Authors: Suzan Colón
WAKING UP WITH Carson, who takes up most of my queen-sized bed the same way he did in the small bed in the tent in Costa Rica, guarantees that I wake up with a huge smile. Unreserved, a full-on hundred-watt grin. It’s not a winsome smile of hope that he’ll open his eyes, see me, and think
I want this every day.
I already know he does. Mine is the smile of a wish fulfilled.
The news gets even better when I call Mom. More of her test results have come back, and the damage to her heart from the attack was minimal. “The doctor says my prognosis is good,” she says. “Though I could’ve told him it wasn’t as bad as everyone thought. Such a fuss
. . .
. Goodness, Katy, what’s all that racket?”
I have to smile again as I watch Carson in my kitchen. His lean, beautifully muscled body is clad only in his snug white boxer briefs, and he’s sleepily poking around in my kitchen, looking for the coffee, dropping the can in the sink, knocking over the coffee pot. “I don’t think Carson’s used to having to make his own coffee,” I say, laughing, charmed by this, as I am by everything he does.
My mother doesn’t laugh with me. “Are you coming to dinner tonight, Katy?”
“That was my plan.”
“Bring Carson.”
Wow. I’d wanted this, partly because I want Bethy to meet Carson while she’s still in town and partly because I want to show him off to my family and to the world. But something in my mother’s tone makes me ask, “Are you sure? I mean, you just got out of the hospital. Maybe it’s too much.”
“I just told you that the doctor says I’m doing very well, Katy. My heart is fine. Bring Carson with you tonight,” she says. “I’d like to see the state of your heart.”
IN THE QUIET moment between ringing Mom’s doorbell and someone coming to let us in, I remember bringing Daniel to meet my mother for the first time. The flowers he held trembled slightly in his nervous hand. He looked at me quickly and said,
Will she like me?
Before I had a chance to answer, my mother opened the door.
Carson doesn’t ask that question. The bottle of expensive red wine he’s holding is as steady as a ship on dry land. He looks at me and smiles confidently. He doesn’t have another kind of smile. “I love you,” he says, just as the door opens.
“Hey, kids, come on in!” Vic says, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel and extending one to Carson. I make the introductions, and Vic gives me a quick peck on the cheek before excusing himself to get back to his spaghetti sauce.
I lead my prize into the living room, where I see Bethy jump up while my mother remains seated on the couch. Bethy becomes almost flustered by Carson’s good looks. She takes in his glowing tan, so different from everyone else’s pasty fall skin. He’s so tall she has to look up, and that confident smile he’s flashing has her utterly charmed in the same three seconds it took for me to fall in love with him. “So nice to meet you, Carson,” Bethy manages, though she’s tittering. The moment Carson turns toward my mother, Bethy mouths
Oh my GOD he’s gorgeous
at me.
My mother rises, despite Carson’s protests for her not to get up. He flashes his winning smile. “It’s great to meet you, Ms. McNamara,” he says, in that honey-smooth voice. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“I haven’t heard enough about you,” my mother replies. Her smile is polite and tight, and the fizzy thrill of presenting my prince is frozen in an instant. I know why she’s being this way, just from the look on her face as she scrutinizes Carson. She thinks he’s like my father, a romantic supernova shooting in too hot and too fast.
Immediately, I want to protect Carson from my mother’s cross-examination, but just as I’m about to sit between them, Vic asks Bethy and me to help him out in the kitchen. I strain to hear the conversation in the living room as I wash lettuce for the salad, but I can’t with Frank Sinatra’s “You Make Me Feel So Young” on Mom’s CD player and Vic and Bethy just chit-chattin’ away. “Katy, you don’t have to shred the lettuce so much, hon,” Vic says kindly, drawing my attention back to what now looks like lettuce slaw.
When I look at Carson, his eyes flicker from my mother to me for a second, and he gives me a relaxed, easy grin. I smile back, relieved. What was I worried about? Carson Wakefield could charm the seas into holding still for him while he got his surfboard ready.
I feel even better as we all sit down to dinner. I look around the table and think,
My family
. Mom looks at Vic warmly as he doles out portions of spaghetti with a sauce he made from a heart-healthy cookbook he got. He’s so sweet to my mother. Bethy is still giving me the OMG eyes about Carson, and my amazing new boyfriend, who I may soon get to call my fiancé, has his hand on my knee, quietly claiming me as his.
As we eat the simple, yummy food Vic made, most of the talk is about Celia. Bethy tells us proudly that her two-year-old is already speaking in full sentences, though these sentences are Celia mimicking her father’s child-friendly substitutions for curse words. “So I wake up to my daughter saying, ‘Aw, fig, holey ship!’” Bethy says, and we all nearly choke with laughter. Then Carson squeezes my hand. “We’ll have to remember that when we have kids,” he says.
