May 2004, San Antonio, Texas
Frederick has always said he was born lucky, which is amazing when you consider how he's been not lucky at all in a lot of fundamental aspects of his life. And the crazy thing is, despite his supreme unluckiness, he still ends up having incredible luck over and over again, in some of the weirdest ways. First of all, he won the sibling lottery with Sophia – she raised him amazingly well when she was so young herself, and she's done such a wonderful job getting me through those last harrowing months of Grandma's illness, doing so much more for Grandma and me than my own birth sisters did. Then AJ got into the NESEP program which paid for him to go to college, which meant he could marry Sophia and move Fred to Westland just in time to start high school outside the inner city. And of course, there's his scholarship, because getting into ROTC is not a guarantee of a full ride, but Fred got the best type of package they had. And his commission, and his pilot slot, and his wings, and being assigned to the F-16, though he did work his tail off for all those things, so it wasn't just about luck alone. The latest instance of his luck, though, had very little skill in it except maybe persistence – which is that whenever he hasn't been deployed overseas, he's always managed to somehow find a space for himself in the dorms on base, which officers can only get if they have enough space after housing all the enlisted airmen. That way, he could practically live on air: no rent, free food at the chow hall, and no need to spend money on a car since he could walk or bike to just about any place he needed to be.
Well, now that we're both able to be in the same city with two graduate-level salaries between us, Frederick's days of living on air and my state of being trapped in a not-so-gilded-anymore cage are thankfully at an end. Normalcy, in the shape of a rented one-bedroom apartment in San Antonio, is a welcome contrast to all the years of being forced to stay apart and go underground about our relationship. And while taking over any furniture the graduating seniors were selling or leaving on the curb was OK when we were in college, we know we've made it when we hit the level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs where decent-looking furniture, matching colour schemes, and aesthetic interiors are considered essential. Which brings us to yet another relationship milestone, of course – our first trip to IKEA!
Our first odyssey to IKEA is probably a more appropriate word for the whole affair, for the nearest store is in Houston, so we need to rent a truck and make a three-hour drive each way on a Saturday. That's just about getting there, and then there's the business of getting through the labyrinth of room mock-ups without being side-tracked by all the distractions right and left.
"Now I know why Father's house has so many mirrors," I remark with a shudder as we make our way through cubicle-sized exhibits showing all the clever tricks to make tiny spaces look and feel like livable rooms. "That was a relatively cheap way to make it look twice as monstrous."
Everything we see is a potential project, and between us, we might as well buy up the whole store – Fred prefers an ultra-contemporary industrial look, whereas I'm more into a cosy, rustic country kind of style. There's the metal frame shelving which could look the part if we painted the metal parts the right shade of gunmetal grey and stained the wooden shelves, and a dining set I'd love to re-upholster with eye-catching print fabric, and… after three hours of following the meandering pathways through the store, we land up in front of the checkout counters with three sheets of college-ruled paper covered on both sides with pencil scribblings and drawings.
Fred tots up the cost of everything we listed out, in money and in time, penciling in $20,000 and 200 work-hours in the bottom corner of the very last sheet of our notes. O…M…G…, I think silently.
"Hey," he says. "We got five hundred square feet, not five thousand. And I have no idea if we'll have to move again before we get to finish all those projects. Guess we really got ahead of ourselves, going to town like that."
So, we end up starting all over again, paying special attention to the tricked-out tiny spaces and how they manage to max out the amount of stuff you can cram into them. Our new list ends up becoming all about blend-into-the-walls multifunctional units with tons of practical storage space, though we decide to leave off any extra built-in mirrors even though it'll make our space look a little less claustrophobic, because I have no intention to perpetuate another generation of Elliot vanity. Anyway, it's not like this will be our forever home, for as long as Fred stays in the military, we'll have hardly any say on how long we can stay in any of our physical homes. Just like that, I've gone from having decades-long roots in Grosse Pointe to a concept of a "forever home" that's tied to a person, but not a place, for wherever Fred goes will be where I call home from now on.
"I hope our instincts were sharp enough to avoid the husband killers," I say with an exhausted sigh as I plop down amidst the stacks of unassembled plywood after we finally make it home and unload everything into the apartment.
"Well, the people who called them that probably weren't marrying Rosie the Riveter," Fred quips. "You're so capable, we'll get all this stuff up in record time tomorrow."
As always, Frederick is like the Energizer bunny; first thing Sunday morning, he's up and about hammering together whatever he thinks will fit. I get a little nervous looking at him, so I quickly grab the instruction sheet to figure out how the pieces should go together step by step, lining everything up in its proper sequence for him before joining in the assembly operations. With my subtle redirection, within half a day civilization sprouts up from our bare carpeted floor, and by the end of the day, we've managed to get our basic, spartan accommodations to approximate some level of urban chic: a sea of neutrals, whites and beiges with the occasional pop of colour from my mini potted plants and whimsical accent pieces. We're so proud of our new digs, I post the photos immediately on Facebook to share with Sophia.
"You'd better hope your kids take after you, Anne," she says, laughing. "If you end up with mini-mes of Fred, all that white won't stay white for long."
"I'm not sure my younger self would be any better, actually," I admit. "When I was four, I was really into Hello Kitty and loved drawing furry kittens in pencil on any surface that even remotely resembled sketchbook paper. That's why Father had to cover my room with pink polka dot wallpaper after I outgrew that phase."
"Still water runs deep," remarks Fred with an amused grin. "That's our Anne, all right."
