Beyond Eighteen

by Gretchen de La O

  Max cleared his throat and the last sliver of sunlight seemed to wait for us.

  “I can’t explain what happens to me when I am with you. You are my purpose for getting up in the morning and the reason I want to be the man I am every day. I brought you out here because I wanted to tell you that I understand how important this place is to you…how much this completes you to be here. And I want you to know I will do everything in my power to keep your grandparents’ house for you…for us.”

  I felt him shift before he lowered himself off the bench in front of me.

  “I know we have a lot of growing to do, but I’d be a fool not to tell you how I feel. I don’t want to waste another minute without you. I will wait for you, I will follow you. I will be the only man you will ever need.”

  Max pulled a small, black velvet box out of his jacket pocket and opened it. “Wilson, babe, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Will you marry me…someday?”

  My heart thundered in my stomach. My butterflies cheered and my lungs clenched, keeping every ounce of air from letting me breathe. I couldn’t speak. Tears poured from my eyes so fat, I couldn’t even see the ring. All I could do was nod ‘yes,’ over and over again.

  Max rose, catching me in his arms. We stood up, my legs weak by what he’d just done. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t call up my voice to even say yes…God, I was totally and completely in love with him. I never expected him to propose to me. Not right then. No wonder his heart was thundering in his chest. I pulled him tighter against me. He kissed my neck, then ran his lips across my check and pushed his mouth against mine. He tasted better than ever before…the salt of my tears mixed with the refreshing flavor of the ocean. He tasted like home.

  Finally I was home…the way I wanted home to be. Max’s kiss became something different. It was something I was going to have forever. The night sky swathed us into being the only two people in the world, the stars our guests, the waves our music, as we started our life together.

  “I never put the ring on your finger,” Max whispered. I looked at him, his face in silhouette, the glistening stars faintly lighting his complexion. His cheeks were damp; it wasn’t just my tears I tasted against his lips.

  He pulled my left hand up to his chest and rested it there. “Do you feel my heart?” he asked as he pulled the ring out of the box.

  I nodded, still lost to words.

  It was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. A single, gigantic diamond with a platinum band that curved up to hold the stone in place. A simple, elegant double band was the perfect symbol of our relationship, a continuation of how two lives can seem parallel until they come to the realization of how exquisite they are when they discover their flawlessness.

  “Yes, I will marry you,” I whispered as he pushed the ring onto my finger. I wanted to run and tell my grandparents. For a moment, I had the same feeling I had when I was a little girl and I found the most beautiful star in the sky. I wanted to burst through the door and holler for them to come look. I felt a pang in my chest become lost in the folds of my heart, drenched with my memories. This was something I’d dreamt of my whole life, and they were going to have to watch from the sidelines. My breath caught. Max noticed and wrapped his arms around me.

  “My grandparents,” I mumbled.

  “I know, sweetheart,” Max said softly against my ear. A moment clung silently to the darkening night before I looked up at the sky.

  “I think they’re here, watching over us, in the stars. Maybe there, next to the Taurus constellation. He’s watching Jupiter disguised as a white bull carry Europa straight to Crete to make her his wife.”

  Max laughed before he kissed the top of my head.

  “You remembered,” he sighed.

  “Yeah, it’s the only Greek mythology I care to remember.”

  The wind swept across us. I shivered and he pulled me closer to his chest.

  “How about we go back to the house and celebrate? Besides, I think you’ll want to tell your best friend that your family just grew.”

  He was right. I couldn’t wait to tell J that I was marrying the man of my dreams and making our family just a little bit bigger.

  Epilogue

  ~ Wilson ~

  Six months ago, if someone came to me and bet me everything I owned that my life was going to do a complete 360, I would have laughed in their face and shook on it. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined that I’d be where I am today—graduated from Wesley early, getting ready to go to college, living in Carbondale, Colorado, with my fiancée, the man of my dreams, and reconnecting with my birth mother, Candice. Heck, I would have lost the farm on that handshake.

  Living in Carbondale is incredible. I’ve never lived somewhere that had definite seasons. In winter, the scent of pine mixes with the brisk breeze off the snowcapped mountains. Trees dressed in all white, married to the landscape below their branches. In spring life is recaptured in the meadows, which are filled with wildflowers bursting from the sunny edges of the shadowy forests. The sapphire blue sky is filled with white, downy clouds and the fiery sun licks warmth across your cheeks. By night, the silvery glow of the moon caresses your skin with cool rays while the multitude of stars invite stories of warriors and rulers.

  Truthfully, Carbondale feels a lot like Mendocino; a place where everyone knows each other. You can’t sneeze without someone knowing about it. It’s a safe place, where we don’t tell people how we met. It’s taken a little getting used to the neighborhood block parties and community barbeques in the park. Every weekend we are either heading off to Nancy’s for a family dinner or doing something in the community. I can tell Max has found his place…let’s just say, I’m still settling in.

  Nancy is just over the moon that we’re living so close by, and Max likes the idea that we are far enough away that his mom usually calls first before dropping in for a visit. When Max stepped down as CEO of GP, Dan graciously took over the position. Let’s face it: Dan was cut out for the role. No worries, though. Max is set for life, he still works at GP, and plays a vital part in every decision that’s made.

  Camille and Dan bought a house just five minutes outside of Aspen, and announced that the guest bedroom is going to be remodeled into a nursery. Yep, the family will be growing by one come November. They said if it’s a boy they want to name him Frank; if it’s a girl, Francis. They’re very happy. Max and I are happy too because it takes the pressure off of us from Nancy to set a wedding date.

