The Proposal

by R. R. Banks

  I felt my breath catch in my throat and my stomach flip over. My body started to tremble.

  "Garrett," I said. "I had no idea."

  "I know", he said. "Nobody does. My name was changed after I left Silver Lake and I didn't keep up with anybody from here. Nobody knows who I am. Jason doesn't even know what happened. I never told him."

  I turned to Garrett and wrapped my arms around him. He leaned down and rested his head on mine. I didn't know what to say to him. I didn't think that there was anything that I could say to him that would mean anything in that moment. I couldn't imagine the memories that he carried and what it felt like to be back here, anonymous and alone. Those were things that he should never have had to deal with at all, but he especially should not have to deal with them alone. I felt like I was seeing inside of him now. I could see what caused the hurt and what had created the harsh walls he put up around himself.

  "You never have to be afraid that you will be like your father," I said.

  "He and my mother got divorced," he said. "I promised myself that I was never going to do that. That was the beginning. I promised myself I would never have a broken marriage and I would never have a child who had to suffer like I did."

  I leaned back and looked into Garrett's eyes.

  "You divorced your wife because she didn't deserve to be married to you anymore and she didn't deserve to be Jason's mother. That doesn't make you like your father. You will never be like your father."

  "I didn't want anybody to know who I was when I came back here. I know the pain and devastation that my father caused this town. I know the way that everyone looked at me. I didn't want to carry that back here with me. And I didn't want you to turn your back on me if you found out."

  I shook my head.

  "That is not who you are, Garrett. You are not your father and you are not what he did. I know who you are." I looked at the gate that led into the front lawn. "Have you been inside?" I asked.

  "No," he said. "I went into the yard, but that's it. I haven't gone back inside since that day."

  "Come on," I said.

  "I don't think I should," he said.

  "Why not? Who owns this house now?"

  "I do," he admitted. "When my father died in prison, everything went to me. I've kept up with it all these years. I don't know why."

  "Then let's go inside," she said. "It's just a house. You don't need to be afraid."

  I took his hand, tightly intertwining our fingers, and led him through the gate in the white picket fence and up the sidewalk to the front porch. I could feel his palm sweating against mine and his breath seemed shallow. I wondered what he was seeing as he stood there, what he was hearing, what he was feeling. I hesitated on the front porch, ready to go back to the car with him if he resisted anymore, but Garrett stood strong.

  "Do you have a key?" I asked.

  "No," he said. "Wait."

  He let go of my hand and went back down the steps. He carefully made his way through an overgrown flower bed and passed a bush that had been planted against the side of the house. I saw him crouch down and use his fingers to dig away some of the dirt at the base of the foundation. He moved away a few small rocks and then dug a little deeper. Finally, he revealed a section of the foundation that appeared to be covered with a thin, flat piece of cement. He moved that aside and reached into the hole it uncovered to pull out a key.

  "I can't believe this is still here," he murmured, more to himself than to me.

  He made his way back out of the flower bed and up onto the porch with me. He showed me the old key.

  "My mother hid this there and told me about it about a year before she died. My father had gotten into the habit of locking us out of the house." He looked at the key in his hand. "I thought it was a game. She was so serious about me never telling anyone where that key was, especially my father, I just thought it was because she wanted to be able to sneak back inside whenever she wanted to. I thought that she wanted to win."

  I took the key gently from his hand.

  "You know what?" I asked. "She just did."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Garrett

  I watched as Gwendolyn put the key in the lock. The lawyer had told me that I should have all the locks in the house changed, but I had never done it. I never thought that I would be standing here again, going inside, and I hadn't seen the point. Now as I watched her shake the key in the time-frozen lock and heard it disengage inside the door, I braced myself for what I would feel when I stepped over that threshold again. The door opened, and Gwendolyn pushed it into the house, stepping back so that I would be the first to enter. She held my hand tightly, giving it a squeeze as I hesitated just outside the door. Finally, I released her hand and stepped inside. I walked through the entryway towards the living room and I felt...

  Nothing.

  I had expected an onslaught of memories. I had expected to be overcome with thoughts and emotions that would take over the second that I was in the space again. I had expected to see it, feel it, hear it, smell it all again. But none of that happened. I stood in the middle of the room and looked around, breathing in air that had been trapped inside for so long while it swirled and blended with the fresher breeze from outside. I could imagine that it was escaping through the open door, pouring outside and bringing with it any lingering memories and moments from inside. Just like Gwendolyn had said, it was just a house.

  The cleaning crew and antique dealers that the lawyer had let into the house, when I refused to come back, had done an incredible job of changing what had once been my home. The floors were now wood where there had been carpeting. The curtains that had hung in the windows had been replaced by simple sheer panels. I looked around and realized just how small it seemed. When I was a child, the house had seemed cavernous. I had felt like the rooms were so big that they could have swallowed me. Now they seemed humble and quiet. There was a layer of years of dust on all the surfaces and I could see the specks dancing in the beam of sunlight that was coming through the front window and splashing across the wood floor. A memory that I had long forgotten suddenly flashed into my mind. I remembered sitting on my mother's lap in a rocking chair in the corner and looking at the sunlight. Even though she kept the house meticulously clean, that day some specks of dust or dirt from some source had found their way into the house and ran out floating through the air, visible only in the beam of sunlight.