There's less than half a year for us to plan our wedding; I still feel somewhat off kilter about having a joyous occasion so soon after Grandma's passing, but at the same time, I know Frederick has been waiting so long for us to be together, and I want to become his official next-of-kin before he gets sent anywhere again. Being military does simplify things, though, as we have a ready venue with the chapel at his base and he already has his dress uniform. And when I packed up to come down to San Antonio, I shipped my old debutante dress over to Elise in Cambridge to refashion into a wedding gown, so I'm pretty much all set too.
In any case, the forward motion of life rolls on like a snowball, pushing me along with it; Frederick hits four years of service, so the next thing I know, we're getting ready to celebrate the occasion of his promotion to Captain.
"Thanks, but it's OK really, you should save the trip for the big party in the fall," he tells Edward on the phone; he's referring to the fact that Ed will want to fly in for our wedding, so he shouldn't feel obliged to shell out for two trips across the pond this year. "I still got one more rank to go before gettin' a cake, anyway."
Tom Harville sends his regrets too, though we already expected that he wouldn't be able to make it. In his email, he attaches a photo of his family hanging out at Venice Beach, at work putting the finishing touches on a crazily elaborate sandcastle that could only have been designed by him. The four of them – Harville, his wife Elinor, and their two kids Michael and Mia – are all towheaded with the same light sprinkle of freckles and lopsided, good-natured smiles, and nobody looking at this photo could possibly have guessed that they're not a biological family.
"That's my hero," I say to Fred. "He's amazing."
"What, I'm not your hero anymore?" replies Fred in mock disappointment. "Just kidding. I sure couldn't do what Harville's doing, he's da boss, man."
All the way through college, Harville never had any girlfriends; he grew up in a staunch Catholic family, and he didn't want to get involved with girls until he had the means to get married. Right after he graduated and went to work at Lockheed in Palmdale, Tom met Elinor at church, and last year, aged twenty-five and twenty-three, they adopted four-year-old Michael and two-year-old Mia after just one year of marriage. When they got married, Tom and Elinor had already agreed to build their family through adoption from the foster system, and they felt strongly that birth siblings should stay together, so they went directly from being young newlyweds to becoming the parents of two toddlers, both old enough to remember parents who weren't them. It's been a rough year for them, and I know that one Hallmark moment at the beach, posing with their windblown hair in the matching rash guards I sent them last Christmas, belies a long daily struggle I can hardly imagine. That's why Harville is my ultimate hero, hands down.
Sophia needs to ration her trips out to see us too, because she's forsaken her business for too long after having gone to Detroit for me. Instead, she sends AJ to attend Fred's promotion ceremony, a tall, hulking giant of a man with a shiny bald head and a booming, good-natured voice.
"You did good, bruddah," says AJ approvingly as he and I simultaneously unpin the single silver bars from each of Fred's shoulders, replacing them with the two silver bars for Captain.
"All because of you, AJ," says Fred. Seeing them side by side in their dress uniforms, with matching pairs of silver bars on their epaulets, I realize they're the same rank now, for AJ still has one more year to go before he can be promoted to Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. After we finish pinning Fred's new insignia and step back, they exchange salutes as a courtesy before we step down from the stage.
"This one's special," says Fred at the informal dinner we host for him after the ceremony, just AJ and him and me.
"Of course," I point out. "You're the first person in the family to attain the title of 'Captain'. Sorry, AJ – I don't mean to knock on the Navy, but them keeping 'Lieutenant' in your rank for over a decade isn't exactly the kindest thing they could do to their officers."
"Well, that, I suppose," replies Fred, "but honestly, the bigger thing is, this is the first time I ever had this much family around me when I got a new rank. Everything else I got, except that one time" – he shoots me a knowing glance – "I never had any family around to celebrate and enjoy with; it's wonderful not to be so lonely anymore."
Following his promotion, Fred goes off to Squadron Officer School in Alabama for five weeks, and in his absence, I take a long weekend off to visit Elise in Cambridge so she can fit my dress.
"So, what's this about you and William getting together?" I ask her right away when she picks me up at Logan Airport. "I'm sorry I was too busy to really catch up before, but now I want all the deets."
"I understand," says Elise. "And I'm real sorry about your grandma. It must be tough, with all the change you've gone through the last few months. But anyways, it's good to see you and I'm really thankful that you can be with Fred again."
"And now, about little ol' me, like you asked," she continues. "You know, Google Cambridge is growing so fast, we'll be moving out to a new campus next year? Well, there's now enough people in the office for them to set up a coffee stand, and nothing brings people together like free lattes. I was just standing in line, and there was William, picking up his drink. He came by and offered it to me, saying if I didn't mind a caramel macchiato, he might as well spare me the wait. I felt kinda bad depriving him of his coffee, but he said it was the least he could do to make amends after how terribly he'd offended me the last time.
"After that, he said he had some news he wanted to share with a friend, pertaining to a matter that only I knew about, so could he catch up with me over dinner after work sometime? I knew exactly what he was referring to and why he would want to talk to someone about it, so how could I have the heart to say no? Since then, we've been seeing each other and hanging out with Gianna sometimes on the weekends, and she's the sweetest girl I ever met. You'll see, we'll be meeting them at his place, and also going for dim sum with them on Sunday for brunch."
Elise has worked magic with my gown; she removed that voluminous, cupcake-shaped skirt from the lace-up corset bodice, which still fits me, and replaced it with new fabric cut into an A-line silhouette with a train, layered over with floral lace motifs. Everything is basted together at the moment, waiting for my signal of approval.
"You like it?" asks Elise, helping me step daintily into the gown and pinning it closed behind me.
"Like it? I love it!" I haven't been quite in the mood to be Bridezilla all these weeks, but at the sight of this dress with me in it, the concept that I'm finally going to have my long-awaited wedding in just a couple months' time suddenly becomes concrete and real. "But Elise, I feel really bad you went to all this trouble, though; it'd have been fine to just take some volume out of the old fabric."
