Desert Chemistry

When they all stood together at the altar, the North in blue and the South in gray, I thought of the Civil War and giggled to myself.

David's nieces Sophie and Lisa and Maggie's daughter Isabelle made the cutest flower girls, in matching pink dresses. Little Casey carried the rings.

Picking out my dress was the last and hardest part. I looked at all the standard confections, frilly, lacy, fussy things. I even tried a few on, but none of them felt like me. Before I met Anne, I never wore dresses at all, except to Mass, and I still preferred simple and plain to anything else. After my third unsuccessful shopping trip with Maggie, I finally saw what I had been searching for: a pearly satin sheath with a halter top that tied artfully behind the neck. Maggie nodded excitedly when I pointed it out, and she hugged me when I tried it on. "It's perfect," she said. "Absolutely perfect."

~~~

Anne was the first of the out of town visitors to arrive, on Tuesday of the big week. I was hoping she would bring someone, maybe her friend Christine, but she came alone. We had dinner together that night, just the two of us, and the tension between us from our last time together was gone completely. Our relationship was firmly in the past, tinged with regret but still one of my happiest memories. She put on a happy face for me, and I could tell she really meant it, but I could also tell she was lonely for herself. Anne did eventually find love, right after she stopped looking for it, but that's another story.

My family, Anne's parents and all the rest of the Boston friends and relatives arrived between Wednesday and Friday morning, along with David's parents from California and assorted others. I had met David's parents once, briefly, but David hadn't met my family at all.

The bachelorette party was a casual Thursday night at the house. Anne herded David out around five, and he spent the night in Joan's guest room. Cate came to the party and the wedding, a whole different person from the insecure, troubled girl who had lived with me the year before, and I was so proud of her. Standing next to Anne, they could have been sisters, and I wasn't the only one to notice. Melissa and Julie added a happy surprise to the night by announcing their three month anniversary together.

As one of the bridesmaids, even if we didn't call him that, Alex was invited, and he was a good sport about it. He was there for the first few hours of munchies, drinks, and board games, and he even managed to enjoy himself. He may look like a linebacker, but he's a sweetie, and he stayed as long as he could. Playing Cards Against Humanity with a bunch of women, including his sister and his girlfriend, was bad enough for him. When we all changed into bathing suits and went out to the Jacuzzi, he politely excused himself and left. Joan and Maggie went home to their children, but some of the other partygoers stayed overnight, and it turned into a grown-up slumber party.

~~~

We had the rehearsal dinner out in the dessert north of Scottsdale at Rawhide, a touristy simulation of an Old West town. When David was growing up, it was way out in the boonies; now it's rapidly being surrounded by suburbia. The Boston people all got a big kick out of it, and the food was surprisingly good. More importantly, it was a chance for our families to get to know each other. I had worried about that a lot, but fortunately everything worked out. I'm not sure my parents and David's could ever really be friends - their backgrounds are too different - but they got along well enough. Our fathers warmed up to each other when they discovered a shared interest in old cars, and our mothers quickly started telling embarrassing stories from our childhoods and talking about grandchildren. I did my best to ignore them. David actually got up and walked away from the table at one point.

