Wooing Cadie McCaffrey

by Bethany Turner

  Oliver and Nessa looked at each other questioningly, seemingly unsure how to answer that.

  “I’m sorry,” Nessa spoke up. “What box?”

  “I was going to propose on her birthday. Our anniversary. But then when you wouldn’t give us your blessing—” He threw his hands up in the air. “Never mind. That one’s on me.”

  “Well, like I was saying, I think we owe you—”

  Will growled to keep himself from hearing whatever Oliver was saying and couldn’t help but wonder if there was a romance movie in which the hero goes completely off the deep end in front of his love’s parents.

  “Sorry,” he said with a groan as he noticed how taken aback they appeared. “Really. I haven’t lost my mind. But I think you’re about to apologize for something and I’ll probably appreciate it, and it might make me not able to say some things that I really need to say. Please just let me say them.”

  They both nodded, and Nessa wiped away tears as Will continued.

  “Last year, you weren’t wrong. Not entirely. I wasn’t very driven and I wasn’t focused on moving ahead in my career. I was making enough money to live, and I loved my job. I guess it hadn’t really occurred to me that I needed to at least have the beginnings of a plan for the future. Cadie deserved for me to have a plan. She deserved to know that life would be good and safe and that she wouldn’t have to worry. I know that’s what you’ve always wanted for her.” He stopped pacing and stood in front of them. “But you were wrong for believing that just because I didn’t have a 401(k) or a house on Oyster Bay, I wasn’t the one to give her a life that’s good and safe.” He collapsed back onto the couch. “And I knew that. Even then. But I also knew how important your approval was to her.” He looked back down at his shoes, where his toes were now finally getting feeling back into them, and added softly, “No matter how archaic I think it is to ask for permission, your approval was important to me too.”

  “I appreciate you telling us that, Will,” Oliver said, no doubt sincerely.

  Truthfully, Will had always liked Cadie’s dad. Her mom too . . . in a more intimidating sort of way. But he’d looked up to Oliver and enjoyed spending time with him. Their relationship didn’t quite fill the void left by his own dad’s passing, but it had been important to him nonetheless.

  “The first time you told me no,” Will continued, “I got it. I was disappointed—kind of furious, actually—but I got it. I knew you were looking out for her and, I thought, looking out for me too. I’d already bought the ring, and I almost went ahead and proposed. That night . . . I still considered doing it. But you’d gotten in my head. You were right. She deserved more.”

  Nessa leaned in. “So you gave her a box?”

  Will smiled sadly. Regardless of the mood in the room, he understood why that piece of information required some follow-up.

  “The ring box. After you guys said no, I came up with this whole plan that I really thought she was going to love. I found out all this interesting history about the box, but most of all it was an important nod to something special in our history. The two of us. And I was going to bring it all full circle and propose in a few months, after I’d gotten some things squared away. But I couldn’t do it.”

  “Couldn’t do what?” Oliver asked.

  “I couldn’t get ahead. Not quickly enough, anyway. I looked at other jobs, but I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving that place I loved and not being in the same building with her every day. So I just worked . . . more.” He rubbed his eyes as they began to burn again. “I never should have let you get in my head.”

  Will watched as Nessa reached out and grabbed Oliver’s hand. Oliver took a deep breath and said, “You need to let me say something now. Okay?” Will nodded—hesitant and exhausted. “You’ve been like a son to us, and we never doubted for a moment that you were right for Cadie and she was right for you. No parents could hope for better for their daughter, Will. I hope you know that.” Oliver leaned toward the couch. “We never meant it to be a refusal. Truly. Only a ‘not yet.’ But looking back now, we can see that was a mistake, and we are very sorry that we said no that first time.”

  Will jumped from the couch in a flash of anger. “You’re sorry you said no the first time? The first time? What about the second time, Oliver? I mean, I asked her anyway, but—”

  Nessa stood. “I think it was all about the timing, Will.”

  “You said no because of the timing?” He threw his arms in the air again and said, “Clearly it didn’t make any difference anyway. She turned me down. Obviously.”

  He was just so very tired—of the conversation, of the day, of not having Cadie by his side.

  “I waited too long,” Will continued. “I . . . I shouldn’t have. . . .” He had to be careful. It wasn’t for him to tell her parents that he and Cadie had slept together. “Maybe it wasn’t the right timing, and that just makes me mad at myself. The right timing had been a year earlier, or a year before that, or a year before that, or any other countless number of chances. And maybe if I hadn’t cared so much about what you thought—”

  Oliver sighed heavily. “Will, we would have said yes the second time, but it seemed to us that you and Cadie weren’t as close as you had been.”

  “So you tried to make her decision for her? You had no right to do that!”

  “No,” Oliver replied, carefully, it seemed. “We called her.”

  Will looked from Oliver to Nessa and back again. “What are you talking about?”

  “While you and I talked, Nessa went in the other room and called Cadie.”

  “And . . . what?” The room seemed to be spinning. “Told her not to marry me?”