"Well, it wasn't long enough to give you the train I wanted for you," points out Elise. "And I didn't spend all that much, actually – I was able to get all the new material I needed from Jo-Ann. Take it as one more wedding gift from me. See, I'm so wonderful, you wouldn't have guessed that if I didn't tell you!"
After Elise pins and bastes the seams and notes down all the measurements, she takes me to William's 19th-century Back Bay townhouse, with stately, ornate carved pillars framing the entry to the building. William steps out to greet us, and I can see a teenage girl standing behind him, her long rebonded hair framing her oval face, peering at me with shy almond eyes.
"A pleasure to meet you, Anne," he says, extending a hand stiffly out to me. "And if you will allow me, I'd love to introduce you to my sister Gianna."
"It's really nice to meet you both," I reply. "I went to college with Elise, as she probably told you, so I'm really excited to be back here reliving those days, and nothing could be better than to meet new friends who have Cambridge in common."
William's townhouse is bright and airy, with pristine whitewashed walls and built-in wooden shelves displaying an array of blue-and-white Delft pottery with a variety of ornate patterns – florals, windmills, and dragons. Persian rugs demarcate the living and dining areas, laid over the smooth, shiny hardwood flooring. A chandelier with six slender, curved arms hangs from the ceiling. The furniture, upholstered in muted shades of blue and white, have clean, elegant lines, unlike the imposing leather Chesterfield sofa and gaudy striped-print velvet Louis XV chairs that used to grace Father's formal parlor against huge, frilly Austrian festoon blinds, which had been all competing for attention. Two violins hang kitty-corner to each other against the wall in a nook with a baby grand piano.
After we're all settled in the living room, William serves us steaming cups of hot green tea, explaining that it's called longjing tea, a special blend from Hangzhou, and he always gets some whenever he makes his annual visits back to China. As I sip the tea, marveling in its delicate, slightly nutty flavor, Elise gushes to William and Gianna about how well the dress fit; I gather she's already told them many stories about all of us back in MIT. For years, she's known that when Fred and I get married, I want her to be my maid-of-honor, but we had that settled between us long before she got involved with William, so now the whole purpose of this visit is for me to get to know William and Gianna a little, to make me feel comfortable inviting them too.
When we're all done with our tea, Gianna picks up one of the violins and William takes up a seat at the piano. Even though Elise told me to forget everything I read in William's email, of course I haven't; how could I? William comes across as being so straight-laced that I'm sure he is incapable of hyperbole, and he certainly wasn't exaggerating when he wrote about Gianna being a violin prodigy. She makes the violin sing in a uniquely feminine way, playing this slow, elegant melody, punctuated by William's chords on the piano. Bach, I figure, for Father had made my sisters and me sit through enough piano lessons as children for me to have a rudimentary idea of the classical composers and what their music sounds like. Still, I always thought Bach's music was sterile; it came before the era when it became popular (and accepted) to get over-the-top with your feelings in music. Yet even though Gianna plays with the absolute precision and purity of tone that you would expect from Baroque era music, not an extra embellishment or flourish anywhere, the emotion still shines through – a soothing, yearning tribute to everything that is beautiful in this world.
"Arioso, Cantata 156," Elise tells me proudly. "I knew nothing about classical music until William and I got together, but they're both fantastic musicians and it's been a real eye opener listening to them play together."
"Gianna's the musician," says William. "I'm just an amateur. In fact, I hadn't played for a long time, until she started asking me to play with her."
"You're both so talented," I say truthfully. "Father made me do piano lessons as a child and I stuck with it all the way till eighth grade, but I couldn't play half as well as you do. William, why did you stop? You're being too modest, to call yourself 'just an amateur'; I enjoyed your playing very much."
"I don't take failure very well," admits William after a deep breath and a long pause. "When I went to Andover, I used to be in orchestra, playing first violin like Gianna does now. It was one of the things that got me into Harvard. But when I auditioned for Harvard-Radcliffe, I didn't make the cut. That was one of the things that hit me the hardest in my whole life. I love music, and before then, I thought I was a good musician. But after that failure, I knew otherwise, and I don't do things to fail at them. That's why it is one of my greatest joys to see my younger sister surpass my ability and make it. She's so wise, she managed to talk me into playing again, when nobody else could."
"What did she say?" I ask, intrigued.
"I…" Gianna hesitates shyly for a moment, then barrels on. "I told him, 'Nobody is a professional everything!' William might not be a professional violin player, but I can't code to save my life, so there's no way I could ever become a successful software engineer like him. I refuse to let him think he's a failure, and I dare say getting into orchestra at Andover is enough proof of his musical skill."
"William, why don't you play something for Anne?" suggests Elise. "There's that piece you played for me the other day, maybe you could try that again."
Stiffly and shyly, William gets up from the piano and unhooks the other violin from the wall, while Gianna puts hers down and takes over from William at the piano. He looks blatantly self-conscious as he tucks the violin under his chin, but once he starts to play, he begins to thaw. Throughout the entire twenty minutes of the piece, he keeps his eyes shut and his posture stiffly straight, but all the changes of tempo, all the trills, come through with high drama. Interestingly, this piece doesn't sound like any of the composers I learned about in my childhood piano lessons, in fact, the tune sounds somewhat Oriental, I think (I hope I got that right).
"What was that?" I ask, clapping enthusiastically after they wrap up. "It was really awesome, by the way."
"It's the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto," says William. "One of the most famous pieces of Chinese classical music." Realizing that he's just uttered the word "lovers", he immediately clams up in red-faced embarrassment and shifts his gaze awkwardly to the floor, like a middle-school boy on his first date.
