Sunday Brunch

And Robyn pregnant with Robyn Lynn, and even the one picture of Rob and Tim and me all together, Rob in the middle. I forget who took that one, but the great thing about that photograph is how we all look - three people, with three different complexions, who are just really, really happy to be together.

And I told her about our relationship, her mother and me. And how we spent every moment we could together and talked on the phone all the time when we couldn't. And how we laughed about the same things, and how when one of us was hurting we cried together. And how we shared almost everything that could be shared. And how much we loved each other.

Then Robyn started having her own questions. Asking me to tell her more about her mother, and about all the things we did as girls when we were growing up. And eventually she got the idea of what a "cousin" is and what that meant about her mom and me.

Then, probably inevitably, she started asking questions about her father. And we had to explain, how there was "this man that her mother knew 'for a little while,'" but that he... that he what? Isn't around now? Didn't stay? Anyway, he wasn't here anymore. We knew the time would come when she would have more questions about this man, and I guess we'll have to deal with them when that time comes, but that will have to happen on Robyn's timetable.

But then she turned her questions toward Tim.

"Mommy, isn't Tim my father?"

Tim and I looked at each other. We had expected this question, but we weren't prepared for it right now. And we weren't expecting it to be asked in exactly that way.

"Yes, Sweetheart, Tim is your father. He isn't the one who helped your mother make you but..."

And then I remembered what Robyn had accidentally said, that time when she first told us she was pregnant and wanted Tim and me to be godparents.

"But Tim loved...," I turned my eyes to him, and I saw his slight nod, "Tim loved your mother, and your mother loved Tim, and she wanted Tim to be your father... and now he is."

Robyn sat there, not saying anything, like she was processing what I'd just told her. Then she got this serious look, like she had finally decided something.

"Marlys calls her father 'Daddy.' Should I call Tim 'Daddy?'"

"Yes, Sweetheart - I'd think Tim would like it very much if you call him Daddy."

LOTS OF YEARS LATER...

Our Robyn is having a baby!

In a few hours Tim and I are going to be grandparents, to an amazing baby boy.

And, yes, now we do look like grandparents. I'm fifty. My not-so-big breasts aren't as high as they were the first time that Tim saw them. And my dark, unruly hair isn't so dark, although it's still unruly. And Tim thinks I still look cute for a 50-year-old grandmother-to-be.

And Tim - well, at sixty-one his body's not quite as "trim" as it used to be - as it was when I first saw him, in the light coming through the hotel bedroom window, that first night at the Marriott. His "average brown hair" has average gray streaks in it now, and he wears his wire-rimmed glasses almost all of the time.

But it turns out it's mostly been like that '60s song, the one that was playing on the car radio - the one that Tim sang to me when we were driving home our second time together.

And when he looks at me he still gets that look. Yeah, that same look, the same smile he had when I leaned over his table and filled his water glass, that very first day.

That smile, that after all these years still says, "There you are! I've been looking for you."

There may be some tears

Through the coming years

All the while I know you'll be smiling

Your love will guide me through ev'ry mile 'cause

You're the one that I long to kiss

Baby, you're the one that I really miss

You're the one that I'm dreamin' of

Baby, you're the one that I love *

Stupid Sunday brunch...

* Lyrics by Georges Aber /Petula Sally Clark/Tony Hatch © Carter Studios, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.