Catch of a Lifetime

I thought that at least one of them should go in her bedroom. I got a shock when I turned on the light. There on the wall opposite the bed was the same picture of me she had mounted in her study. She never told me about it. It was no objet d'art, that's for sure, but that's not why I cried when I saw it. It was positioned - intentionally, if I knew Dara - so it would be the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw at night. If she wanted to see my ugly mug at those times, the only explanation was true love, and lots of it. The only other picture in the whole apartment was a smaller one of Kara and Julia hugging, laughing, and looking into the camera.

I barely made it out of the apartment before 5:00, the time Dara's clinical ended. I would have been okay with her finding me there, as I had the excuse of the groceries. Still, I would rather keep the surprise, so I beat it out of there. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as I showered and got ready for bed. There was a message from Dara on my voice mail thanking me for the groceries and saying she loved me. I smiled at that, too.

Dara left a message each time she found a card. She laughed at the rhinoceros; she cried (I hope they were happy tears) when I said I was proud of her, and she couldn't believe I had the audacity to hide something in her underwear drawer. (Why not? She hid one in mine. What was this, a double standard?) I saved one of her messages; I have it still.

"Canyon, thank you for doing this. Last weekend was so hard on both of us. You doing this, tells me you really do understand and you truly believe we're going to be okay. We're going to work hard and make it together. You're my hero and you're my lover, and you're the best man I know. I love you."

I had hoped the card trick, even though it was borrowed, would lower the tension from the weekend and get us closer to normal, and it seemed to have worked. I wasn't sure what to expect on Dara's next weekend home, however. I had meant to take some pictures of her with short hair so I could get used to seeing her like that, but there didn't seem to be time. I definitely needed to do that this visit.

I never would have expected what I saw when Dara's car door opened. This large ball of multicolored fuzz slowly emerged. Viewed whole, it seemed about four feet wide and projected well above the roof of the car. When it started walking toward me, I could see Dara's laughing face looking awfully small in the middle of it. She seemed to be walking funny, whether because she was laughing so hard at me or because of the weight of that thing on her head, I couldn't tell.

It was a wig, all right, the worst I've ever seen. My mouth gaped open as I contemplated the atrocity. If she paid more than $4.95 for it, she was criminally overcharged.

"Well? Aren't you going to kiss me?" She could barely get the words out for laughing.

"Kiss you? First, I have to find you. Get that thing off, if you can." I thought it might require power tools and a derrick, myself.

"No way, Buster. You said I'd look beautiful even in a fright wig, and I'm holding you to it."

"Not fair. I had no idea anything like that existed outside of a nightmare."

"Fair. There's more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. Now shut up and keep your promise."

I know when I'm licked. I took my Dara in my arms, and did what she told me, repeatedly, to both of our satisfaction. Besides, I knew she'd have to take the thing off before we went into the house: it was too wide to fit through the door. It did its job, though: every time I thought about missing her long hair, a picture of that abominable wig came into my head, and I found I was quite satisfied with her current style, thank you very much. That Dara, she's pretty smart, isn't she?

We didn't talk about much serious stuff that weekend. We went for a long ride Sunday, and just had fun together and smiled and laughed a lot. I did get my pictures, which I printed and put on my dresser next to the cards after she left.

By Thanksgiving, Jim (formerly known as Mr. Oops) was enough a part of Julia's life to be invited to the festivities. Dara stayed at my house, and I brought the barbecued turkey again. Jim turned out to be a good guy, and the four of us had a great time together. It had snowed, and I took them all sledding out near my house.

Saturday was still study day, and I'd invited myself over to Julia's to keep myself out of Dara's way, and quiz her about developments with Jim. I'd begun to feel sort of responsible, as if I were part of the family. I fully intended that to happen, but I still wasn't sure about the timing.

Julia put me in my place when I asked about Jim. "I'll tell you when you need to know," she said. Then she smiled and added, "Maybe. I still owe you two for that horrible shock you gave me last summer. It wasn't even eleven o'clock, for crying out loud!" We both laughed.

"So when are you going to propose to Dara?" she asked. I stammered and turned red. "Maybe I should start to question your intentions toward my daughter, young man."

