You know these things can happen.
So I asked the universe for a little sign. The universe and I hadn’t been communicating so much lately, to tell you the truth. I’d gotten a little bit more practical, maybe, and things were humming nicely along on their own, without me doing spells.
But sure enough, ten minutes later I saw a nurse’s aide come in and sit down at a table with a sheaf of papers and a tired, worn-out expression. She started reading her papers, and fidgeting—and a few minutes later, a man in a uniform came in. I saw him look over at her and then look away. And look again and look away again. She was completely unaware of him until about the third time he looked at her, this time from three tables away—and then their eyes met, and guess what I saw.
Yep, sparkles. It had been so long since I’d seen any. But there they were, shimmering as beautifully as the sparklers we used to run around with on the Fourth of July. I closed my eyes, but the stars didn’t go away. They stayed there, plain as anything, like they were reaching out to touch us all.
As I was leaving to go back upstairs, I knew what I had to do. I stopped by the nurse’s aide’s table and I leaned down and whispered to her, “Don’t let him get away. Go sit with him.”
She laughed. “No way. He looks at me every day, and he has to come talk to me.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “it happens that he provides the spark, but then you have to make the next move. I know this might sound crazy, but I wouldn’t risk letting him get away if I were you. You and he are going to be great together.”
She looked at me, just the way people do when I’m telling them something that’s true and unbelievable, and something that’s also going to change their lives. “Okay,” she said, but I didn’t know if she really would. I didn’t want to tell her that the fate of the world depended on what she did just then, but that’s how it felt.
Janelle texted me just then, so I went back to her room.
Matt had left, although there was a smear of him lingering—a slight ruffledness to the air—so I closed the door to her room, and then I stretched out beside her on the bed, with the baby sleeping between us. I held her hand. Around us was the gentleness of the baby’s soft breathing, and Janelle’s slight sniffling.
I wanted to be there with her when the sadness came for her, when the hugeness of her gift knocked her over. I didn’t want to tell her stupid stuff like it was all going to be fine, or that she was doing the right thing. Instead, I told her the truest things I knew.
That sometimes love doesn’t look like what you had in mind.
That sometimes, even when we are doing everything right, our lives can start to look like a pieced-together bundle of problems, and we’re sure a terrible mistake was made in our paperwork and we got assigned to the wrong people.
I said there was mercy to be found in a good night’s sleep, a good cry, a hot bath, a cup of tea, and dancing alone in your room with the music turned up as loud as you can.
There is love out there for all of us, I said. Your heart may be broken right now, but as the great philosopher Blix Holliday said—the woman for whom this little baby will be named—love runs the universe. And because of that, it’s out there for us all. You just have to be braver than you want to be. The person offering it might not have been your very first choice.
I kissed her on the forehead. And I stayed there, holding her hand, until she fell asleep.
I put little Blix into her bassinet and I stood there looking at her for the longest time, blinking in gratitude as I took in the soft pink cheeks, the little fringe of dark hair, the sweet little hands that looked like tiny little starfish. So new to the world, so fresh and sweet-smelling, and with such a full life ahead of her. A life that I was going to help her launch. I’m here on the ground floor of this new, splendid life, I thought, and I was so happy to be in this moment.
So I leaned down and whispered to her that I’d come back for her tomorrow, and I would be her mama forever.
And that’s what is happening. She’s made us all a family, with her giant slobbery smiles and those wet openmouthed baby kisses. We’re not getting any sleep anymore, Patrick and I, but we don’t care. It’s May again, and in the early evenings, we sit on the rooftop with our girls, and we sing songs and tell stories, and he and Fritzie make little sculptures out of toothpicks and popsicle sticks.
The thing I now know for sure—and that Patrick is learning, too—is that no matter how dark it gets, how many times you fall down, love steps in to save us, over and over and over again. Oh, and that spirits can live in the toaster. Or anywhere you need them to be.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
One of the best things about writing a book is that, for quite a while, you get to live a whole other life. Once you think it up, writing a book is like taking a little vacation to another world where YOU get to control the situations. (Or a lot of them, at least. Characters do argue from time to time. I’m looking at you, Patrick!) Best of all, you get to enter this world each day and then leave again, closing the door on your characters and the situations you’ve put them in and returning to the world of friends, family, and figuring out what to cook for dinner.
I always become a little bit obsessed when I’m writing a book. And over the past year, Patrick and Marnie talked so incessantly and so much to me that I had difficulty simply walking away from them when it was time to try to be back in my so-called “real” life.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who have put up with me. To those who have helped me by listening to drafts, giving me feedback, encouraging me, cooking me meals, writing me letters, blogging, or leaving reviews on Amazon, I have been truly humbled by your attention and kindness. To all the readers who have contacted me and sent me their own stories of love and magic and heartbreak, who have welcomed Blix and Marnie and Patrick into their lives—thank you so very much.