"Um, let me try to explain," pipes up Gianna. "Butterfly Lovers is an old Chinese story, it's kind of like Romeo and Juliet except it's much, much older. There's this rich girl named Zhu Yingtai, and she fell in love with a poor boy called Liang Shanbo, whom she met while studying to be a zhuang yuan – a scholar – while disguised as a boy. But he didn't know she was a girl, and after her parents made her go back home, she asked him to visit her family, thinking she could tell him the truth and they could get married. But by the time he got there, her parents had already got her engaged to be married to a rich man. So, he died of a broken heart and on the day of her wedding, she passed by his grave and that's when she knew he died, and she stepped into his grave and died too. Eventually, they came back to the world as butterflies, which is how they got to be together forever, and that's how the story got its name."
"Isn't that romantic?" sighs Elise. "And parts of it are a little like Anne and Frederick's story too, except they're getting married and can be happy together in this world. William, if Anne wishes it, would you play this song at their wedding? With Gianna?"
"That's a great idea, Elise," I say. "William, I'd love it if you were to play at my wedding, but only if you feel comfortable about it. And regardless of whether you do decide to play or not, you and Gianna are both invited, for sure."
Even in his own home on a weekend, William was so starched and formal with a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt and tailored business dress trousers, and Gianna in a white blouse and preppy knife-pleated skirt. But when they pick Elise and me up on Sunday morning in matching Harvard T-shirts, jeans, and suede sneakers, I see a completely different side of them. William deftly parallel parks his Mercedes on a crowded street in Chinatown and leads us into a bustling restaurant where the only background music is the chatter of voices, and the aroma of stir-fry hangs in the air. This isn't a posh place, it's a family place; the huge round tables are packed so closely together we have to walk sideways to weave between them, and for every balding, bespectacled patriarch in a white short-sleeve cotton shirt and curly-haired matriarch in a flowy muumuu top, there's several young people around our age with label sense that rivals Liz's and far classier style sense than either of my sisters, some of whom have little kids in trendy togs and branded strollers. Despite the casual atmosphere, the food's fit for kings and queens: we have "crystal dumplings" stuffed with shredded green chives and wrapped in transparent rice-flour skin, snow-white buns with a red barbecued-pork filling, and crispy yam puffs with deep-fried batter sticking out in an intricate lacy pattern. Every dish in its bamboo steamer basket is boldly flavorful in its own unique way, so unlike the understated palate that I've been used to from fine dining with my family.
Tucking into the spread, we soon get comfortable enough that the conversation doesn't stop; Elise and I regale the Deng siblings with tales of all our shenanigans in high school and college. As I tell them about all the hairstyles Elise experimented with when we were at SEM, offering her services as a hairdresser to all and sundry, William suddenly puts down his chopsticks and looks up from his plate.
"That's what I love about her," he declares. "She's so original."
From Elise's sharp intake of breath, I figure the "L" word has never come up in any of their prior conversations. Cluelessly, William picks his chopsticks back up, grabs a dumpling from the nearest bamboo steamer basket, and places it on Elise's plate. "Here, eat," he says, then turns back to his plate so nonchalantly that I wonder if we'd dreamed up the L-bomb he just dropped.
"Elise was born with a natural advantage," I finally say to break the silence. "How could anyone not be original when they have a dad who makes a living out of telling little kids they can be the next Copernicus?"
After brunch, Gianna suggests that William and Elise could drop her off with me at Downtown Crossing, and she'll take the T to Cambridge with me.
"Fei, she's almost a sophomore," says Elise in response to William's skeptical look. "When we were that age, didn't we all want a little space?"
"Anne?" Gianna turns to me, after Elise and William have dropped us off and left us to our own devices. "Elise always uses you as an example when she tells William he needs to treat me more like an adult. She said you already found your life partner when you were my age. Of course, I didn't fully appreciate what she was talking about until I met you, but now that I kind of know you a little bit, you – you don't seem to be all that different from me. And I know I'm not ready for any of that yet. So, if it's OK for me to ask – how did you know? How did you get to be so confident when I still feel so young at nineteen?"
"Gianna," I reply, "it's perfectly OK to not be ready to think about settling down when you're nineteen. Look at Elise – she's my age, and she's always been a very confident and attractive person, but still, well, you probably know more than me about the real lay of the land with her and William. These things, they're not a measure of you as a person, and you shouldn't think that you're in any way inadequate or unattractive if you're not dating somebody. Some of it is just about chance – about when somebody you come to care about enters your life, and then it takes on a life of its own."
"Did Elise ever tell you about the background behind William and me?"
Even though I know I'm not telling the truth, I can't break a confidence, so I shake my head and say, "No, won't you please tell me?"
"Well, it's probably no secret that I'm adopted. My parents never tried to keep it from me, not that they could when it's obvious I look nothing like them or my younger siblings. And they've always been very upfront about keeping me in touch with the culture I was born in. Like, they named me 'Gianna' because they knew my birth name was 'Jia', and they wanted something which would sound like that. Even though they don't know Chinese, they looked up what it means, and so I know my birth parents gave me a name that says I'm good. Superior.
"But then, why would they not want me if they really thought I was superior? For the longest time, I had a lot of cognitive dissonance around that; I always wondered, was getting into Harvard not enough? Getting into orchestra? It seemed like, no matter what I did, I'd never be good enough because my birth parents abandoned me.
"Six months ago, William came into my life. He reached out to me and told me he had looked into our background after he saw my concert. Ever since I got to know him, it's answered a lot of questions. I now know that to some extent, my birth parents didn't have a choice, though it still feels raw for me that being a girl and coming second automatically meant they didn't keep me. But at least, he helps me connect with them. They don't feel comfortable talking to me directly, but he passes emails between me and them, and I know they don't hate me or anything.
