“I always wondered about you,” Garrett said one afternoon, stirring sugar into his coffee.
“You had a funny way of showing it with five decades of silence,” I rebuffed.
“Life got in the way.”
“Life always does.”
***
Six months later, on my front porch, Garrett kept part of his promise by asking me to marry him! He didn’t have a ring yet, but he was working on it.
I said, “Yes!” Not for his mansion or the money his children would whisper about. I agreed because of the boy who once walked me home in the rain.
“You had a funny way of showing it.”
The engagement dinner was held at Garrett’s mansion, and that was the first time I met his children in person.
Margaret hugged me with her arms, but not her shoulders. Daniel shook my hand as if I were a contractor.
“So good to finally meet you,” my soon-to-be daughter-in-law (DIL) said, her smile polite and tight.
“Your father’s told me so much about you both,” I answered.
***
Later, walking to the powder room, I heard Garrett’s voice low in the hallway.
“So good to finally meet you.”
“Margaret, I’m not changing a thing. We’ve talked about this,” my fiancé said.
“Daddy, please, just think about it.”
I stepped back before they saw me, and for the first time since Garrett had found me, I wondered exactly what I’d walked into.
***
The first morning I woke up in Garrett’s house as his wife, I half expected to feel like a guest who’d overstayed her welcome. Instead, my husband brought me coffee in a china cup and kissed the top of my head as if he’d been doing it for years!
“We’ve talked about this.”
“Stop grinning,” I said. “You’ll spill it.”
“Let me grin, Eleanor. I waited a long time for this!”
***
Margaret came by that Sunday with a casserole dish and a face like cold weather. Daniel followed two steps behind, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Mother used to set the table that way,” Margaret said, eyeing my linen runner. “Patricia. In case you forgot her name.”
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