“I love you too.” She pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it.
“I want you to think about moving in when your lease is up at the end of the year,” he said, very matter of fact, never taking his eyes off the road.
She was silent, it was what she’d wanted since they’d been snowbound, but now that it was there, in front of her, she was scared out of her mind.
“Cora,” he sounded nervous, “what do you think?”
“How did you know my lease is up?” She knew they were moving towards being together permanently, and even spoke about marriage in the abstract.
“The letter and new lease agreement were on your kitchen table, I saw it when I went to grab a beer the other night.” He could feel her hand tensing up in his, he had a sinking feeling he’d just fucked up, but wasn’t quite sure what he’d fucked up.
“I don’t want us to live together because it’s convenient for my lease, and I’m not comfortable with the fact that you read my mail and then started making plans about this without talking to me.” She pulled her hand away, she was being irrational, but her fight or flight was kicking in, six months in and she still hadn’t told him. After the second month of dating, they’d both gotten tested and stopped using condoms. She was on the pill, but it wasn’t for the reasons he thought, and each time she popped a little peach pill in her mouth she felt her lie of omission hanging over her head like a gray rain cloud.
“Well, I am talking to you about it. I haven’t made plans yet, that’s what we’re doing now, we’re talking and maybe making plans. I didn’t snoop through your mail, Cora; it was on the table. When I opened the bottle I saw it, I didn’t pick it up and read it through, I didn’t go through your drawers, and it’s not like I went through the stack of envelopes you keep in the mail basket on the counter.” Yup, that’s where he’d fucked up, bringing up her lease was not the romantic way he wanted to say I want you to share my house and my life.
“Can you take me home, I’m starting to get a migraine, I need to take a shot and be in the dark.” It was only partly true, she had a headache, which felt like it might turn in to a migraine, but right now she just needed to not be with him, to not be in the same space as he was, she needed to figure this out.
He drove her home, walked her up the stairs, made up an ice pack and pulled the curtains while she took her meds and got ready to crawl in to bed.
“Do you want me to stay with you, in case you need anything?” It was all he wanted to do, just take care of his girl.
“No, go home and watch the game. I’ll call you when I’m feeling better,” she said softly, not looking at him as she crawled into bed.
“Okay, but make sure you call me if you need anything at all. Your wish is always my command, Red, you know that.” He kissed her hand and let himself out of the apartment after making sure Gwennie had plenty of food and water. He left a pouch on the table for her, this one had a little house on it. Hopefully, she’d see it and she’d know what he’d meant to say before he fucked it up.
She didn’t call that night, just sent a text around nine that she was still feeling like shit. The next day she called in to work and chickened out by sending him another text, she was avoiding.
Kaelyn sent a text, and she ignored that, she was in full ostrich mode. The next day she called out sick again. She spoke to Dan on the phone, assuring him she didn’t need anything.
By two on Tuesday, Dan was getting frustrated and panicky, he’d done this thing with Cora the wrong way, but she was retreating, and there had to be a reason. He was going to go and talk to Kaelyn.
Knocking then the frame of Kaelyn’s cube, Dan figured this was probably a bad idea too but he was going crazy.
“What’s up, Dan?” Kaelyn, getting rounder by the day, motioned for him to sit in the guest chair.
“What’s going on with Cora? I feel like she’s hiding. I believe her when she says she has a migraine. She wouldn’t lie to me like that, but I also think she’s running scared after our talk this weekend about moving in together.” Dan ran his hands through his hair in frustration making it stand every which way. “I don’t think I started the conversation out right. I mentioned her lease, she freaked out about me snooping in her mail, and then it went from awkward to silent to me sitting on my sofa alone drinking a beer and watching the Sox with the cat pretty quickly.”
“If it’s any consolation she’s ignoring me too, but probably because she knows if she told me you asked her to move in, I’d tell her to start packing her shit. I can’t tell you why she’s hiding and why this is probably freaking her out, that’s her story to tell. She’s my best friend and this baby’s godmother; we’ve got secrets we’re taking to the grave.” Kaelyn made the turn key in lock and tuck it away motion on her lips.
“So what do I do? I’m afraid if I push she’ll retreat more, but I want her with me in my house, in our house. I’m going to marry her, please don’t say anything about it to her but I bought a ring and I’m making plans.” Why was he telling her that? He was not helping his case.
Kaelyn mumbled something through her closed mouth.
“What?”
Unlocking her lips, Kaelyn said, “My lips are sealed.” And locked herself back up tight.
“Okay, thanks. I’m sorry I put you in this position, I just didn’t know who else to ask.” He sighed as he got up to leave.
“Just go ask her, and don’t leave until she answers you or sends you away for good, which you and I both know she won’t do. She gets like this, she frightens too easily. You know it isn’t like she had a great example of a healthy relationship, or ever actually expected she’d get her own happy ever after. One thing you learn being married is that sometimes you have to dig in your heels until you get your way.” Kaelyn smiled and rubbed her bump. “Or maybe that’s just a wife thing.”
“Thanks, I mean it, I know you encouraged her to take a chance on me, on us. I can’t ever thank you enough for that. I’m going to clock out and head over; she can’t ignore me if I let myself in.”
