She giggled, knowing full well that my answer was, yes, perfectly.
So why did I feel like crying?
Safely tucked in bed by eight o’clock, Emily went right to sleep. I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down to read, thinking that a good book would help me relax. When Don walked in moments later, I was surprised.
“You’re home early.”
“Yep.”
Don always went straight to bed or sat in front of the teleview when he got home. Right now he was standing in the family room doorway with his hands behind his back.
He’d gotten a haircut.
“These are for you,” he said all in a rush, and thrust a bouquet of roses at me.
“But…”
“Happy anniversary.”
“Don,” I said, taking the flowers, “our anniversary was in May.”
“I know that. But remember how hurt you were that I forgot?”
I didn’t remember being hurt in the least. He’d forgotten every anniversary except the first one, and frankly, I’d gotten used to it.
He knelt before me and took my hands in his. Too startled to think, I let him. He was still good-looking. His brown eyes twinkled and his mouth curved into the smile that I fell in love with so many years ago.
Encouraged, he took my book, closed it, and sat next to me. Tentative, his fingers stroked my forearms with light touches, moving upward in slow circles. He cupped my chin and kissed me, softly. My eyes sought his as we parted. What could have caused this change?
He pushed my hair behind one ear and pulled me close. “Tell me what’s new with you and Emily,” he said.
And so, with my head on his shoulder, I told him about the doctors and their diagnosis, and worries about Gran. I left out the part about the shuttle, which was tricky, but I sensed that he wasn’t analyzing my story too thoroughly anyway, probably because there was so much to catch up on.
We sat there for a long time and I talked. It felt wonderful. I turned to look at him. That sparkle in his eyes was what did it for me. I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, happy to feel the tingle again. The tingle I’d thought was gone for good.
When I described my visit to the holo-home, Don started to ask questions. Yes, it looked just like Gran’s house. Sure, she could have an outdoor and an indoor world. She could even plant flowers. Could she change the program? No. That would be up to me. The goal was to make her feel as though she was truly at home and not in an artificial environment. State of the art? Absolutely. Expensive, too.
He made a passing comment about wanting to see this holo-home, and in my naivete, I jumped at the suggestion.
“That would be great, Don. You have no idea what it would mean to me to have you see it too. I mean,” I shook my head, my hands making helpless gestures, “it just doesn’t seem right to send Gran to one of those places. You know?”
I should have known better.
Don grinned. “Yeah,” he said, “I would love to see one of those things. They’re supposed to be just like that Sensavision I want, only better.”
“Sensavision.”
“Now that you got your chance to talk, I thought maybe I could tell you some more about the Sensavision.” He reached into his back pocket, displacing me from his shoulder, and pulled out another brochure, different than the one we’d argued over. “You’re gonna love it, I just know.”
I was dumbfounded. He continued, oblivious. “Y’see what a nice time we had tonight, with me home? I’d be home every night if we had one of these. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Sitting up, I grabbed the flowers. “Is that what this is all about? You trying to look like a sweet and thoughtful husband so you could romance me into buying one of those?”
His eyes told me he was confused by the question. But his shrug told me more.
I threw the flowers to the floor. “You fooled me. I’ll give you that. Here,” I went to the banking console and inputted the code that transferred funds from my trust account into a debit disk. He watched me, the whole time, his eyes alert, not contrite. I waved the silver disk at him. “Buy the stupid thing. But don’t ever pull a stunt like this again.”
The next day we sat in Gran’s kitchen.
Emily sat at my feet, and I sighed with pleasure. For the past hour, she’d been pressing Gran’s door chimes over and over. Programmed to play Emily’s favorite song, “Whatsa Whatsa,” they’d been the hit of the morning. I was relieved she’d finally gotten bored with the game.
Gran sat down next to me, “So. What are you going to do about it?”
I bit my lip. Complaints about Don had just fallen out of my mouth. I usually tried to keep marital discord safely under wraps, but today something had snapped. And now Gran knew it all.
“Marry in haste, repent at leisure, isn’t that how it goes?” I asked. I was kind of kidding, kind of not.
Gran snorted. “I married your grandfather knowing him only two months,” she said, her blue eyes telling me an important point was about to follow. “And a finer man, a better lover, there never was.”
Settling in for a “talk,” Gran continued. “We knew. We both knew that no matter how many years we had together, no matter how many thousands-no-millions of moments we had-they were never going to be enough. A lifetime together was just going to be the start. And we knew that right off.”
She looked at me. “So it isn’t that you married young, or quick, honey. It’s that you married someone who couldn’t make you the center of his world.” Offering me her ever-present cookies, she added, “I’d move on, if I were you.”
I hadn’t expected that. I took a pink sprinkled cookie from the plate, even though I didn’t want one. “What about Emily?” I asked, “She deserves to have a father.” I looked over at my daughter, singing to her doll, crumbs covering both their faces.
“You think Don’s the best one for the job?”
There it was. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“No one could have talked me out of marrying Edwin. They had no right. If you would’ve asked, I would’ve given my opinion. But you didn’t, so I kept my mouth shut.”
Not for the first time since my consultation with the doctors did I question their sanity. Gran was the most lucid person I knew. I needed Gran’s company. I craved her advice, her insight. These were not the rantings of a crazy woman.
If it weren’t for that shuttle thing.
She handed Emily a photo imager just like the one she’d let me play with when I was little. “Take lots of pictures for Grannie, Emily.” Then she dug into her pants pocket. “Here,” she said.
It was a debit disk.
I didn’t understand.
“Take it.” She shook it a little, tapping my arm. “There’s enough here to cover what you took from your trust. And then some.”
“But…”
“I don’t need money where I’m going.” She grinned and sipped her iced tea.
“Don?”
He nodded, his eyes glazed, fastened in rapt attention to the scene playing out on the Sensavision before him. “Oh!” he said. “Ah!”
Leaning in the doorway, I watched him.
The Sensavision, nine feet tall and twelve feet wide, took up nearly an entire wall of our family room.
Though it stood two-dimensional, Don was standing on the bridge of a futuristic spaceship. It looked a lot like the one from the sci-fi television show he liked to watch. He wore a uniform of sorts. Several people around him, similarly clad, smiled up with looks of bland adoration and called him “Captain.”
I looked at the far wall out the spacecraft’s window where stars went on endlessly. Yeah, Don was sure imaginative if this was the best he could come up with.
A hiss, a puff and one of the hidden modules released some experience-enhancing aroma. I wrinkled my nose, not knowing what to expect.
I sniffed, then smiled.
Cinnamon.
This stripped-down version of the Sensavision was all I’d been willing to buy. Don wanted the top of the line model, but I’d finally put my foot down.