A glow of love spreads through me, and I glance around the table, as if saying to my family,
This is the future father of my children!
Bethy totally gets it. Vic’s smile at Carson shows approval. My mother just looks from me to Carson, not saying a word.
“Rebecca and I have some news,” says Vic. “I’ll be moving in this month.”
“Congratulations,” Carson says, raising his glass. “To love and moving in.” We all join in the toast and clink glasses.
Bethy sighs with relief. “That’s going to make me feel so much better when I go back to California. Now I won’t be worrying about Mom every second.”
“Well, we’d been planning to live together before this happened,” my mother says, putting down her wine glass. “We just thought it was time.”
“Sure,” Carson agrees. “Health reasons aside, why wait?”
“Because we wanted to get to know each other,” my mother answers. “We took our time so our relationship could grow. In my opinion, that was three years well spent. Now there won’t be any unpleasant surprises.”
“It will be so great to have you here,” I say to Vic. I mean it, but also I’m hoping my warm welcome to my mother’s boyfriend will stop what she’s really saying to my boyfriend.
“Because as you know, Carson,” my mother continues, “the first few months of a relationship can be a heady time. A lot of impulsive decisions can be made in the heat of the moment, only to find out later on—”
“Hey, Mom, can you pass the pasta, please?” I ask pointedly.
“It’s right in front of you,” Mom says.
“Okay, what I meant was, I think you made your point.” She and I match intense gazes, but Carson quickly says, “And it’s a point well taken, Rebecca.” I back down, wishing I didn’t rise to her bait so quickly, while Carson is completely unruffled. He’s probably a pro at evasive conversation, if my time at the tense Wakefield family table was any indication.
“JEEZ, I FORGOT how cold it gets here,” Carson says, pulling his pinstriped suit jacket closed as we go from my mother’s apartment building out into the chilly October night. “Let’s get a cab.”
“Cabs from here to Jersey City are expensive,” I say.
Carson waves a hand dismissively before using it to hail a taxi. “I’ll just charge it.”
We snuggle and make out in the backseat on the ride home, both of which I prefer to talking right now. If I weren’t so glad my mother survived her heart attack, I might be really pissed at her for the way she talked to Carson. She was totally raining on my parade during that dinner. I kiss Carson even more ardently than usual, like I’m trying to prove I’m not wrong about him.
When we get home, I can’t stand the suspense any longer. “Okay,” I say, tossing my keys on the kitchen table. “What did you think?”
Carson smiles as he settles on the couch. “They’re not the ones who have to pass inspection, Kate.”
“You still get to have an opinion.” I sit next to him, drawing my legs up. “Spill.”
“Vic is great. He asked me lots of questions about Costa Rica and surfing. Told me he’d even like to try it someday,” he says. “And your sister’s a hoot. You and she should have a comedy show. And your mom,” he starts, “well, I see where you get your strength. If I didn’t know her heart attack happened just a few days ago, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“She is strong,” I say tartly. “She comes on a little strong, too.”
“Your mom loves you. She’s just looking out for her daughter.” Carson touches my fingers, interlacing his with mine. “I asked her for permission to marry you, Kate.”
My heart can’t decide whether to stop or pound right out of my chest. “You did?” Carson nods. “Well,” I say, my voice reduced to a whisper, “what did she say?”
“She asked me to make a promise.”
From his tone, it doesn’t sound like she asked Carson to take care of her little girl and gave him her blessing. I’m wary when I ask, “What was that?”
“She asked me to promise not to propose to you for at least a year.”
I love my mother, even though our relationship has never been what I’d call easy, nothing like what Carson seems to have with his mother, even over a long distance. Right now, I have white-hot feelings toward my mother that remind me of overhearing my father saying he needed some time away and my mother telling him to go for good. I am furious. She knows how badly I want a family, and anyone can see that Carson and I are in love. How could she do this to me? I have to keep my voice from exploding when I ask, with deadly quiet, “And what did you say?”
Carson’s eyes lift to mine. “I told her I was really glad to meet her, and that I was honored to be a guest in her home. I said I respected her and was looking forward to having her as my mother-in-law someday.” Carson shrugs. “But I told her that day was going to come a lot sooner than she wanted if I had anything to say about it.”
My left hand trembles as Carson takes it in both of his and moves from the couch to bended knee before me. “Kate, this is going to be a terrible proposal,” he starts, grinning as tears fall from my eyes. “I don’t have a ring. I’m sure as hell not using your friend’s ring,” he says, nodding toward Daniel’s blue box, still on my desk. “I don’t want to wait to get a ring or for your mother to give us her blessing. I don’t want to wait one more day to start calling you my wife. I know we just met, and this is probably crazy, but will—”
“Yes!” I cry, launching myself into his arms. “Yes, yes,
yes
!”