"And connecting with my biological brother helps me know myself better too – I have a better idea of which parts of me are my culture, or my DNA, or just me. But I'm already nineteen, and I'm still getting to know myself. And that probably makes me behind, 'cause finding yourself is something you're supposed to do in high school. It doesn't help either that I look like I'm still sixteen or seventeen."
"Oh, Gianna," I want to give her a hug, but I know she might not be comfortable with that yet, especially not on a public sidewalk. "Nobody is ever done finding themselves. I'm still discovering new things about myself, now that I'm transitioning from being a daughter and a sister and a granddaughter to becoming a wife. I guarantee you, nobody has it all figured out at nineteen – not Elise, probably not William, and definitely not me for sure."
"Then how did you know? That Captain Wentworth was the one? How did you know you wouldn't meet someone better for you down the road?"
"Well, I didn't. But that wasn't what mattered. By the time I came to terms with my feelings for Frederick, I had already been spending time with him daily for a whole semester as a friend, a classmate, and a running partner. It's hard being in STEM, harder being a woman in STEM, and yet even harder when nobody in your family supports you being in it. As for him, it was incredibly hard growing up black in Detroit and then having to hold his own against prep-school kids at MIT. And on top of that, having to do those military courses where they throw all that jargon and leadership-speak at you. And so, I got him, and he got me, and I realized it was the real deal when I knew I was so invested in his success that I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to be, except by his side contributing to it."
"I hope," Gianna falters, "I don't know, William doesn't exactly have the highest EQ on earth – don't tell him I said that – but that's the part I don't know if it's his culture, since I have the same genes as him, and I can see he isn't doing a good job at telling anyone, including Elise, or should I say especially Elise, about his feelings. She's good for him, that I know. She's good for both of us."
"It isn't all on him," I point out. "Maybe this is TMI, but I said the L-word to Frederick first."
"You did?" Gianna stares at me in astonishment. "How did you get the courage to do so?"
"Necessity, rather than courage, was more like it," I state. "He was going away for flying lessons in the summer, and I was staying on campus for summer school, like what you're doing right now. And I didn't want him to go without knowing how I felt about him, so I said it."
"Well, I hope us leaving them alone for an afternoon gives them a push in the right direction. And I know you probably have a lot of things to do with your time, but will you mind if I call or text you sometimes? Not all the time, I don't want to bother you too much, but when I need someone to talk to who isn't my age, or my parents, or William, or Elise?"
"You bet," I promise. "You can reach out to me anytime you want. And you know something? If you think back on all the things you said, nineteen isn't really all that young; you're probably already wiser than you give yourself credit for."
Our invitation cards are ready for pickup from the printers by the time I get back to San Antonio; they're the one thing where we chose to go all extravagant and fancy, printing "Captain Frederick Wentworth and Miss Anne Elliot" in bright gold letters for all to see. Or specifically, Fred designed those for the especial benefit of my family units in Palm Beach, using a font with even more curlicues than Father's handwriting. Anyway, while he's still in Alabama, I spend my spare time productively by printing out address labels and sticking the seals on the envelopes to send.
By the time Fred gets back, some of the initial RSVP's have already started coming in. To our surprise, Father and Liz are one of the first few people to confirm their attendance, though I have a niggling suspicion that part of their motivation may simply come from curiosity about what a military wedding would look like. Oh well, they can take care of themselves, when Fred and I have a bigger issue to worry about: how to make it possible for the Harvilles to come in from California.
When the only experiences I have of travelling with toddlers are my faint childhood memories of us dragging a whiny Mary around, coaxing and cajoling and bribing in turn to extract barely enough cooperation to keep us on agenda, it doesn't surprise me now that Father had refused all my requests to go to Disney World until Mary turned six. And toddlers who have been through trauma, I suppose, would have an even worse time of it, though I wonder if Mary might also count as a child of trauma from all the months that she spent in the NICU as a baby. First things first, I figure that setting them up with accommodation where they can spread out a little more and stock up familiar food for the kids might help, so we buy a new blow-up mattress to supplement our pull-out sofa bed in the living room for the family to crash. Elise agrees to let me share with Gianna at the hotel they've booked, to reduce the number of people sharing a single bathroom at our apartment; it doesn't hurt that it's also convenient for her since she'll be styling my hair on the big day. Since Fred's SUV is more spacious than my Golf, he'll get my car to drive for the days when the Harvilles are here.
Meanwhile, we get Harville to talk up the wedding to the kids by giving them roles; they're the first of our friends to become parents, so Michael and Mia will be the only little kids at the wedding. Sophia makes herself in charge of getting a cushion to sew the rings to so Michael can be a ring bearer, and I give Hetty and Lulu instructions on how to make Mia feel at home and teach her some flower girl etiquette.
That reminds me, I've forgotten one more thing: to send Francis Harville his own invitation card. He's actually Benwick's plus-one, but Fred, Tom Harville, and by extension Elinor and I, are the only people who know that; to everyone else, they're supposed to be platonic roommates. Neither of us have met him yet, because he's a few years younger than Tom and went to NYU, but Benwick got to know him when he took up a job in New York, and Tom asked him to look out for his younger brother who was studying there. The rest is history, and now they're waiting for the time to come when they can legally get married, which is when they plan to come out.
With all the details set, it isn't long before the big day rolls around, a warm seventy-degree day in November, almost eight years to the day we first met. Elise, Gianna and I are all up at the crack of dawn, even though we'd hung out in our hotel room chatting late into the night. As Elise deftly works on my hair in the morning, I marvel at how she skillfully draws Gianna out and gives her confidence – together, the two of them curl out my hair one tendril at a time and pin it into an elaborate updo, with the last touch being a decorative floral hairpiece which Gianna gleefully declares she picked out personally. We've already agreed for William to drive us all to the chapel; after all, he rents a luxury car to drive whenever he travels out of town, so there's no point in us spending unnecessary money on a limo.
