The Hopefuls(8)

On the day of the wedding, Matt and I agreed we wouldn’t see each other before the ceremony. But we met at a doorway, and stood on opposite sides with the wall between us, reaching around to hand each other our wedding presents. He gave me diamond earrings and I gave him a watch. The photographer took a picture of us, holding hands through the doorway, still hidden from each other. It is one of the most ridiculous pictures I’ve ever seen.

—

Years later, Colleen told me that my marriage to Matt was a result of terrorism. When she said this, we were at her apartment, lying on the couch and eating licorice out of a giant plastic container. I stopped mid-bite, squinted my eyes at her, and waited for her to explain.

“You know,” she said, and took a bite of her Red Vine, “everyone was afraid they were going to die then. So many people had died that it was all anyone could think about. People were looking for anything that made them happy, and they moved fast, like there wasn’t a lot of time left.”

I wanted to defend my marriage, tell her that our relationship was strong and good and I would have fallen in love with Matt no matter what was happening in the world. But then I thought about what it had been like that month, how Julie was always in bed and how anytime we turned on the TV we heard about survivors and victims and babies being born who would never know their fathers. I thought about how claustrophobic it was in the apartment, and how from the moment Matt and I met, it felt like we were racing toward something, so eager to get to the finish line.

Every so often, it worried me to think that Colleen was right, that we’d gotten married because we were scared. But then I thought about Matt in those pants covered with little dogs, the way he blushed when Colleen teased him, and I figured there were worse ways to end up with someone.





Chapter 3


A few days after my disastrous trip to the grocery store, we were supposed to go to dinner at Matt’s parents’ house. This wasn’t unusual—we were expected every Sunday—but part of me hoped that just this once we could get out of it, that maybe Matt would agree to cancel.

“I’m sure they’ll understand if we tell them we need to unpack,” I said that afternoon. “And we have food now. We can make a real dinner.”

“I already told them we were coming,” Matt said.

“I could even make sloppy joes,” I said. It was a little desperate to try to bribe Matt with his favorite meal, but I wanted nothing more than to curl up and have a quiet dinner. For as long as we’d known each other, Sunday nights were a time we spent together, actually cooking instead of ordering takeout, trying out complicated and involved recipes. When The Sopranos were on, we religiously made large pasta dishes and ate in front of the TV. Now Sunday nights were no longer ours. When I’d mentioned that we were never going to be able to watch 60 Minutes again, Matt just said we could DVR it.

“We’ll do sloppy joes another night,” Matt said. He reached out and pulled me onto his lap, put his face in my neck until I laughed and said, “Your loss.”

—

It honestly didn’t occur to me that moving to DC would mean seeing Matt’s family all the time. Sure, I figured we’d see them more. Maybe we’d meet for dinner every few weeks—they lived in Maryland, about forty minutes outside of DC, just far enough away to be truly inconvenient. But looking back, it’s clear that I was delusional, that I had underestimated the power of the Kellys.

Matt was one of five children. He had three older brothers and one younger sister. And like most big families, they were loud and secretly thought they were funnier and a little more special than everyone else. When Matt’s mom found out I was an only child with no cousins, she’d drawn in a sharp breath and said, “Oh, isn’t that too bad,” as if I’d just told her that I was an orphan or had cancer. Or maybe an orphan who had cancer. I could tell she pitied me and pitied my parents, that she thought the only family worth having was a large one.

When people complain about their in-laws, I usually just smile and make some sort of sympathetic noise, but I don’t offer any details about my own. It’s too much to get into, and once I start talking about them, it’s hard to stop. I’m sure there are worse mothers-in-law that I could’ve gotten. I’m sure that’s probably true.

Barbara Kelly (called Babs by everyone except her grandchildren, who called her BB) was a tall woman, just a couple inches shy of six feet. Standing next to her, I felt even shorter than I am. (“At least you know he’s not marrying you because you remind him of his mom,” Bit said to me at the wedding.) She kept her hair in a brown chin-length bob, and no matter the time of day or the weather, it always looked perfect. I never saw one hair out of place, and sometimes I’d stare at her head and try to figure out how she did it. Babs loved tennis and golf and was often in a tennis skirt, even on the days she wasn’t playing. She wore a lot of pinks and greens, favored polos, and usually had a sweater tied around her shoulders.

Early on, it was clear that Babs and I wouldn’t have a close relationship, and I was fine with that. She didn’t seem all that interested in me, or in any of her daughters-in-law for that matter. She referred to us as “the outlaws” and sometimes made us sit at a different table at family dinners. “Kellys over here,” she’d say, pointing to the dining room, “and outlaws this way.” The first time it happened, I thought it was a joke until I noticed my sisters-in-law heading out to a table on the sunporch and I stood where I was for a moment before finally just following them out there, taking my place at the table of non-Kellys.