  Calvin is, well. Still Cal. A life filled with snow bunnies and mixed drinks. He’s desperate to find something that fulfills him beyond the one-night stands and raging parties. He moved in with Nancy and they have been thicker than thieves ever since. It’s been good for her too. Ever since Frank died, she has good days and bad. Max still worries about her, and on his way home from the office, he stops in to see her couple of times a week, just to make sure she’s okay. She’s really taken to the news about being a grandma, and has already begun to convert Camille’s old room to a nursery for the baby.

  I talk to J every day. She stayed in Bay Area after graduating from Wesley. She received a full scholarship to Stanford and she couldn’t pass it up once she found out that Cindy wasn’t going there. In fact, Cindy convinced her father to send her to some hoity-toity fashion design school in Paris. I guess she met some French dude in New York, and well, the rest is how Cindy rolls.

  Nick moved to Palo Alto and took over running the Northern California division of Browler’s Burritos. So they’re still together. Slowly J and I have been working on Nick and Max, and they are coming around. They can actually shake hands now, and hold conversations about sports and cars; we’re taking it one day at a time. I’ve gotten past the incident between Nick and me. Matter of fact, we’ve both forgiven each other for what happened. We’ve chalked it up to a mistaken moment and bad judgment. I like Nick, and I like seeing J so happy with him.

  I can actually say my life is pretty close to perfect rig
ht now. There’s just one thing I still need to do.

  “Are you going to keep fiddling with that, or are you going to get out of the car?” Max asked.

  “No, I’m gonna go up there...I just, well, I’m just a little nervous, that’s all,” I stuttered as I adjusted uncomfortably in the passenger’s seat of our rental car and continued to twist my ring around my finger. Any time I was going to do something that I wasn’t too sure about, I would start spinning my ring around my finger. It hadn’t taken long to create the habit.

  Max caressed his hand across my cheek before nesting my chin between his pointer finger and thumb. Gently, he pulled my head toward him, his eyes greener than usual, glimmering with a glint of anticipation.

  “She loves you just as much as I do. Think about it, babe, she’s probably in there right now, feeling the same anxiety about finally seeing her daughter again.”

  I felt a rock hard bubble in my throat as I struggled to swallow. I won’t lie; it felt good when he called me Candice’s daughter. It has been ten years since I was someone’s daughter. Sure, Nancy gives me what a family is supposed to feel like, but there’s something different about belonging to someone who shares your DNA.

  I turned and looked across the impeccably groomed lawn fenced with small, waxy green shrubs trimmed into a perfect train like rectangles. A cement pathway curved its way to the small but inviting porch.

  “I can’t believe I’m here, in Seattle with you, getting ready to actually see her for the first time in over ten years. It almost doesn’t even seem real to me.”

  Over the last six months, with Max’s and Joanie’s persistence, Candice and I have been communicating and building a relationship with the security of it being long distance. She told me that she doesn’t go by Candi anymore. That person disappeared when she became clean and sober seven years ago. I told her it’s going to take me some time to work out everything that is flying through my mind. The betrayal and pain that grew from misconstrued stories and age-old apprehensions were still very raw to me. She understood, and was willing to do whatever it took to rebuild our relationship. So we’ve been working on forgiving my grandparents for their good intentions gone bad. I’m learning to let go of the anger I feel when I think back at how much of my childhood I missed with Candice and the years I missed with my brother, Connor.

  We stood on the tiny stoop infested with spider plants. Terracotta pots crowded with green and white leaves, countless shoots of matching plantlets swaying in the air as they hung from beige macramé plant holders. On the railing, a line of smaller clay pots filled with black earth, giving life to tiny bursts of miniature green and white. I looked down at the welcome mat, burnt orange and bristly, and noticed the clumps of dried mud that clung to the worn edges. Next to the mat was a small pair of muddy tennis shoes, intentionally left outside. My heart pounded as my diaphragm froze in mid breath. Those must be Connor’s shoes.

  I don’t think I can knock. I’m gonna throw up,” I said, trying to breathe deeply.

  Max pulled me against his chest, my nose against his silky black button-up shirt. I could smell the comfort of lavender mixed with pine. Perspiration formed across my hairline and down my neck as I felt my stomach take a somersault.

  “You’re not going to be sick. Come on, Wilson, you’ve talked to your mom on the phone. You’ve read and re-read every letter she wrote to you for that last ten years. Hell, we’ve even Skyped with her. I think you are stronger than you know. Take a deep breath. You’ve come this far,” Max whispered before he pressed his lips against the top of my head.

  “You’re right, I can do this,” I said as I pulled the door knocker back and slammed it against the hollow door three times. My heart climbed up my throat and clogged my airway.

  Six months ago my family consisted of just Joanie and me…now with the turn of a knob, and a door being opened, everything will come full circle and change my life forever….again.

  “OH, my God, Wilson you’re here!” Candice screamed through a blubbering cry. Her brown wavy hair was pulled back off her face, with a few delicate curls falling down around the sides of her neck. Her features were the same as I remembered, but worn by time. Her skin tone was bright, warm, and welcoming —different than the drawn, pale woman who left me on a porch ten years ago. She had chocolate brown rimmed glasses, something I don’t remember her wearing before. She pulled me into a monstrous, all-consuming hug, and I caved into her chest. I could feel her heart pound against my ear. Her eyes instantly clouded with the tears I’ve wanted from her forever.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m finally here,” I answered as I hugged her back and felt the painful, vacant holes in my heart fill with the missing moments I’ve wanted my entire life. Finally, I got to feel my mom’s arms again.

  “There is no real ending…

  It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

  Frank Herbert—Author