He catches me but we still fall to the floor, laughing the whole way, kissing deeply and happily, drunk on joy that I know will last forever.
I’VE MADE THE trip from my place to Daniel’s so many times I could do it in my sleep. This time, there is a dreamlike quality to the journey, right down to having an engagement ring deep at the bottom of my embroidered hobo bag. It all feels and sounds like a dream, and in some ways, I wish it were. After five years together, how can I tell Daniel I can’t marry him because I’m going to marry someone I met less than a month ago?
When the train emerges from the tunnel and onto the elevated tracks in Brooklyn, the subway car is filled with the bright sunlight of fall, so different from the rich, warm tones of Costa Rica. Daniel always asked me to text him when the train got to the elevated tracks so that when I got to his stop, he’d be waiting for me, Finster straining at his leash, both of them wearing big puppy dog smiles. It was the best welcome, something that had me smiling before I even saw them, knowing what was upstairs waiting for me.
I don’t text Daniel this time. He knows I’m coming over; I texted him last night and asked if I could see him. It was chicken of me not to call, but I couldn’t bear to hear his voice or answer any of his questions, especially with Carson around.
Moments later, I’m at Daniel’s stop on Seventh Avenue. I start climbing the steps out of the train station, buttoning up my red pea coat against the fall chill as I have for five autumns past. I’ve sprinted up these steps for five summers. I’ve slipped on these steps during snowy winters and tried not to jab other people with my umbrella for five rainy springtimes. This is the last time I’ll be climbing these steps.
As I walk toward Daniel’s apartment, I pass the supermarket where I used to pick up groceries for dinner on the way to his place. At the corner bakery where I bought bread and Daniel’s birthday cakes, I wave to the Italian couple who opened the shop the year after they married. They, and the bakery, celebrated their thirty-fifth anniversary last month.
For five years, I fantasized about getting those dinners and cakes for my husband. This was going to be our neighborhood. I don’t understand how two people who seemed so entwined could live separate lives. Now, I think as I ring the doorbell of what I’d once hoped to be my home, it’s time to pull them apart for good.
“FINSTER!” DANIEL says, grabbing the lunging dog’s harness. “Get off her, you dopey dog. Off!”
“It’s okay,” I say, ruffling Fin’s big square head. “Hi, drool bucket. I missed you, too.” I lean down to let him give me slobbery kisses, but when I stand back up again, I put my head down as I walk into Daniel’s apartment. Always, the first thing that happened when I came into this apartment was kissing. Daniel and I kissed before saying a word to each other, sometimes making out for many long, lovely moments before a single hello. In our early days we made love right in this hallway, my handbag sliding to the floor, my coat unbuttoned but not taken off, neither of us able to wait to be together.
Daniel notices this shift immediately, and he follows me quietly into the living room. “You didn’t text,” he says. “We would’ve picked you up.”
“I know,” I say gently, offering no excuse. I put down my bag and take off my coat.
Daniel looks slightly relieved to see that I’m not running off, but only just. “Tea?” he offers.
I nod yes, and he goes to his kitchen, separated from the living room by a short breakfast bar. I had ideas to make the kitchen larger when I moved in, but I look at it now with no plans, no longing. I watch Daniel, his dark hair falling in a curtain in front of his serious face, focused on making a pot of tea as though his life depended on it.
As usual, Finster ignores the “no furniture” rule and jumps on the comfy, overstuffed brown couch, wagging his tail and looking at me with his big goony pit bull smile, wondering why I don’t join him as I always do. I sit next to him and hug him, petting his spotted brown and white fur, releasing him quickly when I feel tears start to pool in my eyes. I look away from the dog I don’t want to say goodbye to and see parts of a life I’ll have to do the same with. The weather-beaten treasure chest-like trunk Daniel and I found at a stoop sale and made into a coffee table. The college radio station playing “Chemistry” by One Night Only, the music soft behind the whistling of the teakettle.
Daniel sets down two mugs of tea, mine with lots of soymilk and, I know, the half-teaspoon of sugar he always remembers I like. He sits a polite distance away from me, not too close or far, making no assumptions about our status. “How’s your mom doing?” he asks.
“She’s good. The doctor says her heart is fine. Vic’s going to make her go on long speed walks with him. Can you imagine my desk-bound, work-addicted mother actually going outside and exercising?”
Daniel grins and shakes his head, knowing my mother well. “That’s great, but please tell me they’re not going to do that middle-aged-couple-in-matching-tracksuits thing.”
