I finally got Mom and Dad to sit down with me on my last day at home. For once, it was quiet in the house. My siblings had taken their families off to play in the snow. Mom had fixed a pot of coffee and put a kettle of water to heat on the stove in preparation for the return of the rest of the family. She had poured each of us a cup of coffee before sitting down with my dad and I at the kitchen table.
“What did you need to talk to us about, Dana?” My father asked.
“Well, this house, actually. You are due to move South in a month and near as I can tell, you haven’t even spoken with a realtor about selling it. How are you going to have time to get the showings and the packing and the selling done before you go to Florida?” I felt bad intruding on their business. I was no expert on selling houses, but I knew it took more than a month!
My father patted my hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. Your mother and I have it covered.” I frowned at him.
“Truthfully, honey, the house has already been sold. We had it on the market before Thanksgiving and had a contract signed before any of you got here for the holidays.” My mother calmly stirred her coffee as she said that.
“It’s already sold?” I shouted. “You didn’t even tell any of us your plans until we were all here! You didn’t even give any of us the option to buy it from you?” I could feel the blood rushing to my face and knew my cheeks were bright with anger.
“Dana. We didn’t want any of you to be saddled with this place. You all have lives of your own elsewhere.” My father said this quietly, cutting into the rant that was getting ready to spill from my mouth. I snapped my mouth shut and stared at him.
“The family that bought the house has small children and they need more room. This house will work well for them,” my mother said.
“But what about my family?” I asked, with tears spilling down my cheeks. I felt lost, knowing that the house I’d grown up in, the bridge down the hill, the porch swing, my mom’s Sun Room, it was all going to be in another family. It’d never be here for me again. It felt as if someone had taken the rug from beneath my feet. I had lost all sense of grounding, all sense of knowing where I belonged.
“We’re still your family, honey. Nothing can change the love your dad and I have for you or the love your siblings have for you.” My mom came around the table to put her arm around my shoulders. I shook my head at her, sniffling against the tears that refused to stay inside.
“That’s not what I mean, Mom! What about MY family!? What about MY children and my husband? They won’t know this place? They’ll have no idea of my roots without this place.”
“Why does this matter so much, Dana?” My father seemed perplexed, as he often was when confronted with one of his daughters in tears.
I did my best to stifle my tears. My mother handed me a tissue and I cleaned myself up, sucking back the sobs that were trying to escape. Finally I looked up at my parents. My mom’s hand rested on my shoulder and my dad sat across the table, cradling his mug of coffee.
“I was going to talk to you about buying the house. I wanted to be the next owner.” I sighed heavily. “Nevermind though. I guess it wasn’t in the cards, anyhow.” I got up and hurried up to my room. Once there, I began throwing my things into my suitcase and carry on bag. I had an hour or two to go before I had to leave for the airport, but I was ready to leave right then. I muttered to myself, angry about the stupid dreams I’d allowed myself to have and the goals I’d set for myself which had all been destined to fail.
When all of my clothes and toiletries and gifts I’d received had been haphazardly shoved into one bag or another, I collapsed on the bed, causing the bags to tumble to the floor and spill their contents. I rested my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands and I cried, oblivious to the mess now scattered on the floor at my feet. I would never be able to “come home” again after this. In another month, this would be some other family’s haven, some other daughter’s roots.
A light tap on the half open door warned me that someone was there. I turned my head away, so that whoever it was couldn’t see my red nose and my wet cheeks. After clearing his throat, he said, “I, uh, came over to see you. Your mom said that your flight was leaving this afternoon.” I turned to look at Simon, my eyes widened with shock at seeing him. I couldn’t find any words to say to him. I had purposefully not told him that I was leaving that day.
“Were you going to say goodbye, Dana?” He frowned at me from the doorway, where he leaned against the doorjamb.
I looked away again and sighed. “No, I wasn’t going to say goodbye.” I whispered. I hadn’t wanted to make it “goodbye” because I wanted to see him again soon. I hadn’t wanted to put an end on the possible future ahead of us. I was scared that saying goodbye would be the end for us.
“I see. I was just a distraction while you were on vacation? Just a bit of a walk down memory lane while you were home for the holidays?” His voice was rough. I knew I’d hurt him without meaning to.
“No!” I cried. “It isn’t like that. Please believe me, it’s not.” I stood up in protest.
He picked his way through the mess of clothes and books that had spilled from my suitcase and stood right in front me. He did not touch me at all, he just stood there looking down at me. A frown creased his forehead, questions glared from his eyes and his mouth was stretched thin, hiding all of the soft smiles he had had for me in the last few days.
“Make me believe it, Dana. Help to understand what you were thinking. Because right now, all I know is that when we first began talking again, you seemed on the same page with me. We were ready to try again, ready to figure out what the spark that’s still between us could mean.” I nodded hopefully, trying to silently tell him that I was there with him.
“Over the last few days though, you’ve seemed to pull farther and farther away from me. You refused the cuddle on the hammock. You ran as soon as you could from the domesticity of playing with my kids and talking with my parents. And the phone calls from the last couple of days have been short and stilted, as if you had run out of things to say to me.” He was speaking very softly. If I hadn’t been watching his mouth form the words, I might have missed parts of what he said. I could feel the tears rising again and shut my eyes to keep them back.
I whispered, “I’m scared, Simon.” His hands softly wrapped around my upper arms, just above my elbows. I kept my eyes tightly shut. He gave my arms a gentle shake and then laughed softly, bitterly.
