by Howe, Violet
“Here,” Cabe said as he extended his hand for me. “Let’s get you out of there before the water gets cold and you shrivel up like a raisin.”
“Isn’t it a prune?” I pulled myself up to standing with his help, still seeing stars and feeling aftershocks. “Isn’t the saying shriveled like a prune?”
“I don’t know,” Cabe answered as he lifted me from the tub and set my feet gently on the floor, wrapping me in the towel. He patted me dry from head to toe, his lips occasionally lighting upon my skin and sending shivers down my spine. By the time he’d tucked the towel tight around me, I’d pretty much completely forgotten there was ever a time he wasn’t here with me or that I had nearly driven myself crazy with mental images of him and Monica only a short time earlier.
But when he took my hand and turned to lead me from the bathroom, I noticed he was fully dressed. Like, more than his normal jeans and T-shirt attire. The deep midnight blue form-fitting slacks hugged his muscular thighs and buns in all the right places, and the gray and white paisley shirt was one I hadn’t seen in quite a while. A favorite of mine he rarely wore. He’d rolled the sleeves up to a tight cuff near his elbow, but I could see his left arm had gotten soaked for a few inches due to our bathtub encounter.
It all came flooding back to me. The reason he’d put thought into his outfit. His plans for the evening. His ex-wife.
I stopped walking and dropped my hand from his.
“Why are you here? What time is your dinner?” My stomach immediately went back to its nauseated state and any remaining shreds of weightless ecstasy fled. My body tensed in preparation for his answer.
He turned back to me with a look of confusion and then recognition.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you. I got a little distracted, didn’t I?” He smiled and cupped my face in his hands, kissing me lightly.
I pulled back. “Tell me what?”
“I’m not going to dinner.”
Relief flooded through me, and I resisted the urge to clap my hands together in glee. I didn’t know why yet, so any celebration would need to be internal until I had more info.
“Why not? What happened?”
He tilted his head to one side and smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. He melts me. Every. Damned. Time.
“Why’d you turn your phone off?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I asked first. You gotta answer first.”
He chuckled, low and deep, and kissed me again. “I will, but I wanna know why you turned your phone off.”
Heat filled my cheeks, and I wished in that moment I wasn’t standing there in a towel feeling all vulnerable. I stepped around him and went to my closet to grab a robe.
“Tyler? Why did you turn your phone off?”
He had followed me to my room, and he stood there lounging against my door frame, looking all casual with just a hint of smug tickling the corners of his smile. Probably as sexy as I’ve ever seen him look.
“I was getting in the tub.” I tied the robe and went past him to the bathroom to get a comb. “I didn’t want to bring the phone in and risk dropping it in the tub. Besides, I had the music up loud and I wouldn’t have been able to hear it ring.” I fought with the tangles in my hair and resisted making eye contact with him in the mirror when he came and stood behind me.
“No, you definitely wouldn’t have heard it; that’s for sure. You didn’t hear me ring the doorbell, or knock, or use my key to let myself in.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. You scared the crap out of me.”
He took the comb and began to work through the tangled knots in my hair with much more patience and kindness than I’d shown toward it. I have a short fuse with my thick mess of hair, which was even more uncooperative than usual since I’d gotten all soapy without using conditioner afterward.
“You gonna answer me? With the truth this time?” He stared at me in the mirror as he separated strands of hair between his fingers and the comb.
I met his eyes in the mirror and held his gaze, my heart fluttering under his scrutiny.
“I told you the truth,” I lied. “I was getting in the tub.”
He slid his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder so that our faces were side by side. My wet, brown web of tangles mingling with his dark blond curls. His clear blue eyes almost transparent next to the deep green of my own. His square jawline so masculine alongside my soft cheeks. What beautiful babies we would have. I smiled at the thought.
“We promised each other we’d stop hiding what we’re feeling.” His voice reverberated inside my head as he spoke pressed up next to me. “That we’d get it out in the open, no matter what. I think you’re not being entirely honest with me.”
I looked down at my hands on top of his where they rested on my tummy. My baby train of thought briefly imagined me being swelled out pregnant underneath his hands, and my heart tugged at the thought of our future. I met his eyes again.
“I didn’t want you to go tonight. I told you to go, but I really didn’t want you to.”
“I knew you didn’t. So why’d you tell me to go?”
“Because I felt like it was the right thing to do. To say. You needed to talk to her and get things off your chest, and I felt like I should be okay with it.”
“You don’t have to be okay with it. I wouldn’t be okay with it. Hell, I wasn’t okay with it when it was Dwayne. So why not just tell me you don’t want me to go? Why avoid my calls, not return my messages, and turn off your phone?”
I took the comb from him and started yanking it through my hair.
“Tyler, listen to me.” He turned me to face him and lifted me up to sit on the sink’s counter. He nestled his hips between my knees, and I placed my arms around his neck as he spoke again. “We have to be honest with each other. You don’t want me disappearing? Running away from my feelings? Avoiding you? Well, it goes both ways. I want you to tell me what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling, and then we work through it. Like we agreed to do.”