“OMG.” My eyes go wide with mock horror. “If they are, I don’t want to know.”
We smile together, enjoying this moment of being the old us. Too quickly, it fades away. We look at our untouched mugs of tea. Finster happily lodges himself between us, panting and wagging his tail, blissfully unaware that anything has changed. Daniel gently orders him off the couch and onto his doggy bed.
Of all the things I’ve ever been afraid of doing, and there have been too many, this is the worst. Maybe it’s the longest overdue. I’ve never rehearsed how I’d say goodbye to Daniel, because I never wanted to, never thought I would. Knowing it’s the right thing to do doesn’t make it any easier. What can I say? How can I tell him how important he was to me and how much I loved him, while telling him I’m leaving? A long moment hangs in the air. No words come to me. Finally, I reach into my bag and pull out the blue box with the ring still inside, and I set it in front of Daniel.
He looks at me. “Anything,” he says. He’s not mumbling nervously this time. His voice is strong, but I can hear the sadness in it. “I will do anything to keep you, Katy. I swear, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“That’s just it, Daniel.” I know I shouldn’t, but I take his hand. His immediately folds tightly over mine. “I know you’d do what I want. But I wanted you to want the same things. Otherwise, it won’t turn out right. I can’t do all the wanting for both of us.”
With sudden anguish twisting his sweet, handsome features, he drops my hand and stands up so abruptly that Finster startles in his dog bed. Daniel walks a few steps away, shaking his head. “Oh God,” he whispers to himself. Then he comes back to me, and my heart aches when he kneels in front of me. “Katy,” he says, “You can’t leave. I love you. You’re everything to me. Without you, I don’t know who I am.”
I force the words past the sadness closing my throat. “Then maybe you have to find out.”
The understanding that my decision has been made shows on Daniel’s face. Slowly, he sits back on the couch next to me. “I suppose I shouldn’t argue. I want to, but I brought this on myself. Everything we had was so comforting. After the way I grew up, I just wanted it to stay the same. I was afraid to move forward because I thought I would screw things up,” he says, his voice trembling, “and that’s exactly what happened by trying to keep things the way they were.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him.
“Yes, it is. And now I’ve lost you, and I’m never going to have what I had with you again.”
“Daniel, don’t say that. You’ll—”
“Katy, please.” His eyes close, his dark lashes fanning across his pale skin. “Don’t tell me I’ll meet someone someday. Even if I do, you were my first love, and no one’s ever going to measure up to you.” He looks at me again. “There are some things I want to say to you.”
His face is so set and serious, I’m almost afraid to hear them. “All right.”
“I’m guessing that guy has something to do with this,” Daniel mutters. Then he looks at me. “Is he a good man, Katy? Good enough for you?” Not wanting to hurt Daniel’s feelings, I just nod. I can’t tell whether he looks relieved or more upset than before.
“There’s something else you should know,” Daniel says. He takes my hands. “My reluctance had nothing to do with you. Nothing. It’s my fault, Katy. I know what a special person you are.”
My eyes fall downward as tears fill them. “I’m not that special.”
“Katy. Look at me.” When I do, the warmth coming from Daniel’s eyes is almost as good as one of his magical hugs. “You are special. It’s not just that you’re beautiful and talented, it’s your bravery. You think you’re scared to do things, but you do them anyway, even if you do them scared. When you got laid off, you freaked out, but you started writing, like you’d always wanted to. You came from a broken family like me, but instead of being afraid of having kids, you’re looking forward to it, and you know you’ll do better. And you will. Katy, you deserve everything you want and more.”
The tears fall, as I knew they would. Daniel reaches up and softly caresses them from my cheeks, even as his own eyes fill. “Katy, I wish I could have been brave enough to love you right.”
It’s not that Daniel takes me in his arms. It’s not that I go to him. One minute, we’re apart, looking at each other with an aching sadness I haven’t felt in so long, the sadness of goodbye, an end, and the next moment, I’m in the magic circle of his arms, thinking Please, can’t I keep this, please.
“I love you,” Daniel whispers. “Katy, I love you. Always.”
“Don’t,” I cry, sobbing into his shoulder. He thinks I mean don’t say that, so he stops. What I meant was,
Don’t let go.
I don’t know whether I want to say that to him or to myself.
We hold each other for a time that might have been long but will always feel too short. We try to comfort each other, but it’s hard to do that when you’re the one causing the pain.
The time comes when I know I have to let go. My arms so reluctantly release Daniel. We wipe the tears from each other’s eyes, which only creates fresh tears.
“This hurts so much I know I must have done the right thing,” Daniel says. “Please go before I beg you not to.”
And so, I do. No goodbye. No last look. Just the click of the door and the last train ride home.