My father’s eyes quadruple in size.
“I guess you didn’t just see me guzzle down Daddy’s beer. No! I’m not pregnant.” I shake my head, astonished and then turn to my crazy boyfriend. “Declan, this is so sweet and I love you too, but...”
Declan looks through me, intent, focused, driven. I imagine him blocking out everything else in the room. “But nothing...I’m serious, Mia. I want to marry you. This isn’t a proposal...I’m going to do that right, but I want your folks’ permission so that when I do get down on one knee I know they’ll be happy about it.” He turns his attention back to my father, whose eyes have gone down to double in size. “Mr. Page, do I have your blessing? Please, sir? Tell me you’ll let me love and protect her the way you have for all of eternity.”
Oh. My. God. This boy is a dream. Between the beer and the butterflies in my stomach, I am about to pass out.
“Daddy! Say something! He’s pouring his heart out here and you’re making him bust.”
My father focuses on me, a glisten in his eye. He doesn’t cry, but this is the closest I think I’ve ever seen him. “He makes you happy, sweet pea?”
“Happier than I’ve ever been, Daddy.”
He turns to Declan again. My mother’s hands are clasped tightly around her mouth. “You have my blessing, son. This family will be lucky to have you in it, Declan.”
My mother bursts out into tears again, but it’s so crazy how you can tell the difference between happy tears and tears of sorrow. I’m sure behind it all are the worries that the news she receives about her biopsy will tell of her future—will she be around for this wedding? But she does a hell of a job holding all that back and letting the happiness shine through.
I jump out of my chair to kiss Declan, then my father and as I am about to do the same to my mother, the phone rings.
The four of us stop as if some evil villain has stepped into our kitchen and zapped us with a freeze ray gun. Our eyes dart around at each other, everyone looking to the other, placing responsibility on someone to answer the damn thing.
I finally suck it up and run to the phone, picking it up as if it were a bomb ready to detonate.
“Hello?” There’s a pause and then a high pitched woman with a southern accent introducing herself as Brenda from Dr. Aqualani’s office, asking for my mother. I look over to her and tilt the phone in her direction, but she motions with her hands for me to continue.
“Um, my mom wants you to give me the results. She’s right here next to me, is that okay?”
The woman sniffs out a breath and tells me that she can go ahead since she has my mother’s written consent. Consent my butt, I just want her to get on with it.
I listen to the words. I picture the secretary from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as her voice pierces through me, first informing me of the date of the biopsy and the type, then the doctor who administered the exam. I want to shout in the phone, “Yes or no! Just say it already!” But then she says the word and I nearly drop the phone.
“Benign.” Is all I can decipher from this woman’s chatty mouth. Benign. It’s the most beautiful word I’ve ever heard and I intend to scream it loud enough for everyone on the block to hear.
I thank the woman and hang up. And take my mother’s shaking hands in mine. “Benign, Mom! It’s benign! You’re okay. We’re all okay. Everything is perfect and it’s benign!”
I scream the words a few more times, running and jumping, hugging and kissing everyone in the room. Declan promised me it would all work out. And now not only is my mother healthy and cancer free, but my boyfriend just asked my father for my hand in marriage.
I watch my parents in a loving embrace. The tears are unmistakable now, streaming from my father’s big brown eyes. He kisses my mother, telling her how much he loves her. This is love. The kind of love Declan and I will have. The kind that can overcome anything life throws our way.
Watching Declan maneuver through the kitchen is a long-awaited comfort. While it feels strange, since it seems like he’s been gone forever, I must admit that I’ve missed him. We’ve all missed him. And the timing of his damn trip to Hong Kong could not have come at a worse time.
Asking him to come back home last night may have been an impulse reaction to the drama with my dad, but I can’t help feeling like it’s finally time for him to be home. I fooled myself into believing I could do it all alone, but part of me needs him around to protect me from all of my fears. The fear of being a single parent. The fear of losing a parent.
Declan hands me a cup of coffee as a squirming Charlie invades my lap. “Babe, what time do you want to go to the hospital? I can drop the kids off at my parents and we can go together.”