Every day. That’s how we decided love would be. You have to make it fresh every day. Oh, dear. That sounded naughty! I don’t mean make love every day, although he would’ve been very happy to do that, too. Goodness. No, I mean, you had to decide to love every single day. If you did, you could do quite well, no matter who you married.”
Really. Was it that simple?
“All those weddings we went to. I could tell right away who had a shot at lasting. So many weddings. I’d take the cake.”
Yes, you do, I thought. You take the cake.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ava said. “The worst was when you’d know they would last but shouldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not every marriage that lasts should be celebrated.” Before I could even react, Ava set down the photos and put her hand on my knee. “And not every marriage that ends is a failure.”
My scalp lifted in goose bumps. Footsteps sounded above us. “We’re down here!” I called.
Both the Davids came tromping down the stairs.
“Cool,” Davy said, sitting on the floor with us. “I’ve never seen these.” He sifted through photos, chuckling. He looked up at me. “We used to play wedding, remember?”
“You did. I tried to avoid it.” I told Big David and Ava, “Davy was usually the bride.”
“You were?” Big David asked. Even Ava giggled.
Davy picked up the wedding photo. “Lucky you, Ava. Myron sure was a good-looking man.”
Ava’s smile faded. She stammered a moment, then asked shyly, “Myron?”
With exquisite tenderness, Davy said, “Your husband.”
“I . . . I don’t know who— I’m not married.” In a matter of seconds, she had changed from her classy, witty self to an old lady with Alzheimer’s. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Big David said. “We know you’re not married anymore.”
“Is . . . is he here? Myron?” She looked around the basement and up the stairs.
“Nobody’s here but us—you, me, Davy, and Cami.”
“I don’t feel well.” Ava stood, photos and letters falling off her lap. “I want to lie down.”
The Davids exchanged a brief glance. I’m not sure what passed between them, but it was my brother who stood and said, “Let me help you, Ava.” He followed her up the stairs.
I reached across the pile of photos and took Big David’s hand. “I don’t want that to happen to me,” he whispered. “I don’t want to be alive for one single minute and not know I’m with Davy.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
DAVY
WHEN DAVY FOLLOWED THOSE PINK HELIUM BALLOONS UP to his classroom, he stood gaping. “Wow. My room,” he said. “Wow.”
The desks were pushed together to make banquet tables, covered in pink tablecloths. More pink cloth was draped from the ceiling in canopy-like loops, the way Bobby hung fabric at Tanti Baci. Baby mobiles hung from the intersections of every loop.
Gabby ran to greet them both with huge hugs. “Mrs. Bair brought in the crib. Isn’t it cool?”
Very cool. Tanya Bair taught science in the room next to his (and he bet it was her oven that was being used by whoever catered the food he’d smelled all the way downstairs). The crib she’d brought was an old, white, sleigh-style one now piled high with wrapped gifts.
His room had been transformed. He looked at David and realized that this shower also transformed the two of them into something else.
The shower was everything their “wedding” hadn’t been. Everyone who’d come to their wedding had known it wasn’t real. They had a nice ceremony, threw a killer party, but it hadn’t meant anything in any legal or societal way. There was no officiant, no license, no announcement in the paper. All during the planning, he’d felt a little like the kid he’d been playing dress-up wedding in the barn lot, just with a grander budget.
But the shower, now, that was real. They’d registered at major no-joke stores. Suddenly, his colleagues—those who’d always been good to them and even those who’d never been good to them (Tanya Bair had displayed a “Protect Ohio Families” sign in her yard, supporting the ban on same-sex marriage, and don’t think he’d ever forget that)—treated them differently. Davy had to admit he loved every minute of the belated acceptance.
Gabby shushed everyone for a toast. She lined up Tyler and Amy, reminding Davy of Cami as a kid—always bossing everyone around, “directing” them. Gabby nodded at Tyler, who said, “This day is to honor you and the important journey you’re about to embark upon—oops, sorry, Mrs. Wilcox: the journey upon