  Those are fairies, she had whispered to me. They're special. They came just for you. Go over there and try to catch one. But if you do, don't hold it for long. Give it a kiss and let it go.

  I let out of breath and felt Gwendolyn come stand beside me.

  "Why did you keep this house for so many years, Garrett? Why didn't you just let it go?"

  "I think that I was afraid to have lost everything and for everything to have been taken away from my mother. I never wanted to come back here, but I feel like part of me kept it in remembrance of her."

  Gwendolyn shook her head.

  "That's not what it is," she said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You said that you wanted to keep this house in remembrance of your mother. But if that was really the case, then it would be beautiful. You would never let it look like this. This is a shrine to your father. It's just a house, Garrett. It's just a structure. It did nothing wrong. By being afraid of it and blaming it, you are letting your father's legacy live on. It's time to take that from him." She looked around. "Which one was your room?" she asked me.

  I walked her down the hallway and through the door into the corner bedroom. The walls were the same shade of blue that they had been, but everything else was gone. I walked over to where my bed had stood. I followed a sudden compulsion and laid down on the floor, looking up at the ceiling like I had when I was a little boy. Getting the same perspective that I had so many years ago only further emphasized how small and unassuming the space really was. I stood up and saw Gwendolyn looking around, her face looking as though she w
ere thinking of something.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "This room would make an amazing office," she said. "This color is so calming. Just another coat and it would be perfect. Add a desk up against the wall. The woodwork is gorgeous. Polish that and make it a focal point. This wall could hold a huge bookcase."

  As she spoke, I felt like I was watching my bedroom fade away and the office of her imagination take its place. I felt something inside me releasing. For the first time, I really realized that this space didn't have to be what it had been. It didn't have to continue to represent the past. It could be something else. I reached down and took Gwendolyn's hand again. We walked back through the house and out the front door. I had just locked the front door and turned to walk down the porch steps when I noticed two people standing at the gate. One was Mr. McCrady. The other was a tiny, wrinkled woman wearing a gray dress and a black shawl over her shoulders. A smile came to my lips. She looked exactly the same.

  I stepped down off the porch and started down the sidewalk.

  "Why it's you," Mr. McCrady said. "I thought I saw somebody out here."

  "Come here," his wife said from beside him. "Let me look at you."

  I walked toward her, and she took a few shuffling steps toward me. She reached up and placed one soft hand on either one of my cheeks.

  "Now, Rose," Mr. McCrady said. "What are you doing? This here is a newcomer to Silver Lake. He's our new fire chief."

  She shook her head.

  "I was so scared that something happened to you," she said. "No one ever told us where you went."

  I felt my heart beating faster.

  "What are you talking about?" Mr. McCrady asked with the exasperated tone of a man who had dealt with the same eccentric woman for a lifetime.

  "He might be the fire chief," Rose said, "but he isn't a newcomer." She pulled my face forward and touched a kiss to the middle of my forehead. "Welcome home," she whispered.

  I felt emotion tighten in my throat and all I could do was smile at her. I straightened and reached for Gwendolyn.

  "This is Gwendolyn," I told her.

  "It's very nice to meet you," she said. "I would have known him anyway. You take care of him. He deserves it."

  Gwendolyn nodded.

  "I will," she said.

  Rose backed up a few steps and then turned around to return to her husband’s side. She began leading him back down the sidewalk when she turned to look at me again.

  "When you figure out what you're going to do with that house, you come over and see me. I'll make cookies and we'll talk."

  "I promise," I said.

  I turned Gwendolyn around and gathered her into my arms. I looked down into her face for a few seconds before kissing her. I felt more open and vulnerable than I ever had, but in that moment, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

  Nine months later…

  I pulled the final piece of tape away from the wall and stepped back to look at the sharp line it created.

  "How does it look?" Gwendolyn called in.

  "Really good," I said. "I think this room is pretty much done except for the window treatments."

  She walked in and let out a satisfied sigh as she eyed my painting work.

  "It's perfect," she said. "You were right. The extra green note in this paint is even better for the room. It's very tranquil."

  "Well, I hope not too tranquil. I wouldn't want the office to become the nap room."

  She laughed and swatted me in the middle of the chest with one of the rubber gloves that she had pulled off her hands.

  "Come on," she said. "Let me show you what I've been up to."

  I followed her into the kitchen where she had spread a large cloth across the floor. It was covered in pieces of antique silver serving ware.

  "What's all this?" I asked.

  "I found it in a box in the corner of a shelf in the basement," she said. "I've been working on polishing it for what feels like hours."

  I crouched down to get a better look at the silver. I touched a fingertip to the scroll pattern on the handle of a cake server.

  "This was my grandmother's," I said. "I remember it from Thanksgiving when I was really little. At least, I think it was Thanksgiving. We had a big table out and were using this and crystal glasses. I can't really think of anything else that it would be. I thought that the antique dealers would have gotten their hands on this a long time ago."

  She smiled at me and picked up the cake server.

