Page 153 of Almost Not Quite Engaged

Birdie is the first to fully arrive. “The travel book.”

“Liesel and Bill are coming along to shoot a companion piece. A sort of making-of. We're calling that Three Reasons too.” I pause.

Kat says, “We're leaving just after the holidays for eight weeks.”

“Eight weeks,” Nan says.

“Doctor cleared us. We’ll be back in plenty of time,” Kat says, and her voice is completely steady, which I know costs her something. Everyone laughs and Rob takes Nan's hand. Rob raises a glass and says, “Congratulations, wait.” He shushes everyone. “Why would a doctor need to clear you?”

Kat bounces on the balls of her feet.

My mom yells, “Plenty of time for what, exactly?”

Kat looks at me. I look at her. We have this conversation without speaking, the way we've been doing since a dirt path in Utah but without the stick.

She turns back to the room and puts her hand on her stomach. Just rests it there. Doesn't say a word.

Rob gets there first and lets out a laugh that fills every corner of Rhinebeck. Jack raises his glass without being asked. Colin, who has known for three weeks and has been carrying it around like a live grenade, exhales so completely he almost folds in half. Ginny takes his arm and beams at us over his shoulder.

Anna claps wildly and Courtney rushes to hold us both. Even though they already knew. Porter and Ben hoot from the corner.

Then Nan and Birdie figure it out at the same moment and the sound they make together is not a word in any language I know. Dolphins can understand them but no one else.

My mother reaches Kat first and takes her face in both hands and says something I can't hear over the noise that makes Kat close her eyes for a second. Nan is right behind her and wraps her arms around both of them and the three of them stand there in the middle of the party and I have to look away for a moment because I wasn't prepared for that and I refuse to cry in Nan Taylor's living room in front of Rob Taylor who will absolutely tell this story for the rest of his natural life.

Jack gets to me before I've fully recovered. He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes once and doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. Jack Jackson has never needed words for the things that matter most and neither, it turns out, do I.

“You did all right, son,” he says finally.

“Working on it,” I say.

He laughs and I hear Kat's laugh from across the room rise above all the other noise, the specific one, the loud inappropriate one I used to loathe.

The mothers have already started planning. I can tell from the way they've migrated toward each other with their drinks and their expressions. They think they're getting a wedding and a baby.

They're getting one of those things. And we get two months in places they can't pronounce. Along with Liesel arguing about lighting and Bill filming everything and a book that starts with a broken flower and a silent hike in Utah and ends somewhere we haven't been yet.

Kat extracts herself from the cluster and comes back to me. Her eyes are bright and her dress has a small smudge on it already, origin unknown, and the naupaka earrings catch the light when she turns her head.

“How are you doing?” she asks.

“Good. Really good, you?”

“My mother just asked if we'd considered a June wedding.”

“What did you say?”

“I said we'd consider it.”

“That's a lie.”

“I've gotten better at them.” She leans into me and I put my arm around her. “Come on daddy.” She pinches my ass. “Hit me with three reasons tonight was a good idea.”

“First of all, that's creepy now. Not daddy. Not from you.”

“Even if I say it dressed up in a leather corset and no bottoms?”

“Especially then because that means I can see the bump.”