  Nessa sniffed and looked as if she wanted to reach out to Will, but she probably knew that her touch would not be welcome. Instead, her hands were left fidgeting.

  “No, Will. I just asked her if she was happy with you. I asked her . . .” She sniffed again, and Oliver held her fidgeting hands. “I asked her if she wanted to spend her life with you.”

  It didn’t make sense. Nothing about any of it made sense.

  Will crossed his arms because, probably much like Nessa, he didn’t know what else to do with his hands. “Are you saying she said no?”

  He’d messed up. A million times he’d messed up. He knew that. He knew he would have to make a lot of things right. He knew that she hadn’t forgiven him yet, and he knew that they would need time to heal.

  And he knew what she’d said to him when he finally asked her to marry him. That she didn’t love him anymore. It had never really occurred to him that she meant it.

  “You can understand why we couldn’t give you our blessing,” Nessa whispered. “I’m sorry, Will.”

  The end of the day looked very different than anything he had imagined.

  22

  Forever . . . In Spite of It All

  I’d been a good girl who had never broken curfew. As such, I wasn’t quite sure how to react, as an independent adult, upon walking into my apartment and finding my parents sitting there with serious expressions on their faces.

  “Hi, sweetheart. We need to talk,” my dad said.

  They’d texted me a couple hours earlier to let me know they had early meetings in the city and had decided it would be easier for them to crash on my sofa bed, if I was okay with that. Of course I was okay with that, but I also didn’t believe a word of it. My mother had no intention of spending a night on a sofa bed. I had no doubt that she was counting on me being the polite, considerate daughter I had always been who would willingly sacrifice her warm, comfortable bed.

  The way I was feeling, after the emotionally exhausting day I’d had, I was tempted to pull out the couch, throw them some sheets, and wish them luck on ignoring the intrusive metal bar in the middle of the mattress. The problem—besides the fact that I couldn’t imagine ever actually going through with a jerk move like that—was that there was another aspect of their story I wasn’t buying. I suspected they were there because they d
idn’t want me to be alone, after my emotional breakdown earlier in the day which, thankfully, was the only one of my emotional breakdowns of which they were aware. And while I found the hovering incredibly annoying, I also loved them for it.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked in reaction to the loving but sad expression on my dad’s face.

  “Will was here,” he responded. As if that said it all, when it actually took away any semblance of clarity.

  “He was here?” I asked, a little more shakily than I would care to admit. I sat down on the edge of my bed. “Why?”

  For almost a month after we broke up I had kept working with him—on the same floor of the same office building—and I had hardly seen him, heard him, or even talked about him at all. That was followed by three weeks during which the overpopulation of the tiny island we lived on kept us as isolated as if we lived on separate continents. But then, for the last twelve hours or so, he had seemed to be the only topic of conversation.

  “He was looking for you,” my mom spoke for the first time. “He showed up at the door playing Christmas carols, holding up a handwritten sign about you being perfect.”

  My cluelessness mirrored my mother’s for a moment, and then a smile overtook my face. It was a smile caused largely by confusion, but it was a smile nonetheless.

  “You’re kidding,” I whispered. “Did he . . . did he say anything?”

  My dad sighed. “Like I said, we need to talk.”

  About six minutes later, my brief period of stunned silence was coming to an end.

  “I—I—I don’t understand,” I stammered. “He wanted to marry me a year ago? Why would you have told him no?” Tears ran down my cheeks, and I just let them flow. “The second time I understand. Then, you were going off what I said. But the first time?”

  “It was wrong of us, Cadie,” my dad said. “We thought we were doing what was best for you, but—”

  “And you just held on to all of this information? Dad, I sat at lunch with you that day and cried about how Will had never asked me to marry him because he didn’t love me enough! And today, Mom? It never occurred to you that any of this might be good for me to know?”

  My dad hung his head. “I know,” he whispered. “At lunch, I wasn’t sure what to do, but then your mother and I talked about it and we thought it only stood to hurt you. We misread the situation. We were wrong and we’re sorry. You have every right to be angry—”

  “You bet I’m angry!” I shouted as I sprang from the couch. “I spent a year—starting that night, when he gave me the ring box—convincing myself he didn’t love me enough. Convincing myself he would never love me enough—not like I loved him. And all along . . .” I sank back onto the couch as painful realization dawned. It was almost more than I could comprehend. “It was that year of thinking he didn’t love me enough that drove us apart.”

  My mom stood and walked over to join me on the edge of the bed. She took one of my hands in both of hers and said, “We’re so sorry, sweetie. We really are.”

  Sobs overtook me and she immediately pulled me into her arms for the second time that day.

  The next thing I knew, sunlight was peeking through the blinds and illuminating a folded sheet and a couple of pillows sitting on the couch. I was in my bed, and the smell of bacon filled my apartment.

  “There’s my girl,” my dad said as I sat up. “I hope we weren’t making too much noise in here. Are you hungry?”

  I had no memory of falling asleep, or even of climbing under the covers, but I was keenly aware of a night full of dreams about Will.

  “No thanks,” I replied, shaking my head and stretching my arms over my head. “What time is it?”