  "I guess it was waiting for us. This would be perfect for the wedding."

  "So, you're sure you still want to marry me?"

  "Are you kidding?" she asked, looking at her engagement ring fondly. "I'm marrying you just so I can take a day off from this place."

  I laughed and scooped her up against me, looking down into her beautiful face.

  "Just one day?" I asked. "So, you're going to make me go on our honeymoon by myself?"

  "You're not getting rid of me that easily," she said. She tilted her face up to kiss me. "But that just means that we're going to have to work even harder if we want to keep up with the timeline."

  "Maybe," I said. "But I think that we owe ourselves a little bit of a break."

  I took the gloves from her hand and tossed them onto the floor before sweeping my arm behind her knees and around her back to scoop her up against my chest. I carried her, squealing, up the stairs toward the master bedroom where we had set up a sleeping bag and pillows for the late nights when we could work on the house, while Jason was at a friend’s house. It wasn't the most luxurious or comfortable of destinations, but it was just fine for my intentions.

  Three weeks later I stood in the doorway of the small room that had been set aside for me and my groomsmen, looking out over the chairs that were slowly filling with my wedding guests. The door opened, and two more people came in, bundled up against the cold. I knew that the night outside was almost pitch black and bitter, the only extra light coming from the streetlamps reflecting off the fresh snow. I was surprised that so many people were there. When Gwendolyn picked out the wedding date, I had been hesitant. I didn't think that people would even consider making their way to our ceremony, much less the celebration after. It had meant so much to me when the RSVPs started coming in with people noting that they would be in attendance, but there was a part of me that didn't actually believe that most of them would make it. I had fully expected a scattering of guests throughout the chairs and a deluge of apology notes the next day. Soon, though, nearly every chair was filled, and I could hear the whispers of excited conversations coming over the music that was playing.

  The door opened again, and I saw the McCradys walk in. I smiled widely as the usher took Rose by the elbow and led them up the aisle to the front row seats that I had reserved for them. Over the last several months I had spent a lot of time with them, rebuilding the relationship that we had once had. Mr. McCrady had finally come to terms with who I really was. He said that over the years he had comforted himself by pretending that I was still a little boy and was perfectly fine. He hadn't wanted to think that I had grown up with those memories, memories that he had many of himself. Now, other than Jason, they were the closest thing that I had to family and I was honored to have them sit there for my wedding.

  Finally, I saw the officiant take his place. I had been relieved when Gwendolyn hadn't suggested that The Reverend or The Bishop act as our standing officiant. They were great cats, but I didn't know if they were approved for performing human rites and figured it was better to err on the side of caution and go for an actual officiant. Once he was looking out over the crowd, I walked out and took my place beside him. I suddenly felt a flicker of nerves in my belly, but I was also happier than I could ever remember being.

  Music rose up louder around us and the bridal party started their way down the aisle. First Jason and Gwendolyn's cousin, then pairs of firefighters in suits and teachers in matching black velvet with bouquets of red roses made their way toward me
, parted, and formed lines on either side of the altar. Each one was bringing me closer to Gwendolyn and finally, she appeared at the end of the aisle, her arm tucked around her father's as she smiled across the space at me. I wanted to run to her, but I forced myself to be patient as she took the slow, gliding walk along the flower petals sprinkled at her feet. She was indescribably gorgeous, and she deserved every second of the attention of that walk.

  Her hand was trembling when she placed it in mine and we stepped in front of the officiant, turning toward each other. As we first stood there I could feel the eyes of the guests on us, but with every word of the ceremony the feeling faded until it was like she and I were the only ones who existed. I stared into her eyes as I repeated my vows and delicate tears slipped down her cheeks as she said hers. I saw the officiant's eyes flit down to the watch on his wrist as we finished and slipped the rings onto each other's hands. I knew why he was doing it. The timing of this moment was important, it was everything to Gwendolyn.

  As he pronounced that we were married, our guests started chanting, counting down from ten as we continued to stare into each other's eyes, occasionally laughing. Finally, they reached one and we closed the space between us, kissing to blended shouts of "Congratulations!" and "Happy New Year!"

  The guests pulled soundmakers and streamers out from under the seats and used them in celebration as we ran down the aisle and out into the night. The air was sharp and cold, but it felt good on my flushed cheeks as I swept her up into my arms and spun her around, lowering her back to her feet only so that I could kiss her again.

  It was the first moments of a brand new year and I was beginning it with Gwendolyn as my wife.

  Epilogue

  Gwendolyn

  School had only just let out for the year, but it already felt like it was the middle of summer, and when I pulled my car up in front of the house, I spent a few more seconds enjoying the chill of the air conditioner pumping through the vents in front of me before I turned the car off and reluctantly stepped out into the blistering temperature beyond. I opened the back door and reached in to pull the bags out of the back seat, musing that it wouldn't be long before that particular movement became a far more touch and go situation. I could only imagine trying to pull bags out of the car in September and getting stuck halfway through the bend, gravity trying to decide whether it was going to let me stand back up, or if it was going to choose my belly's side and pull me down into the car. Maybe that was going to be the determining factor of when I wasn't allowed to do the shopping anymore.