The Family You Choose (27 page)

Zainab sighed. "Miranda, what are you doing?
And don’t tell me you’re not crazy. Last weekend you’re crying
because of Alex and Michael, then I find out that you’re at
Michael’s place, doing I don’t even want to ask what, and then
Richard tells me that he’s just given you a credit card to escape
to parts unknown. And now, here you are again, calling me from
Michael’s number. What is going on?"

"We got married."

Silence for a full minute. "To whom?" she
finally said.

"To each other."

"Can you explain how he went from hated enemy
to husband in less than two weeks?"

"No, but I can tell you what happened."

"Okay."

"Any chance you can get away for lunch
tomorrow?"

"Yes. Just tell me where."

~~~

Zainab hung up the phone and shuddered. What
was Emily going to do when she found out? She didn’t need to ask to
know that Emily hadn’t been called yet.

The phone rang. "Hello, dear," Zainab
said.

"Did you just talk to Miranda?" Richard
asked.

"I did. Did you just talk to Michael?"

"I did." Silence. "Please promise me that
when we get married, we are going to do it the old-fashioned way.
With guests and pictures and a cake—and that we won’t hate each
other."

"I just...wow."

~~~

Richard had one more call he needed to make
when he got off the phone with Zainab. He didn’t want to, but he
was never one to flee from responsibility or necessity.

Alex took Richard’s call immediately. "Is
Miranda alright?"

"Miranda is fine. Zainab spoke to her just
ten minutes ago."

"I’ve been trying to call you for the past
week."

"I’m sorry, Alex, I didn’t know what to tell
you. I didn’t have any information to give you—at least, not that I
wasn’t pretty sure you knew yourself."

"Where has she been?"

"She’s been with Michael."

Silence. "The whole time?"

"Just about."

"You have no idea what’s been done here, do
you?"

"Maybe not entirely, but I called to tell you
not to worry about her. She’s fine. She’s better than fine. She’s
happy."

"Happy with Michael?" Alex laughed
incredulously. "They hate each other."

"They don’t anymore, and I’m not sure they
ever really did."

"Please Richard. You know you don’t need to
be in love with someone to screw them."

Richard couldn’t articulate why, but Alex’s
tone made his skin crawl. "In this case, you’d better hope you’re
wrong. They got married yesterday."

Richard didn’t hear Alex breathe for over a
minute. "Alex?"

"You have no idea what’s just happened, do
you?"

Michael called Miranda and asked her to meet
him at the jewelry store at six thirty. He beamed when he saw her.
She thought he grew more handsome each day.

Michael had already asked the jeweler to put
a few rings aside. Miranda squeezed his hand. He’d gotten the
colors and shapes right. They finally picked out a platinum band
with pink stones. Not entirely traditional, but still tasteful.
Michael picked out a matching platinum band of his own. The rings
would be ready on Wednesday.

"Perfect," Michael said as they left the
store. "Richard and Zainab will be joining us on Wednesday."

"Right, because they’re going to think we
made the whole thing up unless they see us in some heavy-duty
rings. Sadly, I will be seeing Zainab before that, so hopefully
she’ll be able to suspend her disbelief a little bit."

Michael smiled when he unlocked the door. The
room was filled with roses. "Oh, Michael," Miranda gasped. "It’s
beautiful." She closed the door and pushed him against it. "When
did you get to be so romantic?"

