Three Wishes

The ritual of the Birthday Bash began when the triplets were in their twenties. They decided to hold a celebration for themselves with nobody else in attendance. This particular year, Gemma is three weeks away from delivering the baby. The women decide to try a new seafood restaurant, and all agree to have fondue. After their birthday cakes arrive, Gemma announces she has a surprise for them. She saved a school assignment they all completed when they were 14. It was supposed to be a letter from their teenage selves to their adult selves 20 years later about what they hoped to have achieved in life.

Lyn’s letter describes almost everything she actually has achieved by her thirties. Cat’s is similar but doesn’t mention a baby as something she wants. Gemma’s letter is unfocused and vague about accomplishments, but it strikes her as significant all the same. Gemma thinks, “It wasn’t so much the things that her fourteen-year-old self wanted. It was the fact that she so blissfully, so completely, believed she had a right to want anything” (310-11). Unexpectedly, Lyn announces that Charlie has the right to know about his child, so she calls and tells him. While Lyn and Cat snap at one another over this decision, Gemma makes a startling announcement: She’s changed her mind about keeping the baby and about keeping Charlie in her life.

It takes a few moments for Cat and Lyn to absorb the shock of Gemma’s announcement. Cat is angry because the baby plan wasn’t her idea in the first place, but it gave her hope and a distraction from her vendetta against Dan and Angela. She thinks, “All that softness and sunshine had been snatched away, and Cat was back out again in that bland wasteland of memos and office cubicles and divorce proceedings and nobody waiting for her to come home” (314-15). Cat is also furious at Lyn for telling Charlie about the baby, and Cat’s temper once more gets the better of her. After announcing that her sisters have ruined her life, Cat hurls a fondue fork at Gemma. It pierces the skin and protrudes from her belly. Shocked by her own actions, Cat faints, cracking her jaw against a chair leg in the process. Lyn calls for a paramedic team.

Although the fork didn’t penetrate Gemma’s skin deeply enough to harm the baby, she has started to feel contractions. All three sisters are loaded into an ambulance. Gemma calls Charlie, and he’s waiting for them by the time they arrive at the hospital. Cat is feeling so guilty about her actions that she makes a deal with God and promises to behave for the rest of her life if Gemma and the baby are spared. A short while later, Gemma delivers a healthy son. Maxine and Frank arrive on the scene to welcome their grandson. Cat broke her jaw when she fainted, so it’s wired, and she can’t speak, but Gemma tells her, “I thought of the baby as yours […] All the way along. I swear to you. And then all of a sudden, I started wanting—I wanted the baby and I wanted Charlie. I wanted everything” (321).

The chapter ends with an observer’s story. An old woman is talking to her cat about the day she spent sitting by an oceanfront walkway. She noticed three women who must have been sisters, holding a newborn and entertaining a toddler by blowing soap bubbles. The observer notes that one of the sisters is sad. The old woman wants to tell her:

Oh, darling, don’t be sad. Whatever it is that’s worrying you will probably turn out to be nothing. Or eventually it just won’t matter anymore. And one day all you’ll remember is blowing soap bubbles on the Corso with your sisters (322).

Cat agrees to meet Dan for a face-to-face conversation because he has something to tell her. They’ve been legally separated for seven months. Cat’s jaw is now functioning again since the fork incident happened six weeks earlier. When Dan arrives, he announces that his company is transferring him to Paris, and he’s taking Angela with him. Cat is envious because moving to Paris had been a longtime dream when she was still married to Dan. She receives the news calmly but tells him to go so that he won’t see her cry. Cat thinks, “It was nearly an exquisitely tragic moment except that as he got to the embankment, he tripped […] Well, exquisitely tragic moments weren’t really her thing. Farce. That was more her style” (327).

Nana Kettle is spending a quiet evening at home watching television when a brick comes flying through a back window. Before she knows what’s happened, a burglar enters and punches her in the face. He steals whatever valuables he can find and runs away, leaving her lying on the kitchen floor. When Nana’s neighbors find her the next morning, she’s taken to the hospital with minor injuries. The entire family agrees that the old woman needs to live in a safe retirement community.

Maxine and Cat help sort out Nana’s house before her move. Maxine challenges Cat to take the opportunity to remake her own life as well. Cat is sullen and still feels resentful as she contemplates all her losses. She thinks, “It was pride that was holding her back. There was something pathetic about the rejected wife bravely pulling herself together […] She wasn’t going to be a good little girl stoically picking up the pieces” (338).

A few days later, Cat gets her driver’s license back and is legally behind the wheel of her car again. She’s going to Lyn’s house to meet Lyn’s ex-boyfriend Hank, who’s visiting. Cat suspects that Lyn might be trying to set the two of them up. On the way there, her mood brightens, and it occurs to her that getting on with her life isn’t a sign that she’s given up. It’s a sign that she’s fighting back. After her visit at Lyn’s, Cat gets back in her car: “There were goose bumps of possibility on her arms. Her fingers danced a celebratory jig on the steering wheel” (342).

When Hank arrives at Lyn’s house, she’s disappointed that he’s grown fat. Michael is overjoyed because he doesn’t present a threat. The couple entertains Hank with a barbecue dinner as he talks about his latest publishing project. Hank is having trouble finding an author who can effectively give advice to teenagers. Lyn thinks immediately of the email chain between Kara’s friends and Cat. She borrows Kara’s copy of the messages and has Hank read them immediately. When Cat arrives, Hank asks her to put together a book proposal for a teen advice project. He thinks a good deal of money could be made from it, and Cat consents on the spot to write the book.

A few days later, Lyn goes to visit her parents. Her father seems to have aged ever since the attack on Nana. Maxine confides to Lyn that she plans to cheer Frank up by proposing marriage to him. Lyn protests that the two of them had a terrible marriage in their younger years. Maxine points out that they aren’t the same people anymore. Recognizing the truth of that statement from her own life, Lyn gives her parents her blessing.

The family is in a tizzy preparing for Frank and Maxine’s wedding. Gemma and Charlie ready little Sal for a stay with his grandparents. The elders are still deeply suspicious of Gemma but love their new grandson. Gemma has gotten over her fears that Charlie will turn abusive when he’s angry. She’s also learning to forgive herself for almost giving away both Sal and Charlie. Later that afternoon, the wedding is held outdoors in a park overlooking the ocean. Everyone is on their best behavior, including Maddie. The photographer Lyn hired takes a wonderful candid photo of the entire family after the ceremony. Nana is showing the triplets her tai chi moves, which the girls all copy. Charlie and Michael are sharing a joke together. Maxine and Frank are holding hands: “Maxine has turned back to watch her daughters. One hand is shading her eyes. She’s smiling” (355).

The book concludes with an observer’s anecdote. The speaker is Olivia, the waitress in the restaurant where Cat threw the fork at Gemma. Olivia happens to be walking along the waterfront, where she accidentally stumbles across Frank and Maxine’s wedding party. Much to Olivia’s surprise, the triplets remember her and come over to chat. Olivia is relieved to learn that the fork didn’t hurt Gemma’s baby, and she’s impressed by how lively the triplets are even though they’re so old.

Cat points toward the wedding photographer and tells Olivia that he was in the restaurant that night too. He helped Cat get into the ambulance after she cracked her jaw on the floor. He also gave Lyn his business card, and that’s how she hired him to take the wedding photos. Cat announces that she’s going to ask him out on a date. Olivia says, “I thought her sisters were going to have heart attacks they were so excited. So she went off to talk to the photographer. By the look on his face, I reckon he said yes, for sure” (358).