Did we invite DeStasio?
We did.
His attitude toward me improved quite a bit after I saved his life.
And mine improved toward him after he got out of rehab, showed up at my place to sincerely apologize, with actual tears of regret, and made a pledge to spend his retirement years volunteering at the local women’s shelter as a way of atoning for his mistakes.
In acknowledgment of his personal growth, I got him a T-shirt that saysTHIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE.
It didn’t change what he’d done, of course, but it mattered.
Plus, he’d started dating someone—the director of the women’s shelter, in fact, which improved his personality quite a bit. I could almost see why people liked him now. Almost.
I WANT TOtell you that Diana managed to permanently kick her cancer through sassiness and sheer force of will, but she didn’t. Even before the wedding, the tumor had started growing again, and she already had another grim diagnosis.
But, in that way of hers, she didn’t tell me.
She let me have that one beautiful, breezy night to stand in my white silk gown and drink champagne and look fully forward to all the blessings that lay ahead.
She never officially told me, actually. She never spoke the words. She knew that once the tumor was back in action, I’d figure it out. In the end, we got a year more than we’d hoped for. And she knew that neither one of us took even a single day of that extra time for granted.
She’d hoped to see a grandbaby before she was gone, but we couldn’t get that done in time. I did manage to get pregnant, though—just barely—before we lost her. Somehow, she knew before I did.
“Guess what?” she said, on the day before she died.
“What?”
“You’re pregnant.”
The rookie and I had been trying for a baby—with enthusiasm—but nothing had taken yet. Several months of clockwork-like periods had left me a little discouraged.
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t feel pregnant.”
“But you are,” she said, closing her eyes. “And it’s a girl. And you will love her more than you love yourself. And you’ll disappoint her, too—and never live up to the standards you set for yourself. But don’t worry. She’ll be okay.”
“Yes,” I said, shoving tears off my cheeks. “She will.”
Diana did wind up leaving Wallace’s house to me, and the rookie and I wound up moving in, and we now have two toddlers ransacking the place on a daily basis. But we figure if that place could handle Samuel and Chastity McKee, and those eight children, and all the countless fish they pickled, it can put up with a few Hanwell-Callaghans.
We kept the pottery shop open for a while, to sell off what was left of Diana’s stock to fans and friends. Some of the loveliest, most special pieces, we kept to display in an antique hutch with glass doors that lock with a skeleton key. Those, we’ll hold on to. But the rest of them, we use. She wanted us to use them. They are the bowls and plates our kids are growing up eating on.
Eventually, the rookie converted the old shop into a lively little restaurant with seven tables. We stay open year-round, and there’s always a line out the door. DeStasio helps in summer, during the busy season. It’s hard work, but the rookie doesn’t mind.
And yes, we all still call him the rookie.
I went back to my job in Lillian. Eventually. After they groveled for a while.
It’s actually a pretty good schedule for a mom. I only work two days a week—twenty-four-hour days, but still… Josie managed to have two more babies, and her mystery husband wound up shifting jobs after that to be home a lot more. Her littlest one and my oldest were born just days apart, and we’ve worked out a kid-sharing co-op to cover the evenings when I’m working and the days when Josie is. Between us all—as well as the world-famous C-shift babysitting crew of Lillian’s bravest—we get it done.
It really does take a village. And a half.
SO I FORGAVEmy mother. And my dad did, too. And the rookie forgave himself for once having been a very dumb kid. And I forgave DeStasio for recently having been a very dumb adult. And all in all, as a group, we pretty much mastered forgiveness.
I even read a whole book on the psychology of post-traumatic growth, and how, in the wake of the terrible, traumatic, unfair, cruel, gaping wounds that life inflicts on us, we can become wiser and stronger than we were before.
Am I wiser and stronger now?
Without question. Even in the wake of it all.