He gripped her skin and gently bit her lip.
"When I knew you loved me."

~~~

Miranda practically walked on air as she
walked to meet Zainab for lunch. Michael continued to surprise her
everywhere. He took her breath away; she felt like she might cry
just thinking about him when he wasn’t there.

Zainab stood up when Miranda got to the
table. "Congratulations!" she said and threw her arms around
Miranda. Miranda hugged her back. She was so happy that Zainab, at
least to her face, was happy for her.

"I should be really mad at you though,"
Zainab said after they’d ordered. "No one wants me to be in their
wedding?"

"Think of it as not making you wear a
bridesmaid dress, and then it doesn’t seem so bad."

"True. Well, regardless, I got something for
you. I think Richard wants to bring something else tomorrow night,
but this is from me to you."

It was a photo album. There were pictures of
Michael and Miranda throughout the years. Very few of them had the
two of them together, which made Miranda laugh. And then there were
pictures of Zainab and Miranda and Michael and Richard. Miranda’s
eyes welled up. Zainab had been very careful not to put in pictures
of anyone else.

"This is lovely," Miranda said, wiping her
eyes as the food came.

"Something to capture your happiness..."

"So it doesn’t flit away?"

"Is it going to?" Zainab asked quietly.
"How...what happened?"

Miranda wished Zainab’s voice didn’t sound so
concerned, but she didn’t resent her for it. "I...it’s so hard to
explain. It was like everything became so clear once I found out
about my mother. I wanted to start a new life and be a new person.
I mean, I didn’t really have much of a choice. And-" she smiled,
knowing how stupid it was going to sound. "I think Michael wanted
to be a new person too, or maybe the person he always was deep down
inside. We spent a lot of time together."

"I bet," Zainab said with a little
chuckle.

"It wasn’t just that," Miranda said
earnestly. "And even if it was a lot of that, it was more than what
it sounds like." She traced the lines of her knife. "He
is...incredibly gentle. Sweet. He wants to make me happy. And not
because that’s how he always is—I think we can all vouch for
that—but because..." she looked up, foolish again. "Because it’s
me." Then she laughed wickedly. "And I actually do have proof. You
can ask Richard some time."

"What?"

"Long story," Miranda giggled.

~~~

Miranda got home at four, looking through the
photo album. But she was really thinking about the party at Alex’s
house at the beginning of the summer. She remembered laughing with
Emily and even missed seeing Mitch. She missed Jessie. She missed
laughing with her friends. She missed having them in her life. She
cried a little bit, then splashed her face with water so Michael
wouldn’t notice when he came home.

It was no good. "What’s wrong?" he asked when
he kissed her.

"Nothing," she lied.

He kissed her again. "How was Zainab?"

"Very well. Look, she gave me this." She
handed him the photo album. His sullen younger face contrasted with
her effusive smile on almost every page. He laughed at himself. She
smiled. He’d never done that before.

She was lying in his arms later that night,
absently kissing his neck. "Miranda?"

"Yes, dear?"

"You know, lies never do anything good for a
marriage, especially this early on."

She sighed and rested her head on his chest.
"There’s no point. There’s nothing you can do, and I think it would
make you feel worse than I do."

"I know that I’ve made things more difficult
for you, and marrying me probably made it messier. I’m sorry. I
probably can’t fix it, but I can listen."

"You know what it is already," she whispered.
"I miss Emily. I miss Jessie. We were all together right after
Emily and Mitch got married. Mitch was kind of a jerk—you know
why—but it was still good. We were all happy for them." She sobbed.
He closed his eyes and stroked her back. "I don’t know if anyone’s
going to be happy for us like that, and it just makes me sad."

He rolled them both onto their sides. She
could see that he had tears in his eyes too. "You know I’d do
anything to fix this for you, right?"

She smiled. She loved him more and more with
every tender gesture. "I know," she whispered. "That’s why I didn’t
want to tell you. There isn’t anything you can do."

"If you have to choose," he said, "I’ll
understand if you choose them."

His dark eyes were so earnest. She shook her
head. "I already chose you," she whispered. Then she kissed him.
"And I choose you again."

Richard and Zainab arrived the next night
right after the bakery delivered a small, tiered white cake. Zainab
kissed Michael on the cheek and hugged Miranda. Richard hugged
Michael and Miranda. "You two are happy?"

"Ecstatic," Miranda said, gazing at her
husband.

"Transformed," Michael whispered, touching
Miranda’s cheek.

Michael made another very nice cut of beef
for dinner. Zainab was genuinely impressed. "Where did you and
Michael learn how to cook?" Zainab asked Richard as they sipped
some red wine.

"It must have been that summer on the Cape,"
Richard said after a moment.

Michael smiled. "Yes. If I remember
correctly, your dad and my mom left us while they ran an errand,
and we were alone much longer than we were supposed to be."