“I know. But you had things you needed to say to her, and I don’t want you living with guilt or regrets or whatever it is you still have with her. I’d rather you go ahead and get it said so we can move on and leave her in the past. So why aren’t you going to dinner?”
He sighed and rubbed his palms along the tops of my thighs.
“Because no one’s feelings are more important to me than yours. I knew last night you didn’t want me to go, so I called Mom first thing this morning to make sure she was okay with Monica coming there, and then I texted Monica that I wouldn’t be able to make dinner and she could meet Mom to pick up her stuff.”
Relief and elation surged within me, peppered with guilt and apprehension.
“But see, that’s what I didn’t want,” I said. “You’re not gonna talk to her because of me so you won’t get the closure you needed. Now it’s always going to hang over our heads and it’s my fault. You should’ve just gone.” I yanked through my hair with the comb again, wincing at the pain I caused myself.
“I said what I needed to say. I wrote her a letter and left it with her things.”
I stopped torturing my hair and stared at him. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand I was thrilled that he wasn’t going to dinner. But another part of me felt funny about him writing his ex-wife some long, heartfelt letter. Before I could put any energy into getting all worked up about it, he took his phone from his pocket and flipped through it.
“Here, I took a picture of the letter so you could see exactly what I wrote. I didn’t want you obsessing over what was in it or what I may have said to her.”
He handed me the phone and took the comb from me, working through the strands again with his tender touch.
I yelped as he hit a tough tangle and pain shot across my scalp. “Ow! No, take this.” I tried to hand him back the phone, but he didn’t take it. “I don’t need to see the letter. That’s personal.”
“Sorry,” he said as he rubbed my
head where the tangle had pulled. “Yeah, it’s personal, but we have no secrets, remember? I don’t care if you see what I wrote her. I know you, Tyler. It will eat you alive wondering what’s in the letter. You might as well just read it and be done with it. I’m starving, and you still have to get dressed.”
“Why do I have to get dressed? Where am I going?”
“We’re going to dinner. I tried to tell you this afternoon, but you wouldn’t answer your damned phone. I even wore this ridiculous paisley shirt I know you like and I’ve got Dean coming over to walk Deacon for us. Now get dressed, girl. I think I have all the tangles out.”
“Wait, why are we going to dinner? Did you, like, make reservations for Monica or something?”
He laughed and pulled me to him until our faces were just inches apart.
“We’re going to dinner because you are the love of my life, and I don’t want to waste another minute worrying about anyone other than you. You are my heart. My light. My girl. I want to wine you, dine you, dance with you. Make sure you know you’re my one and only.”
He kissed me then, and the world was a wonderful place.
Of course, I read the letter after dinner. He’s right. It would have driven me nuts wondering. It turned out to be short, simple, and to the point. And though it still pricked my heart in little twinges of jealousy and possessiveness, I know how lucky I am to have the man he has become. And I’m grateful.
Dear Monica,
I didn’t feel like dinner would be appropriate under the circumstances, but I did have something I needed to say. An apology, if you will.
I’m sorry I blamed you for my unhappiness. I wasn’t willing to take responsibility for my own decisions then, and I found it much easier to focus on you than to face my own shortcomings.
I know how hard you tried to make our relationship work, and I’m sorry for what I put you through. You were right when you said I was never really in it. I couldn’t see that then, and seeing it now makes me realize how unfair I was to you. I was running from something I couldn’t escape, and I’m sorry I dragged you along for a portion of the painful journey.
I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to make such a mess of things. I can’t go back and erase it, but I can tell you this. Although I regret the pain I caused you, and I regret the circumstances I unwittingly put you in, I cannot regret our time together. Because of you, I have learned invaluable lessons about myself and about relationships. The experience has forever changed me and made me, I hope, a better man. Maybe one day you will be able to look back and find value in what we had as well.
Please know I wish you only happiness as you move forward with your life. I hope you can find it in your heart to do the same for me.
Best Wishes,
Cabe
August
Monday, August 4th
I never knew how much stuff I had crammed in my apartment. It took us all weekend to get everything out of there and moved in here, and I haven’t even begun to unpack any of it. I’m exhausted. We may live here the rest of our lives just so I don’t have to move again.
Cabe woke me when he left for work with the intent that I would get up and get busy, but I didn’t budge.
Until Mama called.
“I need a date and I need a guest count. Today. You cannot possibly expect me to plan a wedding without those key pieces of information.”
I groaned and flipped back the covers. I needed coffee if I was going to be civil to my mother.
“Mama, no one’s asking you to plan a wedding. Just relax.”
“Relax? Relax, she says. Here I am, elbow deep in baskets and silk arrangements, fielding calls all day every day from family members wanting to mark their calendars, and you tell me to relax?”
I silently thanked the Lord above for my fiancé’s foresight in leaving coffee in the pot as I poured a cup and put it in the microwave.
“I told you not to buy baskets and silk flowers. I don’t know what we’re doing yet, so there’s no reason for you to buy anything. Can you please just wait until we’ve made decisions? We’ll let everyone know as soon as we do.”