“Didn’t we just have the conversation about what to do about overwhelming feelings? We talked about how you should share them with me, so that we could work through it all together, didn’t we? I could swear we just talked about how you should have done that all those years ago!” He leaned his forehead against mine. I opened my eyes and met his gaze.
“Yes, but…that was when we were together. I should have said something then. Now…what are we doing now?”
“I thought we were together again, trying to make a relationship again.”
“Were we?”I pulled my head away from his, arching my body back away from his body to look at his face better. He slowly released me and took a step back, tripping over one of my black stiletto heeled boots that was on top of the pile on the floor. He surveyed the floor and my things scattered everywhere and shook his head.
“You never used to be so messy, Dana.” He said teasingly. Then he squatted down, gently placing my boots and sweaters back into the suitcase they’d fallen out of. He came across a pair of my lacy panties and picked them up gently, between two fingers. “These are different than what you used to wear too.” He grinned up at me.
I turned red and tried to snatch the panties from him, but he simply dropped them into the suitcase with the other things and moved the whole thing out of the way. Then he knelt on one knee in front of me and reached into his pocket. My eyes widened as I took in how his position and the seriousness that was settling over his face. He cleared his throat and looked up at me.
He couldn’t be about to propose, could he? what was he thinking? What would I say? What should I say? The tears were quiet behind my eyes but my head was racing, panicking. I plopped back onto the bed and stared at him.
“Did you know that I was going to propose to you the next time I saw you, before we broke up in college? I had already bought the ring and all.” He pulled a jeweler’s box out of his pocket and cradled it in his hands. I covered my mouth to contain my gasp.
He looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head, and through my hand I said, “I never knew.”
“I had taken my life savings and bought you the best ring I could afford. It was a cheap gold plated band with a chip for a diamond. It wasn’t even worth what I spent on it when I tried to resell it.” He snorted. I sniffed. The tears were flowing again and I couldn’t stop them. I could imagine how it must have hurt him when I’d broken up with him for no reason he could tell. My heart hurt for him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. He shrugged and smiled at me.
“I’m kind of glad.” I raised an eyebrow at him. He flicked open the box in his hand and looked down at the contents. Then he smiled up at me again. Alarm bells were jingling in my head and sirens were wailing in my ears. Too much, too fast, they seemed to be screaming.
“I’m glad because I can offer you more now.” He paused, turning the ring box to face me and offering it up to me. “Dana, I love you. I have for years. I hope you feel the same. I think you do. Will you marry me?”
I didn’t even look at the ring. It could have been tin and glass for all I cared. I saw only Simon, with his love shining out of his eyes and his mouth smiling warmly at me. With a cry, I launched myself at him. We fell backwards to the floor, arms wrapped around each other, legs tangled. I was laughing, and crying, and totally incoherent. The alarm bells and sirens had been silenced, though. The panic had given way to a joy I hadn’t remembered that I could feel. I just hugged him to me, closing my eyes and whispering thanks to whatever powers had caused us to meet at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago.
“Is that a yes?” He whispered in my ear. I nodded and whispered “yes!” back at him. Then he captured my lips in a kiss. I sighed in pleasure and surrendered myself to it. He abruptly pulled back and I opened my eyes to stare at him in question. He just chuckled and shook his head and then began to stand up. He pulled me along with him.
“I have something else to tell you.”
“More? I don’t think I can stand any more today. I hope it’s not something that will make me cry, because I don’t think I can handle any more strong emotions today.” I sighed.
Simon grinned, and tugged me to the door and down the stairs. My mom and dad were still in the kitchen and they looked at me with concern on their faces. Simon turned to me and said, “Where did the ring go?” I shrugged and slid my hand into his. “Who cares?” I grinned at him. He laughed and said, “I was going to show it to your folks!” “Oh well.”
“Are you ok, Dana?” My mom asked. She looked questioningly between me and Simon.
“Yes, I think I’ll be ok, Mom.” I squeezed Simon’s hand. “Simon asked me to marry him!”
My mom clasped her hands in front of her chest and smiled at us. My father stood up and walked over to us. He stuck out his hand to shake Simon’s hand and said, “Take good care of her, son.” Simon nodded and said, “Yes sir, I will.”
“Oh, but this is wonderful! That means the house will stay in our family after all!” My mom grinned at Simon. He shifted on his feet and looked down at me. I looked between them both, raising my eyebrows.
“What do you mean, Mom?” I asked.
“Didn’t he tell you?” She glared at Simon and he shook his head.
“I hadn’t gotten that far yet.” He looked at me, “I, um, I bought your parents’ house last month. It was before I knew you’d be in town for the holidays, even…” I let go of his hand and walked to the kitchen door to look out the window towards the woods that hid the bridge. I sighed.
“Dana? We can sell it if you want. We can live wherever you’d like, even out West if you can’t bear to move back here.” He came up to stand behind me, his hands settling on my hips. He whispered, “Dana?”
Tears were threatening again and I was having trouble getting words out. Finally, I managed to whisper, “You’re going to have to trim the woods back to the bridge before Effie starts dating, you know.” He laughed and hugged me. He whispered, “I love you,” into my ear and we stood there looking down the grassy hillside to the woods. With his arms tight around me, I felt content and happier than I had in many years.
Read the whole story here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, and Part Ten
My Muse Speaks Softly 