Richard nodded. "Right! And I thought I’d
cook, but Michael insisted on making the hamburgers. I seem to
recall that the burgers were either very well done or very rare,
but at least we didn’t starve."

Michael laughed, and Miranda felt like her
heart might leap out her throat. It was so nice to see Michael
share happy memories. "You never cooked for me," she said
teasingly, throwing her napkin at him.

"I might have tried to poison you if I had,"
Michael said with a wink. "In fact, how do you know I haven’t been?
Maybe that would explain certain things."

"You’ll notice I haven’t eaten too much of
what you’ve cooked yet."

"Right—mostly apples and cereal," he
whispered as he got up to clear the dishes. She blushed as Richard
and Zainab snickered.

Miranda and Michael fed each other a piece of
the cake and shared some with Zainab and Richard. Zainab insisted
on putting the small top tier in the freezer. "So you can have it
for your first anniversary."

"I think we need to make it to a week,
first," Michael laughed.

"Any doubts?" Richard asked.

Miranda squeezed Michael’s hand. "We’ll be
eating some on our tenth anniversary."

After coffee, Richard handed Michael an
envelope. "Congratulations guys," he said quietly. "Here’s
something I think you should have now."

Michael opened the envelope. Miranda saw the
contents—a document. Michael looked it over and looked up at
Richard. "Is this what I think it is?"

"It is," Richard said simply. "And it’s time
you had it."

"Are you going to share with the rest of the
class?" Miranda asked playfully.

"It’s a will," Michael said absently. "It’s
our grandfather’s will." He looked up. "It’s giving me half of his
estate."

"Oh!" Miranda said, turning to Richard.
"That’s some wedding present!"

"I thought it might be time anyway."

Michael looked over the document. "It’s
actually a little past time. Shouldn’t I have gotten this a few
months ago, when I turned twenty-five?"

"Technically," Richard nodded slowly. "But I
thought...it might not hurt to let the interest accumulate for a
few more months."

"You didn’t trust me," Michael said simply.
Then he shrugged. "Might not have been a bad call."

"So what are we talking about?"

Richard made a rough calculation. Zainab’s
jaw dropped to the floor. Miranda sat back in surprise. "Are you
serious?" Michael said. "Are you sure?"

"Roughly speaking, yes. Grandpa Hendrickson
was pretty conservative with his money. Microsoft would have been
too high-concept for him, but fortunately the IBM stock has split
sufficiently in that time to make up for it, and then some."

"How come I’m just finding out about this
now? Did—?"

"Alex had nothing to do with this. This went
through my dad, then my mother, then me as soon as I was old
enough."

Michael looked at the papers, but he wasn’t
seeing them. "I wish I’d known someone was thinking of me." He
smiled. "Thank you, Richard."

"That’s what family is for."

Richard and Zainab left an hour later.
Michael flopped onto the couch, dazed.

"So I guess if I ever come into some money I
should hide it for a really long time, huh?" Miranda said after she
finished doing the dishes.

"You...will never have to do dishes again,"
Michael said, patting her hands.

"Really? Because I thought I did a pretty
good job of avoiding them by not eating that much."

"And...you don’t have to work."

"Well, that’s going to be a relief, because
the last two weeks have been killing me."

"I don’t have to work."

Miranda laughed. "Maybe you should wait for
your accounts to clear before you turn in your resignation." She
sat on his lap. "I’m so glad there is something else that makes you
happy. Now I know that if anything ever happens to me, you’ll be
very happy alone with all your money."

He stood up, with her legs still wrapped
around him, and leaned her into the wall. "Tell me something, have
you ever made love to a very wealthy man?"

She thought for a moment. "I don’t think so.
Is it any different than making love to a sort of wealthy man?"

"Let’s find out.

Miranda should have been happy the next day.
It had been wonderful to see Richard and Zainab, and the money was
a very nice surprise. But Miranda wasn’t happy; there were at least
two other people she would have liked to have shared her news with.
Jessie, still, had to be handled carefully. Richard would let her
know when it was okay. Emily was another matter.