence in Spanish. Dustin seemed to thoroughly enjoy hamming it up for them, too.
We chatted for a while, and I filled them in on the details of our dual life in Chicago and D.C.
(we still couldn’t compromise, so for right now we were one of those half here and half there couples), the status of my immigration papers (we had a meeting coming up next week with Winterborne), and what we were doing for St. Patrick’s day, a day that made the Irish side of my family infinitely curious.
The day was a much bigger deal, ironically, in the United States than even in Ireland.
My family was also relieved to find out that Dustin—however loosely he practiced—came from a Catholic family.
I sighed, thinking about tradition, and—if they only knew what Dustin and I had done to the big tradition that starts with an M.
Dustin excused himself to go to the bathroom, and the three women leaned in like gossipy middle schoolers.
“He’s fantastic, Cata. You did so well,” Aunt Zelda said. I wasn’t expecting the next words that popped out of her mouth, which hit me like tear gas. “Your father would be very proud of you for marrying such a fine young man.”
Emotion rushed under my skin, and luckily Dustin got back and distracted them—and me. He wrapped his arm around me.
“What’d I miss, mi amor?” he asked nonchalantly.
“So cute, you taught him how to say ‘my love’ in Spanish.”
“I didn’t teach him that,” I said, then turned to him. “Where’d you learn that?”
He just shrugged. “Isn’t that what couples say?”
“Your father would be so very proud. I know he’s watching you from up in the sky,” my mother chimed in.
I swallowed a lump of guilt.
As we ended the conversation, Dustin smiled. “That was fun. Great family you have,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“You okay?”
“Fine. You?”
“They’re good people it feels a little . . . deceptive . . . what we’re doing.”
“Tell me about it,” I repeated.
My eyes flitted to the ceiling. I hoped my dad wasn’t watching me right now. Or, if he was, I wished for him to have a sense of humor about his daughter’s life. Because things were about to get even more interesting.