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Penny and Luke waited for their father to finish his story. They had not expected this when they sat down. They thought, oh, he will tell a cute little story and call it quits. Dinner had to be done by now. Probably getting cold.
Ted took a breath in.
***
It was after your Aunt Robin and Uncle Barney’s wedding. I sat talking the ear off this nice attentive woman. I told her all about my decision to go to Chicago and how I came to feel I needed to. Then, I came to mention the beautiful woman in the band, that I had almost talked to, almost been introduced to. The woman motioned and there underneath a yellow umbrella stood your mother.
Our conversation was all that I needed to know she was the one. The one I’d been waiting for.
***
We got married and had two beautiful children, and as adults do, I grew apart from my friends. Lily and Marshall were busy with their children, and we tried our best to connect you whenever possible, but it became harder and harder. We lived too far away from one another and on too different time frames to stay in touch so often.
Barney and Robin meanwhile were happy for a time. Really happy, but they both lived such busy lives. Robin was constantly away on trips, and Barney was busy when she was home. He had never been the most consistent person, but it had never been a problem when she was nearby all the time. As they both gained promotions and found themselves busier and busier, finding time for each other fell lower and lower. Until one day, they realized there was no marriage at all left to be seen. They both always told me it was mutual, and I believe it. I think they both realized that they were holding each other back more than anything. So they parted ways and focused time on their careers. They were happier that way. I saw them both on occasion, rare, like Lily and Marshall, and rarely at the same time. But they always seemed amicable when they did cross paths. I think they always kept up on each other’s careers, because they always seemed to know more than I did.
***
Then Robin found out she had cancer. It hit the whole group hard. We all tried to be there for her, but you know how your Aunt Robin can be. She’s stubborn and willful. She kept going to work long after she should have stopped and refused any help. But as she got more and more sick, those above her decided they could see it and so could their viewers. They forced her to take a break. She went to Barney before anyone else. That to her was the end of her life. Barney and her sat down and they discussed her options. Finally, Robin went back to the producers and talked them into letting her do local stuff. She even said she would do story on cancer and break it to their viewers that she was battling cancer.
The flowers she received. A lot of people followed your Aunt Robin, children. They showered her with gifts. She maintained a public appearance as she struggled through different treatments. I never once saw her cry. Not when she went on the treatment which made her lose her hair, nor when the producers told her she had to get a wig to cover the hair loss.
Barney stood by her the whole time. When she started getting sick late as night, he forced her to move in with him again. At some point, they began sharing a bed again, but I don’t think it was sexual. I think it was just for the comfort of it, and so Barney could find out when Robin was sick and not getting sleep. Robin constantly pushed herself and Barney made her stop and rest.
I wish we had all been brought back together by something else, but that’s what did it. When Barney went to work, Lily and Marshall, your mother and I, we would all take turns to go visit your Aunt Robin. I am so happy we did, because that meant you two got to know her. I know it seemed strange to you at the time, but I think that was the first time I saw her enjoy children. Your antics distracted her from how bad she was feeling. She began inviting over you and your cousins even without us. I don’t know that I would say she liked kids any more than before, but she enjoyed you.
When she finally came to the end and couldn’t get out of bed, Lily, Marshall, your mother, and I felt certain Barney would put her in the hospital to live out the remainder of her days. Instead, he surprised us all by insisting on taking care of all her needs himself. Hospice came and set him up. He took off work indefinitely and stayed by her side the whole time. I don’t think Barney ever stopped loving your Aunt Robin.
The rest of us, and you kids, still visited them both, more by then to keep Barney company than anything else. Sometimes I wondered if I should have kept bring you kids there, but I can’t have imagined it without the life you brought into rooms.
The night she passed, Barney called us about half way through the night.
“I think it’s happening.” We all rushed over as quick as we could. We all surrounded her in our pajamas, you kids dozed off on Barney’s bed in the other room. I don’t know how much you remember of that night, but it was probably one of the hardest of my life.
I don’t think we could have made it through without all of us there together. Lily and Marshall would join your mother and I to go over to check up on Barney, who probably took it the hardest. Then one-day Barney stopped seeming sad, but he still wasn’t right. He went back to picking up girls at the bars, and nothing we did or said could persuade it away from it. To this day, Lily swears he only did it because he was lonely and couldn’t handle an empty apartment.
When Barney was approached and informed he knocked a woman up, we all thought for sure he would flee to Guatemala. Instead, that baby was born and she became his world. Ellie, he insisted on naming her. When Lily asked why, he told her, “Robin liked that name.”
I had never once heard of her mentioning names she liked at all, but when Lily tried to get more out of him, he shut up and changed the subject.
Whatever her namesake was, Ellie changed Barney’s world and we saw the Barney who existed when Robin and him were together. We were all so happy, and you kids all hated us for the play dates we set up even though you were all such different ages. Sure we still don’t spend more than a couple days a year, things always seem to get in the way. We barely talk on the phone.
But the reason I met your mother, the reason all you kids know each other, the reason you are even here today, is because I met your Aunt Robin.
I thought for so long that Robin was the one. My love for her kept me dumping one woman after the next who I might have married without her. Then, Aunt Robin’s wedding finally brought me your mother, who had been narrowly missing me for so long.
***
“So when you ask why the story has to be so long, kids, it’s because it is a long story. I owe my beautiful family to Robin. My beautiful family who I know will love me in return because I ordered pizza,” their mother sang from the doorway. She smiled at her kids and her husband. It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was her prefect life. Robin would never become a memory, because she existed in every space in their lives. When she looked at her children, when she looked around her beautiful house, when she looked at her husband who loved her with all his heart, except for that part of his heart always reserved for the woman who brought them together.
Penny, Luke, and Ted scurried to the kitchen to enjoy their spoils. Tracy watched them go.
Robin, she thought, thank you for making my husband fall in love with you in the bar that day so many years ago.