Beyond Eighteen (38 page)

“So you want to take me to the beach?” I
asked Max as he led the way, pulling me by the hand. “Because we
need to head to the right if we are going down the cliff to the
beach.”

“Well, actually, I saw that bench from the
road and I was thinking I’d like to watch the sunset with you.” Max
pulled me over to the familiar old redwood bench.

“You’re kidding me. Max, you have no idea
how special this bench is to me. My grandpa had this bench built so
he and Grandma would have a place to sit and watch the sunset. They
used to bring chairs here, but when it got too difficult for them
to carry, he paid the city to build this bench…right in their
favorite spot.” I could feel a lump grow in the back of my
throat.

I looked out over the horizon. The rim of
the sun was sinking behind the edge of the boundless, dark blue
ocean. Fire-red clouds splayed the landscape as misty fog danced
across the water.

“Well, that makes this moment even more
special,” Max whispered as he pulled me into his chest. I could
feel his heart thrash against his sternum. The wind kicked up and
my hair swirled around my head, lashing at my face. I pushed into
his chest and tightened my arms around his back. He pulled me down
onto the bench. As I turned to see the sunset, he held my hair out
of my eyes. We sat on my grandparents’ bench, speechless, while we
watched the sea swallow the sun.

Max cleared his throat and the last sliver
of sunlight seemed to wait for us.

“I can’t explain what happens to me when I
am with you. You are my purpose for getting up in the morning and
the reason I want to be the man I am every day. I brought you out
here because I wanted to tell you that I understand how important
this place is to you…how much this completes you to be here. And I
want you to know I will do everything in my power to keep your
grandparents’ house for you…for us.”

I felt him shift before he lowered himself
off the bench in front of me.

“I know we have a lot of growing to do, but
I’d be a fool not to tell you how I feel. I don’t want to waste
another minute without you. I will wait for you, I will follow you.
I will be the only man you will ever need.”

Max pulled a small, black velvet box out of
his jacket pocket and opened it. “Wilson, babe, will you do me the
honor of becoming my wife? Will you marry me…someday?”

My heart thundered in my stomach. My
butterflies cheered and my lungs clenched, keeping every ounce of
air from letting me breathe. I couldn’t speak. Tears poured from my
eyes so fat, I couldn’t even see the ring. All I could do was nod
‘yes,’ over and over again.

Max rose, catching me in his arms. We stood
up, my legs weak by what he’d just done. I couldn’t stop crying. I
couldn’t call up my voice to even say yes…God, I was totally and
completely in love with him. I never expected him to propose to me.
Not right then. No wonder his heart was thundering in his chest. I
pulled him tighter against me. He kissed my neck, then ran his lips
across my check and pushed his mouth against mine. He tasted better
than ever before…the salt of my tears mixed with the refreshing
flavor of the ocean. He tasted like home.

Finally I
was
home…the way I wanted
home to be. Max’s kiss became something different. It was something
I was going to have forever. The night sky swathed us into being
the only two people in the world, the stars our guests, the waves
our music, as we started our life together.

“I never put the ring on your finger,” Max
whispered. I looked at him, his face in silhouette, the glistening
stars faintly lighting his complexion. His cheeks were damp; it
wasn’t just
my
tears I tasted against his lips.

He pulled my left hand up to his chest and
rested it there. “Do you feel my heart?” he asked as he pulled the
ring out of the box.

I nodded, still lost to words.

It was the most beautiful ring I’d ever
seen. A single, gigantic diamond with a platinum band that curved
up to hold the stone in place. A simple, elegant double band was
the perfect symbol of our relationship, a continuation of how two
lives can seem parallel until they come to the realization of how
exquisite they are when they discover their flawlessness.

“Yes, I will marry you,” I whispered as he
pushed the ring onto my finger. I wanted to run and tell my
grandparents. For a moment, I had the same feeling I had when I was
a little girl and I found the most beautiful star in the sky. I
wanted to burst through the door and holler for them to come look.
I felt a pang in my chest become lost in the folds of my heart,
drenched with my memories. This was something I’d dreamt of my
whole life, and they were going to have to watch from the
sidelines. My breath caught. Max noticed and wrapped his arms
around me.

“My grandparents,” I mumbled.