Chapter 32
Cora heard the keys rattling in the lock and wondered why Mr. Smith was coming in. He hadn’t mentioned doing maintenance and she hadn’t asked him to take care of anything, and since her car was in the driveway, he’d knock first.
“Cora,” Dan called out from the kitchen as he closed the door behind him and made his way in.
Shit, I need to hide the ice cream, she thought as she scrambled to shove it under the chair and ran her fingers through her unwashed hair, she must look a fright she hadn’t showered in days.
“Hey Red, how are you feeling?” He walked in, plopped down in one of the wing chairs, picked up the remote, and muted the TV. “You’re out of bed so that’s an improvement.” Reaching out, he held her hand and gave it a squeeze and let go, sitting back in his chair.
“Yeah, it broke about an hour ago. I’m just drained and was watching some junk TV.” She was twisting her hands in her lap as she said it, she knew it was her tell, and she tried to stop before he saw it and called her on it.
“Something’s up and I need you to talk to me. I may not have asked you the right way, but this isn’t about your lease, or reading your mail. It’s about the fact that I hate sleeping alone, we spend more than half our time at each other’s place. I want to wake up next to you every day, fall asleep with you every night, the other stuff is just me being a guy and never saying anything the right way.” He kept his eyes on her, but she still hadn’t looked up from her twisting hands in her lap.
“Moving in is a huge step and there is something I haven’t talked to you about and I’m afraid when I do tell you about it you’ll cut and run and I’ll be alone, and I can’t stand the idea of losing you.” She still looked at her lap, her voice so small, struggling past the lump in her throat. “I figured if I just hid in my apartment long enough everything would just blow over, you’d forget you asked me…”
“Baby, nothing you say is going to make me lea
ve. I love you. This is the real deal and one day it’s going to be even more real.” He reached for her hand again, “Talk to me, it can’t be that bad, so bad you have to hide from me.”
Taking a deep breath, she looked up at him, her eyes already flowing with tears.
“I mentioned I’d had one serious relationship before, it was my senior year of college. I started dating a grad student in the Economics department, he was TAing one of my classes, cliché I know. Anyhow, we got hot and heavy. He was this escape from my life at home taking care of my mother, my sister and everything else. With Sam, I was just me, and he made me feel special, and beautiful. I was twenty-one, I was really quite thin and outgoing. A month before I graduated I found out I was pregnant. Sam freaked and disappeared for a few days. I was frightened and had no idea what to do.
“After a week he showed up outside one of my classes waiting for me, he had flowers and a ring and apologized and asked me to marry him. In retrospect, it was the wrong thing to do but at twenty-one you don’t know anything about life. He agreed to live at my place after we got married. He understood my responsibilities, and I thought he was okay with everything.”
“When I was about five months pregnant something went terribly wrong. School was done; I had graduated and was working for an accounting firm doing entry level stuff, long hours but between my sister and Sam we had everything under control. Then I was at work and I felt this horrible pain, then a rush of water and then a rush of blood, lots of it, like so much they replaced the carpet under my desk.” She couldn’t look up, she just twisted her bracelet. “Sorry that was such a weird thing to say.”
She stopped for a moment, and tried to gauge his reaction, but he just looked like he was listening, nothing else was evident on his face.
“Anyhow, by the time they got me to the hospital it was too late, the baby was gone. I’d always had issues with my cycle, apparently they were surprised I’d even gotten pregnant, turned out it was endometriosis and they had to perform a procedure both to fix the damage from the pregnancy and from having endo.”
She took a deep breath and worked to stop the tears. He was quiet and squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to talk about this anymore if this is too much.”
“No, you need to know so you can leave if you want to, you need all the facts. Basically at twenty-one, I was told I was infertile, permanently, like no chance of ever having kids. Sam blamed me, for that and lots of other things. He started sleeping with another student which was my fault because I was depressed and ate and gained weight and wasn’t the girl he thought he was getting, that I’d somehow bait and switched him. It got pretty ugly and we eventually broke up. Thankfully, we’d never actually gone through with getting married. By that point, my sister had finished high school, married a boy from church, and followed him when he joined the Army. I was in a bad place and couldn’t deal with my own shit and my mom and that’s the point when we decided assisted living was best.” A deep breath rattled from her chest and two fat teardrops fell from her eyes.
“Is that what you’ve been so worried about telling me all this time, Cora?” He came and knelt down beside her chair looking up at her, holding her gaze, taking both of her hands in his.
“Yes, I should have told you that night when you made me dinner, you had the right to know I could never give you kids, instead I kept it to myself. The pills I take are birth control pills but not to prevent pregnancy but to keep my estrogen levels balanced.” She drew another rattling breath. “If you want to go I understand. I’ll give you back your keys and we can figure out some kind of peace treaty for work.”
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, afraid of her answer.
“God no! But that night we had dinner at your house you said some day you wanted to have kids, and I can’t tie you to me if I can’t ever give you that.” She tried to pull her hands away but he held on tighter.