  “A little after nine,” answered my mom. I watched her flip the bacon in the pan and I felt anger and sadness welling up inside of me as the memory of all I had learned the night before came rushing back to me. “Sure you don’t want something to eat?”

  I looked down to see what I was wearing and rolled my eyes as I realized I was still in the same blasted dress. “I said I’m not hungry.” I hurried to my closet, pulled off the dress and—finally—the pantyhose, and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Socks and sneakers quickly followed and then I headed toward the door. “I’m going for a walk,” I announced, paying them a courtesy I wasn’t sure they deserved. The fact was, I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to be in the same room with them. I grabbed my coat and opened the door.

  I don’t know who was more surprised—my parents, to whom I had probably never been so rude in my life, or the guy standing on the other side of the door, holding a bouquet of daisies, his hand preparing to knock on the suddenly wide-open door.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed. “Sorry.”

  Mr. Daisy Man had no sense of humor—or manners, I suppose—whatsoever, and simply asked, “Are you Cadie McCaffrey?”

  “I am.”

  “Here ya go.”

  He handed me the daisies and an envelope, and then he was gone. I couldn’t blame him, really. In the past twelve hours a cold front had blown in, and someone would have had to be pretty dedicated to stand still out there any longer than absolutely necessary.

  “What have you got there?” my dad asked, coming up behind me, and I was so curious myself that I momentarily forgot how mad I was at him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’re daisies, dear,” my mom called out from the kitchen, and I rolled my eyes again.

  “Yes, I know they’re daisies. I just don’t know why I have them.”

  I looked down at the envelope in my hands, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw my name written on the front in familiar handwriting. After everything? After all he said and all he heard? After all the times I wouldn’t listen? My hand began trembling, and I felt hope rise up in my chest.

  Hope? Where had that come from?

  I turned around and looked up at my dad, and as I raised my eyes, the tears broke free from the invisible shield that had been holding them in place.

  My dad smiled. “Do you want some privacy while you read whatever’s in that envelope?”

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  I saw my mom look around my open floor plan as she placed eggs and bacon on two plates. “Are we supposed to eat in the bathroom?”

  Giggling at the thought through my tears, I said, “You guys stay here,” and then I took my daisies and my envelope into my walk-in closet. I closed the door, kicked my dress and pantyhose out of the way, and sat on the floor to begin reading.

  Dear Cadie,

  I don’t know that I’ve ever written a letter to you before, and for that I’m sorry. Notes? Sure. Emails? Endlessly. But not an actual letter. The truth is, I just never thought of it. I never realized that maybe you would view it as romantic. In all fairness, until very recently I had never seen P. S. I Love You. If I had realized that Gerard Butler wrote letters, I would have gotten to it sooner.

  There are some things you need to know, and I’m fully aware that there’s a chance you could stop reading at any time, so let’s just dive right in to the most important.

  I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry that I gave in and that we made love. Okay . . . I’m already seeing why people don’t write letters much anymore. I wish I could hit backspace and rephrase that. (I probably should have written out a rough draft or something . . .) “I’m sorry that I gave in” and “I’m sorry that we made love” are two very different apologies, and they both feel very complicated. Also, if I’m being honest, I think “made love” is a ridiculous phrase, but any other way of saying it sounds crude and cold. But “made love”? What is that even supposed to mean?

  “I’m sorry that I gave in” makes it sound like I was resistant and you convinced me, but what I actually mean is I’m sorry that I gave in to my desire to be with you at that time—the wrong time for us. I am. The desire was always there, and it was always a battle not to give in, and that night I guess I was tired of fighting. I wish I had a better excuse than t
hat, but the truth is I wanted you, just like I’ve always wanted you, and on that one night I made the wrong choice.

  You talked about whether or not I had asked God for forgiveness. The truth is I hadn’t thought about it. As much as I hate to admit it, I hadn’t thought about anything other than you. I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t think about it. If you were to ask me that question again, I would honestly say that I have asked for forgiveness and I believe God gave it to me. And somehow, I think he’s used all of this to pull me closer to him. I realize now that somewhere along the line I started putting him on the back burner—in my own life and in our relationship. I really am so sorry, Cadie.

  I need to address the second part of the statement too. “I’m sorry that we made love.” Just saying that doesn’t feel adequate, though. It needs all sorts of qualifiers. I’m sorry that it happened when it did. I’m sorry we weren’t married. I’m sorry your first time will always be something you wish hadn’t happened. I’m sorry that I wasn’t more understanding and sensitive to what it was like for you.

  I’m sorry I look so irresistible in that suit. It wasn’t fair to tempt you that way.

  The tears fell harder than ever as I simultaneously laughed so hard I snorted.

  “You okay?” my dad asked from the other side of the door—a little too close to the other side of the door, actually.

  “Can you throw me a tissue or something?”

  Seconds later the door creaked open a few inches and a roll of toilet paper flew into the closet.

  “Thanks.” I tore off a few squares and blew my nose. “Now can you please not stand right by the door?”