Traffic was light on Eighth North as they drove east toward the gray wall of Mount Timpanogos. In the dark calm they both sighed. They’d set out twelve hours before as boyfriend and girlfriend (nominally), fiancé and fiancée (briefly), bride and groom (temporarily). They returned as husband and wife.
Connor pulled into the turn lane at 2200 North in Provo and waited for the light to change. “Didn’t your parents meet on their missions?”
“Mom transferred into his zone when Dad had only three months to go. He extended it to four, which usually isn’t allowed. Dad says the mission president let him stay a month longer because he was the only man Mom would listen to. Mom says he asked to stay a month longer because he was in love with her. I gather they were both right.”
“So your father had to wait for her. That’s a switch.”
“He enrolled in the semester abroad program so he could be in Japan when she got off her mission. When I was a little kid I thought that was so romantic. I still do. From what I’ve heard, he didn’t tell anybody about her. She came back with him at the end of the semester, and he said, ‘Here’s my fiancée.’ They got married a month later. It’s funny to think of your parents ever being as crazy and impulsive and in love as you.”
“Not as crazy as us.”
Elly laughed. “They actually had an engagement, except they didn’t tell anybody. I suppose they didn’t tell anybody because they thought people would object. Though I think people objected more because Mom and Dad didn’t tell anybody.”
Wanda had left the garage door open. Connor parked the car and shut off the engine. He clicked the remote under the visor, switching on the overhead light. The creak and rattle of the closing door died away, and the interior of the car filled with a muted, gray light. They sat there in silence for a minute.
“Well,” Elly said, “I’m home.”
They got out of the car. Connor retrieved the toaster oven and frying pan from the back seat and Elly got her new outfits. Wanda was at the kitchen table, reading a book and sipping a cup of cocoa. She said, turning a page in the book, “Your parents sent you a wedding present. It’s downstairs.”
“Parents?” they both echoed.
“Connor’s. I’m afraid Lynne let it slip.”
Connor gave his wife a guilty look.
“What did they say?” Elly asked.
“Congratulations, of course. I told them you were going to Japan over Christmas. They said they hoped you would come to Maine in the spring. And they expect wedding pictures.” She glanced up from her book. “I’m pretty sure I heard my brother mumble something about wishing that all their children’s marriages went this easily.”
Elly pouted, “So you’re free and clear. No fair!”
Wanda got up and set her cup and saucer in the sink. “I’ll see you two sometime tomorrow. Good night.”
“G’night, Oba-chan,” Elly said.
The new table sat in the middle of their kitchen. The varnished oak gave the room—it’s freshly painted walls still bare—a welcome warmth. Connor placed the frying pan and toaster oven on the counter. Elly hung her dresses in the closet, turned around, and stopped in amazement.
“Connor!” she called out, “come see this. Your parents got us a new mattress set.” She sorted through the stack of linens perched on the bed.
“Plus a set of sheets, a comforter, and two pillows.”
“A nice make too.”
“There’s a box taped to the card.” Elly peeled off the box and handed it to Connor. He slit the cellophane tape and opened the lid. He smiled. “What?”
“Read the card first.”
She read: “Congratulations, Connor & Elaine. Wanda tells us that Elly is a lovely girl. We wish you the best. Mom & Dad. The necklace was my mother’s. It’s about time I had a daughter-in-law to give it to.”
Elly gave Connor a puzzled look. Connor stepped forward with the box. “See?” he said.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Are those real pearls?”
“I believe so. She’s told me that story before, now that I think about it, supposedly in case I needed to bribe a girl into marrying me.”
Elly held the choker in the palm of her hand, the snowy pearls glowing in the warm, incandescent light. “Here,” she said to Connor, handing him the choker. She lifted up her hair so he could fasten the necklace. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled the back of her neck.
A few minutes later, Elly said, her voice hoarse with ardor, “We’d better make the bed.”
They tucked in the mattress pad and the sheets. Connor retrieved the comforter from the kitchen table. They shook it out and glided it to rest on the bed. He said, “This is a lot easier with two people.”
“It ought to be a custom.”
Elly sat on the edge of the bed. The bed didn’t have a headboard—the wall served instead—so she fluffed the pillows into the right angle formed by the wall and mattress. She stretched out with her head on the pillow. “It’s a good bed,” she said, patting the comforter beside her.
Connor set the pillow next to its companion. He kicked off his shoes and stretched out next to her. “Especially the cinderblocks,” she added.
“It’s a solid foundation.”
She rolled over and pressed against his side. She could feel the beating of his heart, the warmth of his body radiating against her like summer sunlight. “How’s married life?”
He answered with a kiss, his hands slipping to her sides, over her hips, and like a ship steering through calm waters, leaving turbulent currents in its wake. By the time his hands sought harbor at the small of her back, she had abandoned any restraint or delicacy.
His lips trailed down to the hollow of her throat. She groaned with unabashed contentment. But she felt compelled to say, catching her breath, “I think we should finish getting ready for bed.”
They fell easily into the routines the dreams had taught them. Elly undressed and Connor went to the kitchen to brush his teeth. In the bathroom, Elly debated for a half-minute, then stripped off her undergarments and left them in the clothes hamper. For the first time in many years she thought of Becky Hoggan and that slide. She shook her head and had to smile. If she knew then what she knew now—but she couldn’t have known, could she? No one ever did.
Connor had left the marriage certificate on the bureau. Elly picked it up and lay on the bed. Connor came out of the bathroom and gave her a double-take. “I don’t think I’ve seen you wearing glasses before.”
“What do you think?” She tipped her head to the side and shot him a coy glance over the rims.
“You look like the sexy woman scientist in any James Bond film. You know, put horn-rimmed glasses and a lab coat on a fashion model and her IQ automatically shoots up fifty points.”
“What about a half-Japanese brunette?”
“Makes her a genius.” Connor got in beside her. She snuggled against his shoulder. He said, indicating the marriage certificate, “Your grandfather said they’d send us a fancier one.”
“Don’t you think this one has a particular air of bureaucratic authority? Though it really ought to have a big, red seal on it. There’s nothing more official looking than a document stamped by the proper Japanese government agency.”
“Can you get a marriage license in Japan if you’re already married?”
“If you want to get legally married in Japan, you have to record the marriage at city hall. Then you have the family register amended—that is, if the husband or wife is Japanese. Since the Oh family domicile is listed as Osaka, it’ll be easy. Mom will probably have all the paperwork ready when we get to Kobe.”
“All I know about family registers is that the wife’s record gets transferred to the husband’s koseki when they get married.”
“Not if the husband doesn’t have an active register,” Elly pointed out, “or if it’s a muko-iri marriage and the wife’s family adopts the husband into their line. Then he goes on the wife’s koseki.”
“That means your father is listed on the Oh koseki.”
“Yes. We all are. You don’t mind, do you? I mean, it’s more of a genealogy-type thing, since neither of us is a Japanese citizen. But then you can officially wear the Oh family crest. You did, you know.”
“I did?”
“In dreams. You wore it in our dreams.”