“I’m pretty sure what I said was I’m set in my ways. I never really thought about it and I might want to have some if I met someone and she wanted them, but I met you, Cora, and you’re what I want. I’m not with you because I want to keep you barefoot and pregnant in our 1950s kitchen. I’m with you because I love you and want to love you until long after I’m dead and dust.” He punctuated a statement with a kiss to both of her closed eyelids.
“But I lied to you,” she said so matter of fact.
“It was a lie of omission, not a blatant lie to my face. If we’re going to start confessing, my real answer to that question should have been, no, I don’t want kids, ever. I can barely handle my nieces and nephews. I just want someone to share my life, and I kinda want that someone to be you, my sweet Cora girl.”
She sat there silent, still looking down. he held both her hands in his. He noticed the house was on her bracelet, all wasn’t lost. “I see you found the present I left you.” He lifted her chin and gave her a smile.
“Well, I stepped on it this morning, apparently Gwennie thought it was a good idea to put it on the floor in front of the refrigerator, it kinda hurt, but luckily I didn’t squish it. I wasn’t sure you’d let me keep it. I’m still not sure, but I wanted to try it on for size.” She snuffled in a very unladylike fashion and wiped her nose with a tissue.
“Of course you’re keeping it. I meant what I said, I want us to be together, long term, like until one of us stops breathing long term. I didn’t ask the right way, and I shouldn’t have read the lease, but it doesn’t change the fact that I had every intention of asking you to move in to our house. I’ve wanted to since that first weekend we got snowbound. Do you remember that weekend, Cora? Because I do, it was the start of the best part of my life, the part where I get to be with you.”
Her voice so small, she looked up at him. “Of course I remember that weekend, it was one of the best times of my life.”
“So far,” he said with a smile, “one of the best so far. I’ve got so many other wonderful things planned for us. I intend to spend the next seventy years or so giving you times you’ll remember all your life.”
“Oh,” she said, a deep breath in and out, “okay.”
“To what? Seventy years, wonderful times, living in our house? Which of those things are you agreeing to? Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll be asking about that whole seventy years thing again properly when the time’s just right, and hopefully I’ll fuck it up less than this.” A half smile on his face, and love in his eyes he held his breath while he waited for her reply.
“Well, okay to the two offers currently on the table with an option pending negotiations for the third.” She kissed him on the cheek and sat back in her chair, drying her eyes, feeling the weight lift.
“That wasn’t a proper kiss, my girl, c’mere.” He reached out to pull her close.
“Oh no you don’t, Daniel Santagata. I haven’t showered since Sunday morning, I stink to high heaven and my teeth need a serious brushing, you sit here while I freshen up and then we’ll celebrate this decision the right way.” She tried to pull out of his reach as he grabbed for the sash of her light cotton robe.
He let her go and she wandered off into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Once it had steamed up she stepped in and let the water run over her. It was okay, he knew everything now, and he still loved her, wanted to spend his life with her, maybe one day soon he might even ask her to marry him.
Lost in her thoughts she didn’t hear the door open and close, it wasn’t until the curtain pulled back and Dan climbed into the tub that she realized he was there. She jumped, but he soothed her, picking up the body sponge, lathering up and washing days of grime, and her feelings of shame away, washing her clean. He held her close as he washed her hair, massaging her scalp, peppering her with little kisses while he tended to her needs, tender hands pampering her now as he intended to do for the rest of his days.
Epilogue
Friday, January 9, 2009
They were living together in their bungalow, a place they’d made their own. Guinevere an
d Lancelot were like long lost lovers reunited, inseparable from the time Cora opened her carrier and gave her run of the house. They’d bought them a larger dog bed so they could sleep comfortably together, one in front of the fire, and one in the spare bedroom upstairs. They ignored those and just slept on the bed in the spare room like two humans.
Christmas had come and gone. Cora was surprised, and if she admitted it, a little disappointed that Dan hadn’t asked her to marry him yet. Kaelyn had her baby and she’d asked Dan to be the godfather, standing up there with little baby Carmen they both felt settled in the fact that their life was already full, and they had family and friends around them and that completed them. That day he’d given her a Faith, Hope, and Love charm. She was beginning to feel spoiled by his romantic gestures. Her bracelet was her talisman when days were rough.
Kaelyn was back at work full time again, well mostly full time, she worked a couple of days from home. She was in the office today and Cora dragged her out to the diner for lunch. She wanted eggs and toast, and Kaelyn was easily convinced.
While at lunch, Dan sent a text saying he wasn’t feeling great and was going to go home and lay down for a while, he’d see her when she got home. He’d make something for dinner and she didn’t need to bring anything home.
When she reached in to her purse, there was a familiar pouch and a note.
This is the symbol for happiness, which you have brought me every day since that day a year ago when you smiled at me and my new beard and started something special. I love you. ~D
She smiled and showed Kaelyn, pulling off her bracelet and sliding on the charm. “I can’t believe he remembered the date of that meeting.” And on a dreamy sigh, she left far too large a tip and walked back to the office arm in arm with her best friend Kaelyn, the woman who had dragged her, carried her and walked beside her through so many things since they became friends.
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