The wedding day was beautiful. The sky was that crystal clear blue that I so love about Phoenix in winter, and the temperature was perfect. The only glitch was a rented crate of glasses getting dropped and shattered, hardly a tragedy. I have only hazy memories of most of the day, shaking lots of hands and drinking champagne and eating and dancing, but the big moment where David and I each said "I will" remains crystal clear. I will, not I do. A continuing commitment to love each other.

~~~

We stayed overnight at the Royal Palms, the resort where David proposed, before driving to San Diego for a weeklong honeymoon. Three more big life moments came out of that night, the kind of moments that change the course of your life.

The first moment was making love as husband and wife for the first time. I had stopped taking the pill, and we had stopped sleeping together, a month before the wedding. It was torture for both of us, but it made our wedding night that much more special.

I wore the same silky white camisole that I wore the first time David and I made love. I tried to wear it regularly then, but I discovered I'm more of an oversized tee shirt kind of girl, so the camisole was put away and saved for special occasions. Needless to say, our wedding night qualified.

After that first wonderful, terrifying night together, I had become more confident and assertive in bed, but on our wedding night I stood still and trembling, unable to move. The month of abstinence, the overwhelming emotions of the day, and the knowledge that I was ripe and fertile had all wound me up and made me crazy. I felt that wonderful tightness in my belly and tingling at the back of my throat, anticipation and excitement.

David was as calm and loving as ever, and I was so grateful that he was in control. At first he just held me, kissing my head and telling me he loved me. I wrapped my arms around his broad, muscular back and hugged him close.

The nerves faded and the excitement intensified. David kissed me, tender and soft at first and then fierce and passionate. I felt the fire in him and returned it, probing and seeking with my tongue and caressing with my hands. Before long, his boxers had fallen to the floor, followed by my panties. David suddenly broke our embrace, and I gasped as he swept me up into his arms and carried me to the bed. The camisole came off as he laid me down, and I was naked and exposed.

"I love you, Allison," he said, voice full of wonder, as if he couldn't quite believe I was real.

"I love you too," I said. "And I'm right here. Make love to me, husband."

That was all the encouragement he needed. He climbed into bed with me, and we wrapped ourselves around each other, lips pressed together, hands exploring. His fingers traced little tingling trails across my skin, and his warm, wet kisses left cool spots in the dry dessert air. I shivered when his mouth found my breast, and a bolt of lightning shot through me when his strong hand settled between my legs.

His fingers took my breath away, rubbing and stroking and caressing. Magic fingers. I leaned back into him and he held me tight as I came in his hand, shaking and panting.

Before the spots cleared from my eyes, he was inside me, filling me up. I snuggled into him, wrapping his arms around me, and rocked my hips back to take him all the way in. In that moment, all that mattered in the world was David inside me, giving my body to him to show him how much I loved him. The pace quickened, and my whole body sang with pleasure. I cried out as I came again, and I felt his body shudder as he emptied his seed into me.

Afterward, we laid together silently for a while, foreheads touching. We were both aware of the possibility of a seed taking root, but afraid to speak of it out loud. I couldn't imagine ever being happier. I gently nuzzled David, kissed him, and said, "I love you."

I was looking forward to making love to him well into the night, rediscovering every way we could make each other feel good after the month of sleeping apart. I could tell by the look in his eye that David was thinking the same thing.

Our bodies, though, knew better. David returned my kiss, still holding me, said, "I love you too," and closed his eyes. Before I knew it, he was asleep and I was well on my way. That's okay, I guess, I thought to myself just before drifting off. We have plenty of time. We have our whole lives together.

~~~

The second life moment came later that night or sometime the next day. Doing the math, I figured it probably happened somewhere in the Arizona dessert between Gila Bend and Yuma, though the error bars on that calculation are way too large to be sure. Some mothers say they know when they conceive, that they can feel something magical, but I don't believe it. There's no credible biological mechanism. I expected it to happen, hoped for it, but I didn't know for sure until well after we were back from the honeymoon, when I peed on a stick and the indicator turned pink.

The third moment I didn't even expect, and I didn't find out about it until months later. A few days after I conceived, the blastocyst growing inside me collapsed and split in two, and the one life I carried became two. Twins!

~~~

Four years later...

We did what we wanted to do with Palo Verde, and we sold it to a big lumber and paper company headquartered in Seattle. Some of the big energy firms were interested, but the Seattle company, with its tons and tons of lignin-rich waste, was the most likely to use our idea to make a real difference in the world. Leo, the other investors, and the university all made a very substantial return on their investment, and David and I made enough that we'd never have to worry about money again.

Most of the staff left after the acquisition. Aditi and Dale accepted jobs in Seattle, and David and I were happy that there would be someone we knew to look after the process. Gretchen and the older Bob both retired, a few years earlier than planned. Gretchen became a very happy full-time grandmother, and Bob turned his photography hobby into something of a second career. Sandra and Laurie both went back to school, Sandra in chemistry and Laurie in nursing. Maggie went on to work at the VC firm that handled our financing. She had done great work managing Palo Verde through its short, productive life. In her new job, she could apply that experience to help dozens of startups. I lost track of what happened to the other Bob and the rest, but with the acquisition payout, they could afford to do whatever they wanted to do.

David and I moved to Seattle to manage the transition. We rented a condo downtown, with a view of Elliott Bay outside the living room window and an easy commute to the office in Pioneer Square. Meaghan, one of our upstairs neighbors, turned out to have gone to high school with Anne's friend Christine. Small world. Meaghan was married to a woman named Sarah, and the four of us became friends during our time there.

Our daughters, Annie and Joanie, were happy, giggly, blonde, blue-eyed angles. They loved Seattle, just like they loved everything. At three, the world is a fascinating place. Coming home to them every night after work filled my heart with joy. I'm sure they were also fussy, cranky, unholy terrors, and I know they tore me apart being born, but somehow I don't really remember the bad parts as clearly.

David was wonderful with the girls, cheerful and patient, and he loved them just as much as I did. Lucie was gentle and protective of them from the moment they came home, and she tolerated their pawing and pinching without complaint.

Before we married, David and I promised each other that when we had children, we would both keep working, and we did. It was hard, being away from my babies, but I couldn't imagine life without science, so we made it work.

The transition lasted six months, and then David and I had to figure out what to do for the next chapter of our lives. We had plenty of offers, universities that wanted both of us. Some of them were tempting, including MIT in Boston, but in the end, there was only one choice. We both took faculty positions at ASU and moved back to Tempe. Back home.