As William's car rolls into the grounds of Lackland AFB, I start feeling a little nervous, because I don't have any idea what to expect from Father. Even though he was one of the first people to RSVP to our invitations, he hasn't said a thing to me after that, so I don't even know whether he plans to walk me down the aisle. Of course, AJ has already volunteered as a backup to have me covered, but still, my mouth goes dry wondering how Father and Liz will behave. Well, speak of the devil – of all things, as William rolls softly to a halt in front of the chapel, Father is standing there in all of his stately grandeur, wearing a skin-tight tuxedo suit with a jacket covered all over in blue brocade patterned trim that shimmers slightly in the morning sunshine. Liz is standing beside him, wearing a bright gold evening dress and five-inch Louboutins; even though I'd stated unambiguously in the invitations that this would be a simple morning wedding, they've dressed as if they were going on the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
After William steps smartly out of the driver's seat and walks over to open my door, Father approaches and takes my hand to help me out of the car, with a smile on his face that looks unnervingly approving.
"Anne, I never expected it, but you look just as good next to a uniform as a tuxedo," says Father as he loops my hand into the crook of his elbow.
So that's the zinger he had, waiting in hiding for me. I stiffen up almost immediately, though I try to keep a placid mask of a smile pasted on my face. How could he! As if Fred is not a person, but just an empty uniform? My jaw tightens, but there's no time to talk back, not when we are heading right into the wedding processional. Grittily, I remind myself that this is just him, being his usual self. We're just doing what is normal and expected; a father walking his daughter down the aisle, and I've now got to play my part to hold my head up high, willing my face into what I hope is a reasonable approximation of a serene smile.
Soon enough, I'm not the only one having trouble keeping my countenance; as he takes up his seat in the front row pew, Father does a visible double-take at the sight of AJ and Sophia majestically seated in the mirror-image positions of him and Liz, with Fred's commanding officer next to them.
Enough of Father, I tell myself sharply, and my mood instantly gets better when I turn and face Fred's side of the church. Michael and Mia Harville, having proudly discharged their duties, are now seated with their mom in the second row, happily beaming and swinging their legs. Their dad and uncle stand side-by-side in the row of groomsmen, with Benwick beside them. Of course, Edward is the best man, and then there is Fred, absolutely radiant in his officer's mess dress uniform, now adorned with a cluster of miniature medals that weren't there the last time I saw him in it, back when we were in college.
After the chaplain leads us through the prayers, vows, and exchange of rings, a line of eight men holding their sabers in an arch awaits us as we walk down the chapel steps. The last pair of saber bearers block us for a customary kiss, and then I feel a light tap behind me.
"Welcome to the Air Force, Ma'am," the last saber bearer says.
Father's in for another rude shock at the reception, for military protocol states that the groom in uniform has to precede the bride, which ends up in an uncomfortable mix-up as he finds himself standing next to Fred instead of me. Surprisingly, Liz doesn't seem to care that Mary is a bridesmaid and she isn't. In fact, she inserts herself into the mother-of-the-bride position without any hesitation at all, and I think she might have actually felt insulted if I'd asked her to be part of my bridal party.
"You didn't invite Cousin William," is the only thing she deigns to say to me.
"No, I didn't." I don't feel obliged to give any explanation, so I stop there.
"A cousin is still family, even a third cousin once removed," she sniffs.
Before long, it's time for Edward to announce the wedding toasts.
"Good afternoon, everyone," he begins. "On behalf of Frederick and Anne, I'd like to say a big thank you for coming here, especially those of you who travelled from far and wide, to be a part of their big day.
"I don't think more than ten percent of the people at this party have seen me before, though most of you probably know me as the guy who first got Fred getting air. That's right – if he hadn't snitched my skateboard and gone to town with it at the age of four, he might not have ended up as a Captain in the Air Force. So, I'm letting you know, I take all the credit for getting him to where he is today.
"When we were growing up together, we knew exactly what our roles were. I was the resident nerd in the family, and he was the one who gave me the freedom to be me. He did all the jobs, stocking grocery shelves and flipping burgers, so I could spend my time winning spelling bees. In many ways, even though I was the older one, he was my keeper.
"At first, when Fred told me about his engagement to Anne, I didn't remember where he met her. And then, he just had to remind me about the one time he called me collect in college, and that rang a bell, loud and clear. Back then, we had no money, and the worst thing we could do to each other was to call collect. So, I knew, if he was going to do that to me, it'd better be something big, man. And it was. Because he was all worked up about the fact that he had fallen for a white girl. Back then, I was naïve; I think I told him, 'Isn't that nice?' or something like that. Don't diss me, I was a nerd, remember? I was twenty-one and he was nineteen, and I didn't have no girlfriends yet, so what could I possibly know?
"Well, my little brother grew plenty wise with all the hard knocks he had to go through to set up his life with Anne, and when he introduced me to her proper after they got engaged, she became my instant friend even though we've been on opposite sides of the pond. You tell Fred a nerd joke and it'll bounce off him like a squash ball bouncing off a wall, but Anne never fails to humor me. She knows her EPL teams, her Mozart, and her Shakespeare, and that's a winning combination.
"Three years ago, I already welcomed Anne to the Wentworth family as our new little sister, and nothing gives me more joy than to make it even more official. Ladies and gentlemen, let's raise our glasses in a toast to offer our congratulations to Frederick and Anne!"