I mumbled something, I have no idea what, but whatever it was, it amused Julia. "Maybe you'd better get your own love life in order before you pry into mine," she said tartly. Her smile took the sting out of the words, but she did get me thinking. Dara and I both assumed we were together for the long haul. We'd pretty much said so to each other. Maybe it was time to make it official. When I watched Dara's taillights as she headed back to med school, the "there goes my heart again" feeling decided it for me.

It was pretty conventional after that. I asked Julia for her permission (I'm old school enough for that); in return for her assent, I made her go ring shopping with me. We found a good one and had it sized. I proposed Christmas Eve in front of a roaring fire, after a long, quiet walk in the snow. The bit where I tripped on an imaginary crease in the rug was not planned, but it did get me on my knees in sort of the right place, and it made Dara smile. Somehow, I managed not to lose the ring. Yes, she said yes.

I hadn't thought it would make much of a difference, but when I saw Dara off the day after New Year's, I realized it did. Somehow, we were both more sure of each other than we had been before. Not to the point of taking each other for granted, but just surer. I liked it.

A couple of things stand out from the rest of Dara's time in med school. During her next to last semester, I got a call from someone who said they were the assistant dean, and she wanted to talk to me, preferably in person. I asked Dara what was going on. She didn't know; all she knew was that the assistant dean had wanted my phone number. I showed up, and actually put on a tie for once. I figured you did that for assistant deans of med schools.

We greeted each other, sat down, and she got right to the point. "Your time is valuable and so is mine, so, let's not waste it. Dara is the best student in this class, and she'll make the best doctor. She's determined and caring, she's stable, she's empathetic and she's incredibly smart. She's always said she wants to go into research. She'll do well there, of course, but I think it's a waste of her talents. Have the two of you ever talked about her going into practice?"

We hadn't, and I said so.

"I hesitate to ask this, because I don't usually interfere in our students' lives to this degree. Dara's such an exceptional case, though, that I feel I have to. Could you broach the subject with her, and encourage her to consider it? She's ideally suited for general practice or any other direct care specialty. The money's better in research, I know, but there's a real need for people with her skills, and I have to try."

I thought for a moment. "Dara's commitment to research isn't something she takes lightly," I said. "She's thought about it a lot, both before and during her time here. In addition, she has a very strong sense of being called to research, as if it's something she has to do. I can't explain it completely, but it's there and she won't go against it."

"Ah," she responded, "a vocation, in the literal sense. You aren't Catholic, are you?" I shook my head. "I wondered because some Catholics think of vocation like that: something you're called to do. Well, that's that, I guess. If she feels like she has a call, it's not for you or me to interfere. Too bad, she'd have made a great GP. Still, I'm sure we'll be hearing from her, one way or another."

She briskly ended our conversation and ushered me out of her office.

I had arranged that I'd take Dara out to dinner, since I was already there. I shared the conversation with her.

"I wouldn't have thought of the Catholic thing," I said, "but I think she's right. I knew a Catholic couple some years ago, and they had that same understanding of a call. I don't think I really understood it until the Weekend of the Hair, but I think I got it then."

The other event I remember was Dara's Commencement. Julia, Jim and I watched her, shortest in her class, lead them all in to receive their diplomas and hoods. Yes, she finished first in the class. One of her friends had told her about a tradition they had in her law school: graduates could put a paragraph in the Commencement program about someone who they wanted to recognize as they graduated. Dara had proposed it for the med school Commencement, and it had been accepted. She had written:

"Canyon, my hero and my best friend, my rock, my support, my inspiration. Without you, I wouldn't be here. With you, I can do anything."

We had to wait a week after Commencement for the wedding, because Julia and Jim wanted a double wedding with us. We decorated Kara's grave the day before, that is, Julia and Dara decorated; Jim and I dug, carried, heaved, got dirty and pulled out credit cards. We each had our part. It was something they felt they had to do, and when that happened, Jim and I both knew better than to argue.

That was three years ago. Dara got a job at the pharmaceutical lab where she'd interned. She fit right in, and the lab was making great strides; she was being considered for Head of Research before her thirtieth birthday. Then she felt another call.

Yesterday, I could barely see through my tears as the maternity nurse carried our beautiful twin girls in and laid them gently in their mother's arms. Dara held those precious bundles as they nursed, and looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I just wish Kara could see them," she whispered.

"I think she can, baby," I told her. "I think she can."