I also must thank Kim Steffen and Nancy Antle and Leslie Connor and Beth Levine for reading early drafts and making suggestions. My writing workshop—Marcia Winter, Grace Pauls, Linda Balestracci, Sharon Wise, Laurie Ruderfer, Michellee Speirs, P. B. Baraket, Mary Ann Emswiler, Mimi Lines, Marji Shapiro, Robin Favello, and Sue Richman—helped me remember the advice I always tell them: Don’t be afraid to write badly at first. You can’t edit a blank page. Judy Theise let me spend many afternoons with my laptop in her beautiful living room and fed me cheese and grapes while I typed. Susanne Davis has listened to endless plot points. And Holly Robinson makes me laugh and keeps me sane when I’m going crazy. Alice Mattison, who is a master of fiction writing, helps me sort myself out again and again whenever I’m writing a book—and our conversations about our novels over sushi every month are everything.
My Lake Union author friends have been lovely and generous with their ideas and counsel and encouragement. There are too many of them to name, but I especially want to thank Kerry Schafer, Barbara O’Neal, Nancy Star, Marilyn Simon Rothstein, Catherine McKenzie, and Bette Lee Crosby for all their wonderful stories and generosity. Also, the Blue Sky Book Club has been the best fun!
I am so lucky to have Jodi Warshaw as my editor at Lake Union. She always knows exactly what needs to be done with a plot or a character, and she makes everything I write so much more clear. Besides that, she’s so much fun to talk to! Nancy Yost, my agent, is a whirlwind (in the best possible way) of energy and ideas, and keeps me on track and makes me laugh. Many thanks also to Danielle Marshall and Dennelle Catlett and Gabriella Dumpit of Amazon Publishing, who have been unfailingly kind and helpful and have helped me believe in magic again and again.
I also want to thank my kids, Ben, Allie, and Stephanie, and their spouses, Amy, Mike, and Alex, for reading and listening—and endless thanks to Charlie, Josh, Miles, and Emma, who remind me that writing isn’t the only thing that exists in the whole world. (There’s also mini-golf, soccer, baseball, Legos, guitars, ukuleles, hammocks, Minecraft, and pugs.) And of course, all my love to Jim, whose love makes everything possible, always.
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br /> BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
Marnie and Patrick have what he calls the perfect life—they love each other, and they can do anything they want whenever they want. But she wants a baby and thinks she can’t live without being a mom. What advice would you give to a couple navigating their way through this kind of basic disagreement?
Marnie is a matchmaker who sees sparkles in the air when people might be a good match for each other. Have you ever successfully brought any couples together? If so, how did you know they were meant for each other?
Patrick has what he considers airtight reasons for not wanting to bring a child into the world, including his disabilities due to the fire. Was he correct to be worried about how his child would experience his limitations?
Tessa decides to leave Fritzie with Patrick soon after she locates him. She had never let him know that he had fathered a child with her nine years ago. What long-term effect do you think this would have on a child?
Fritzie is a handful, getting herself into trouble and causing headaches for Marnie and Patrick. Yet she seems able to draw people to her when she needs to. What qualities did she possess that make Marnie, and then Patrick, start to love her?
Marnie believes in magic. She believes in signs, and she thinks she hears from Blix if she stands near the toaster. She feels that magic might have been responsible for bringing Fritzie into her life, the same way magic brought Patrick to her. Have you ever believed in magic? Do you think there are energetic forces that we don’t fully understand?
Marnie’s mother has been married for over forty years and now feels she can’t go on any longer with a man who simply wants to watch the golf channel and not communicate with her. Marnie thinks her parents still love each other and should remain together. Have you known people who have this late-in-life urge to separate? Were you sympathetic toward Millie’s feeling that she’s no longer necessary now that her kids are grown and gone?
Patrick has a change of heart during the time he is responsible for Fritzie. What led to the realization he came to during Marnie’s absence? Is this a transformation that you think will stick?
Blix had a mantra that Marnie also tries to follow. It’s “whatever happens, love that.” What do you think this really means, and how does Marnie—and finally Patrick—put that mantra to work in their own lives?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2018 Dan Mims
Maddie Dawson grew up in the South, born into a family of outrageous storytellers. Her various careers as a substitute English teacher, department-store clerk, medical-records typist, waitress, cat sitter, wedding-invitation-company receptionist, nanny, day care worker, electrocardiogram technician, and Taco Bell taco maker were made bearable by thinking up stories as she worked. Today Maddie lives in Guilford, Connecticut, with her husband. She’s the bestselling author of six previous novels: Matchmaking for Beginners, The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness, The Opposite of Maybe, The Stuff That Never Happened, Kissing Games of the World, and A Piece of Normal.
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