Elise is the next one to step up, announcing the special item that she's prepared for our guests.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if Edward's going to take credit for getting Frederick into the Air Force, then I'm taking credit for getting Anne into MIT, because I was the one who taught her algebra and calculus in ninth grade.
"Before she became Fred's better half, Anne was my better half. Every time I needed to blow off steam after an awkward first date, she's been there to talk sense into me. Not only did she let me cut her hair, she also let me cut up her dresses and refashion them into entirely new things – and it's the ultimate sign of her faith in me that she entrusted me with the dress she's wearing today. My dad used to tell me that I could be the next Copernicus, and I got sold on that line until I found out he says that to every kid he sees at the museum he works at. But it was Anne who pointed out that even Copernicus has to eat and applied to internships with me, which is how I eventually ended up as a Googler.
"Today, I want to share with you the story of the Butterfly Lovers, an old Chinese legend from before 300 AD. That's right, these were the Romeo and Juliet of ancient China, more than a thousand years before Shakespeare came up with the versions we know and love.
"Let's start with Zhu Yingtai. She was a spunky girl from a well-to-do family, the only girl in a family of boys. Naturally, the one thing she wanted to do was to be like her brothers and get the chance to study. Remember, this was around 300 AD and girls weren't allowed to go to school, and so she had to disguise herself as a boy.
"Luckily for Anne, it's now normal for girls to pursue higher education, so there was never any question that Anne would go to college. Still, none of the women in her family have ever done STEM before, and so she needed a lot of spunk to stand up to everyone and tell them that this is her calling.
"While at school, Zhu Yingtai met Liang Shanbo, a scholar who was very smart, even though he didn't come from a rich family. That's our Fred – when he first met Anne, his idol was Tupac, whom we all know from The Rose That Grew From Concrete. Well, Fred was the math prodigy that grew from concrete. He liked to be the anti-nerd, boasting about how he skated out of Math Olympiad class when he was sixteen, but we all knew he could do Fourier transforms at the speed of lightning. And unlike Liang Shanbo, who spent three years sharing a dorm with Zhu Yingtai without realizing that she was a girl in boy's clothing, Fred knew Anne was a girl right away, even though she wore her hair short in pixie style all the way through college.
"As you can guess, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai didn't have a happy ending. But we don't have a medieval society anymore, so Fred and Anne's story can have a much more satisfying trajectory. To congratulate and honor them, we would like to present variations on a theme from the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto – please put your hands together for William Deng Fei and Gianna Deng Jia Doherty!"
There was no way for us to set up a piano at this lawn where we're having an outdoor reception, so William and Gianna rearranged and edited the concerto into a ten-minute version that could be played with two violins. Instead of sticking to melody and accompaniment, they take turns to carry the tune, alternating in point and counterpoint, carrying the voices of the two lovers through their story.
After our guests settle back down from their standing ovation, Fred rises to give his toast.
"Being brave isn't about never being scared," he begins. "It's about carrying on no matter how scared you are. You may think I'm talking about being at the front lines of war, and in part, I guess I am. But even more than that, I'm talking about two little words that had the power to scare the heck out of me for most of my life. And almost four years ago, Anne said those words to me.
"To some of you, the words 'Grosse Pointe' don't mean a thing," he continues, looking directly at Father. "But there's a line that separates Detroit and Grosse Pointe, and even though none of us can see it, all of us can feel it. Everyone who doesn't dare to cross that line, and everyone who chases away the people who do cross it, they're all perpetuating the existence of it. To be fair to Anne, she never intended to re-introduce that divide between us. But she had to move back there, for very valid reasons which I respect and salute. And yet, I got so scared I thought about turning tail, more than one time that year. I gotta apologize to my commanding officers from UPT for all the times I spaced out and let the team down, because of the distraction from all that stuff going on in my head. But every single time, I talked myself out of it. I told myself I was out of the 'hood, I was a commissioned officer in the Air Force, and I was on the road to make a respectable living for myself. That surely all those things would mean nobody could chase me away if I chose to cross that line, even though a part of me knew there would always be people who would tell me I didn't belong.
"Thankfully, Anne was the one who broke down that line for me. She came to my territory first, without forcing me to go into hers. That's why we're having this celebration here today. And she also made it safe for me to cross that line when I had to, even though we didn't end up spending much time in there because there were other places I needed to be.
"Anne doesn't know I felt that way; I hope I did a good enough job of protecting her from it. That year, the year 2001 when everything went belly up for her and for me and for thousands of other people in America, was the crucible which made our relationship stronger than it ever was. We thought we had each other's backs, those days we spent at MIT pulling all-nighters together and pacing each other to our BQ's. Little did we know that those challenges were just child's play; after we graduated, we ran into a ton of things that were bigger than both of us, and we faced all of them down so today could happen.
"This day is long overdue; I was ready for it four and a half years ago, the minute I got the keys to get out from the 'hood for good. I wanna thank all of you who are here today for going the distance with us, because you're the ones who helped us stick it out through all the years and made us into who we are. Before we toast, Anne, would you like to say a few words?"
"Thank you, Fred," I say, rising to my feet beside him. "After the eloquence of everybody who spoke before, I'm not sure there's much more I can add. But to play counterpoint to what Fred said about that year, the one that made us instead of breaking us, I did have an inkling of how hard it was for him, even though he made sure to keep telling me he wasn't going anywhere. In hindsight, I suppose he said that not only to convince me, but also because he needed to convince himself.
"I didn't make it easy for him, and for that I can only blame the folly of youth. More than once that year, I told him I wanted that time to last forever – that period of limbo which put him into a living hell. It's not easy, choosing between the two people you love most in the world, especially when you're facing the prospect of losing one of them forever. Even more so, when you're dealing with the loss of someone close to you for the first time.
