Anchor - M. Mabie Page 0,42

oral as a form of repentance. In that case, you owe me start-to-finish for listening to your dad talk about the 49ers for an hour straight the other night at dinner. I almost died from boredom. It was touch-and-go for about 59 minutes.

“Micah, are we having dinner at your place?” I asked. You know how guys make plans. It was very possible it was three-thirty in the afternoon and she didn’t know she was hosting guests.

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” she said as she typed on her phone.

She forgot?

“Well, it’s getting late, so do we need to go get Foster or anything else?” I was clearly freaking out on her behalf. Her lack of interest was weird. She didn’t even look at me.

My mom excused herself to find a ladies’ room and I tried to get my friend’s attention.

“Yo, Micah. It’s like almost four,” I urged.

“It’s fine, Carmen has Foster. She’s bringing him back this evening. I’m not stressing about it. I’ll just order something in.” She smiled brightly. “Quit worrying about it.”

Me: Are you sure about dinner? I don’t think Micah planned for all of us.

Casey: Yeah, I talked to Cory. He’s grilling or something. We’re heading there after a beer in the clubhouse. Get this. Your con-artist father is making me buy. Are you sure he’s a professor and not in the mafia or secret service or something?

Me: Watch your back. I’ll see you in a while.

Since I was the only one wigging out, I dropped it. Why bother stressing out if no one else was? It was just dinner after all. It wasn’t like my parents were meeting his. We’d planned to do that the next night anyway. I was probably nervous about that and it was throwing me off. Would I ever stop feeling like the other shoe was about to drop?

“Well, thanks for having all of us over. Are you sure I can’t do something?” I asked with less anxiety in my voice.

“Seriously, it’s just dinner. It’s no big thing. Now let’s talk wedding night lingerie. What are you going to get?”

I hadn’t thought of that. I’d have to add it to my to-do list. I’m sure Casey would love to help with that one.

When my mother came back, we sat there for a while longer and talked about things that were seriously weird to discuss with a parent. But throwing me a bone, my mom kept her side of the conversation focused on silly fantasies with actors and musicians and left my con-artist dad out of it. I almost blew a good portion of my frozen caramel latte out of my left nostril when she admitted Casey was on her top five hottest men list.

I couldn’t fault her. She had good taste. Maybe it was genetic.

Friday, August 6, 2010

GENETICS ARE FUNNY. BLAKE was a lot like her dad.

Even if he was a bastard who schooled me on the golf course, we shared the same sense of humor. Actually, we had a lot in common and he wasn’t really a bastard. He was kind of awesome.

Phil told me embarrassing stories about Blake and he’d even had the foresight to save some of the most priceless childhood pictures of my honeybee on his phone for our day on the links.

He liked good bourbon, just like I did, and when we sat down after playing eighteen catastrophic holes, he informed me I was buying. He didn’t hesitate to order from the top shelf for both of us. What a guy.

“All shit aside, Casey,” he admitted, “I’m really happy for you guys. I’ve never seen Blake this happy and that’s all a dad really wants for his kids. Above everything else in this world, you want them as happy as possible. You’ll see.”

Would I ever. The closer the wedding got the more I thought about kids. Every night we’d go to bed, and sometimes when we woke up, I’d bite my ready-to-reproduce-tongue to keep from asking her when she’d want to start a family. I didn’t want to overwhelm her, with all of the wedding commotion going on around us.

We’d often joked about it, but I was serious. I couldn’t pin-point the reason why my desire to have kids with her was so strong, but it was. I really wanted a big family, like we both kind of had, of our very own. I wanted the hustle and bustle little hands and feet created in a house. I wanted my kids to grow up with Foster—and our families’ future