“Tyler Lorraine, people have lives. They need to make plans. I would think you would know these things since you do this for a living. Arrangements have to be made in advance. You can’t dilly-dally around with this. You want this to be a wedding we can be proud of or something that looks like it was thrown together in the middle of a storm? Lord, help me, I don’t need all this stress. I been getting the indigestion on a daily basis since we started planning this wedding and I can’t even lay down flat for the burning.”
I rubbed my eyes, burned my tongue on my coffee, and tucked my feet under me on the couch next to Deacon. I wasn’t awake enough to deal with my mother or my wedding.
“You gotta calm down, Patsy.”
“Don’t you call me ‘Patsy’. I hate when your sister Carrie does that. Don’t you start.”
I leaned my head back on the sofa and closed my eyes.
“We haven’t even talked dates yet, Mom. We’ve been busy.” I hoped she didn’t ask with what because I definitely wasn’t up to explaining that I’d made the big leap to full-on living in sin over the weekend.
“Too busy to figure out your own wedding date? What could be more important than that? I talked to Sharon in the church office yesterday, and she’s got folks already booked through the spring and even into summer. Those people all figured out their wedding date. Now, what exactly is the hold-up? I told Sharon I’d let her know as soon as possible. Could you at least give me some tentative dates she could hold? I can’t sleep until I know we have the church booked.”
“I’ll talk to Cabe tonight.” I took a deep breath and dropped the bomb I’d been holding. “I don’t know if we’re gonna have it at the church.”
She sucked in an intake of air with a simultaneous screech that pierced my ears and made Deacon lift up and peer at the phone with his head cocked to one side.
“Not use the church? Oh, Sweet Jesus. Oh, Heavenly Father. What do you mean, not use the church? Oh, I feel faint. Heaven, help me. Tyler Lorraine, I have been through this with both your sisters and their disregard of the sanctity of marriage. I won’t stand for it again, do you hear me? I still have heart palpitations every time I think about Carrie Ann traipsing off to Vegas with Kenny and getting married in an Elvis chapel. She could’ve had your Uncle Rodney perform the ceremony here if cheap and trashy was what she was going for. If you think you’re gonna follow in her footsteps, you got another think coming.”
I stared at Deacon and he stared back at me. I sighed, and he nudged my hand with his nose until I complied with his request and rubbed his ears.
“Look. I’m not going to get married in an Elvis chapel in Vegas, okay? But we’re still tossing around ideas. I don’t know if we’re going to get married back home or maybe somewhere down here. Maybe even an island somewhere. Who knows?”
She pulled out all the stops and burst into tears.
“Why do you not care about my feelings?”
She sobbed.
“I’m getting older by the day, and what do I ask of my kids?”
More sobbing.
“One day I’ll leave this world. Dead and gone I’ll be, laid to rest by your daddy’s side. Lord bless his soul.”
Louder sobs.
“But while I’m breathing, couldn’t just one of my children think of me and my feelings? Just one?”
Incomprehensible mumbling and sobbing.
I knew from years of experience there was really nothing I could say when she got like this, but since I couldn’t just hang up the phone with her crying, I searched for a way to appease her without making any promises.
“Mama, I know this is real important to you. I’ll talk to Cabe, and we’ll make decisions this week, okay? I’ll get you an answer by Friday. Okay? Mama? C’mon. Please stop crying.”
She huffed and puffed a few more times and then blew her nose before speaking.
“Oh, come on. Don’t bring him into this.” I groaned and flopped across the couch, nudging Deacon out of my way. He grumbled and curled up on the floor.
“He’d want you married in a church with a proper wedding. You know I’m right.”
I rolled my eyes and closed them against the stress. “I’ll talk to Cabe tonight, okay? I’ll call you before the end of the week.”
We hung up, and I stared at the boxes scattered across the living room. I had zero motivation to crack them open, so I leashed up Deacon and went for a walk.
It’s not that I don’t care how Mama feels or that I want to upset her. But I don’t know that going back home and getting married in that church is what I want for our wedding. Cabe’s not even Baptist.
Which Mama doesn’t know yet.
That place holds no value for him and no meaning for the two of us together.
As much as the idea of a beach ceremony on some island appeals to me, I know that realistically, that would pretty much exclude most of my family from attending. Which may not be a bad thing. However, Cabe’s already said it’s important to him for our families to be there, so I guess I need to scrap the whole escape-to-the-tropics idea.
There are several locations here in Orlando I really like, but I don’t want to have the wedding some place I work. I want it to be special. Unique. Not like just another wedding I’m at.
Maybe we should look at a beach on the East Coast. Cocoa or Melbourne. Maybe even head up to St. Augustine or Amelia Island. We both love the beach, and he pretty much spends every spare minute he has on the sand or in the water. That could be a great compromise of my tropical paradise but still being close enough for family to attend.
Aargh. So many decisions to make, and no way to make everyone happy.
Tuesday, August 5th