"There shouldn't be any doubt that Fred is brave, but I want to tell you, he's braver than even he believes. He gave me the credit for breaking down that invisible red line that separated us, but actually, he was the one who did most of the heavy lifting, by convincing himself to stay in my life in spite of all the very real and rational misgivings he had.
"From the bottom of my heart, I thank you, Fred, for the Herculean efforts you made to stand by me all this time since that fateful year. Without the support I got from you and Sophia, I would have collapsed under the pressure of my responsibilities long ago. I'm looking forward to happier days by your side, and to be your helpmeet and companion through all your future success."
"And now, let's raise our glasses to Anne, to women in STEM, to equality, and to everyone who's here to share our special day. Cheers!" concludes Fred.
Father was definitely not in the loop about the choreography of our toasts; to our astonishment, he springs up from his seat and begins to speak, leaving AJ, who was getting ready to go next, open-mouthed in mid-lunge.
"It is my pleasure today to give my daughter's hand in marriage," he begins in a stilted voice, completely devoid of any sincerity of feeling. "A few years ago, I may have hoped for more, but an MIT graduate and Captain of the US Air Force should do nicely for Anne.
"For all these years, I have unstintingly given only the best to my three daughters. Anne has never wanted for anything, when I sent her to Liggett, then Buffalo Seminary, and then MIT. She only needed to ask, and I spared no expense to see to her every need.
"Anne, even though you may now have changed your name, I behoove you to never forget your heritage as an Elliot. Some of the choices you have made were inexplicably plebeian, but seeing you today, I have no doubt that you will do us proud, for you have outdone yourself with an ingenuity that is beyond me."
Is this sarcasm? Yet, Father makes eye contact with me and nods, with such an air of certainty that it's clear he actually means it, except I have no idea why.
"You upgraded your help," he explains. "I never would have thought of it, but that was brilliant. To think, you hired a Chinese chauffeur, and one who is a musician to boot!"
Out of the corner of my eye, I see William stiffen visibly, and it takes all of my self-control to keep from hiding my face behind my hands in second-hand embarrassment. But Fred pulls me closer with the arm he's draped around my shoulders, and I feel him shaking with suppressed mirth.
"You shouldn't dwell on him too much," whispers Fred. "Easier said than done, of course."
"Captain," Father continues, "if you ever visit Palm Beach, it would be my pleasure to extend our hospitality to you. After all, we can introduce you to echelons of society that you would never have access to. Anne, I wish you the best, and I hope you will continue to honour the Elliot name."
With one last flourish, Father sits down; his infuriatingly bumbling impromptu act is finally over. I don't know which part of his speech annoys me the most: his steadfast refusal to refer to Fred by name, his insult to William, or his ridiculous pompousness.
But like Fred said, there's no need to spend too much time dwelling on it, when AJ sets things back on course by rising for the last toast as we planned.
"I always knew our little Frederick was a smart cookie," he says, "even in those days when I had to bribe him with fried chicken to get some time alone with my Sophy. We weren't much more than kids ourselves when we started playing house, taking on the roles of mom and dad to these two fine young men who are here today as the groom and the best man.
"Frederick really looked up to me ever since he was a little kid, and it put a lot of pressure on me. Everything I did, he wanted to do too, and he joined Junior ROTC just so he could put on a uniform and salute me the day I became an officer.
"When Frederick became an officer too, he mailed me a silver dollar. He told me he had another one to give to the first enlisted man to salute him on base, but he wanted me to have his first silver dollar because I had been the enlisted man who made the biggest difference to his life.
"You know what? That made my day; I couldn't be happier except on the day I married my Sophy. Growing up without a dad ain't easy, and I knew Sophy was the one for me when I saw how she looked out for those little brothers of hers, for even when their mama was alive, Sophy was their de facto mom. I felt like I needed to show them a path to make it on their own, an honest career that could give them a better life.
"Normally, I never keep any secrets from Sophy, and I swear this is the only one. Sophy, I got one confession to make: Frederick told me about his proposal to Anne before he told you. It was just before he went out for UPT, and he swore me to secrecy for a year, telling me he didn't want anyone else to know unless it still worked out after his UPT was done. But, he said, he wanted me to know, because if I hadn't shown him what it meant to take responsibility for his girl, he would never have thought of popping the question.
"Well, I must say, Frederick has turned out very well, and it is a relief at last that now he's somebody else's responsibility." AJ winks at Fred, to show he means this in jest. "Anne, I have every faith in you to take good care of him. Sophy and I wish both of you a long life of happiness and health, and whenever you need anything, you know who to call."
With the conclusion of the toasts, we proceed to cut the wedding cake. This, to me, is the coolest part of the entire celebration, because I get to hold a sword: tradition has it that we cut the cake with a saber, and Father and Liz rush in to take close-ups with their phone cameras, blocking the view of the rest of our guests.
Originally, we'd chosen to have a daytime reception for simplicity and cost-effectiveness, but the timing comes in handy to give us a welcome respite from further embarrassment on Father's part. The sun is still high in the sky when we make our way to our getaway car, which is my Golf with a "Just Married" sign drawn on chalkboard by Harriet and Emma, featuring a manga-style cartoon of a uniformed soldier carrying a princess with a crown. We don't have far to go, for we'll be spending one more night in our apartment before flying to California with the Harvilles, leaving them in LA and embarking on our honeymoon road trip along Highway 1.
"Elise, do you think William might welcome some reassurance that he's original too?" I remind her, just before we leave. "They were so inventive with the way they rearranged that music piece – did you notice they were playing a dialogue between the two lovers in the story?"
"Actually, it didn't occur to me until you mentioned it," says Elise, "but yes, I will."