“I know, sweetheart,” Max said softly
against my ear. A moment clung silently to the darkening night
before I looked up at the sky.

“I think they’re here, watching over us, in
the stars. Maybe there, next to the Taurus constellation. He’s
watching Jupiter disguised as a white bull carry Europa straight to
Crete to make her his wife.”

Max laughed before he kissed the top of my
head.

“You remembered,” he sighed.

“Yeah, it’s the only Greek mythology I care
to remember.”

The wind swept across us. I shivered and he
pulled me closer to his chest.

“How about we go back to the house and
celebrate? Besides, I think you’ll want to tell your best friend
that your family just grew.”

He was right. I couldn’t wait to tell J that
I was marrying the man of my dreams and making our family just a
little bit bigger.

~ Wilson ~

Six months ago, if someone came to me and
bet me everything I owned that my life was going to do a complete
360, I would have laughed in their face and shook on it. Never in
my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined that I’d be where I am
today—graduated from Wesley early, getting ready to go to college,
living in Carbondale, Colorado, with my fiancée, the man of my
dreams, and reconnecting with my birth mother, Candice. Heck, I
would have lost the farm on that handshake.

Living in Carbondale is incredible. I’ve
never lived somewhere that had definite seasons. In winter, the
scent of pine mixes with the brisk breeze off the snowcapped
mountains. Trees dressed in all white, married to the landscape
below their branches. In spring life is recaptured in the meadows,
which are filled with wildflowers bursting from the sunny edges of
the shadowy forests. The sapphire blue sky is filled with white,
downy clouds and the fiery sun licks warmth across your cheeks. By
night, the silvery glow of the moon caresses your skin with cool
rays while the multitude of stars invite stories of warriors and
rulers.

Truthfully, Carbondale feels a lot like
Mendocino; a place where everyone knows each other. You can’t
sneeze without someone knowing about it. It’s a safe place, where
we don’t tell people how we met. It’s taken a little getting used
to the neighborhood block parties and community barbeques in the
park. Every weekend we are either heading off to Nancy’s for a
family dinner or doing something in the community. I can tell Max
has found his place…let’s just say, I’m still settling in.

Nancy is just over the moon that we’re
living so close by, and Max likes the idea that we are far enough
away that his mom usually calls first before dropping in for a
visit. When Max stepped down as CEO of GP, Dan graciously took over
the position. Let’s face it: Dan was cut out for the role. No
worries, though. Max is set for life, he still works at GP, and
plays a vital part in every decision that’s made.

Camille and Dan bought a house just five
minutes outside of Aspen, and announced that the guest bedroom is
going to be remodeled into a nursery. Yep, the family will be
growing by one come November. They said if it’s a boy they want to
name him Frank; if it’s a girl, Francis. They’re very happy. Max
and I are happy too because it takes the pressure off of us from
Nancy to set a wedding date.

Calvin is, well. Still Cal. A life filled
with snow bunnies and mixed drinks. He’s desperate to find
something that fulfills him beyond the one-night stands and raging
parties. He moved in with Nancy and they have been thicker than
thieves ever since. It’s been good for her too. Ever since Frank
died, she has good days and bad. Max still worries about her, and
on his way home from the office, he stops in to see her couple of
times a week, just to make sure she’s okay. She’s really taken to
the news about being a grandma, and has already begun to convert
Camille’s old room to a nursery for the baby.

I talk to J every day. She stayed in Bay
Area after graduating from Wesley. She received a full scholarship
to Stanford and she couldn’t pass it up once she found out that
Cindy
wasn’t
going there. In fact, Cindy convinced her
father to send her to some hoity-toity fashion design school in
Paris. I guess she met some French dude in New York, and well, the
rest is how Cindy rolls.

Nick moved to Palo Alto and took over
running the Northern California division of Browler’s Burritos. So
they’re still together. Slowly J and I have been working on Nick
and Max, and they are coming around. They can actually shake hands
now, and hold conversations about sports and cars; we’re taking it
one day at a time. I’ve gotten past the incident between Nick and
me. Matter of fact, we’ve both forgiven each other for what
happened. We’ve chalked it up to a mistaken moment and bad
judgment. I like Nick, and I like seeing J so happy with him.

I can actually say my life is pretty close
to perfect right now. There’s just one thing I still need to
do.

“Are you going to keep fiddling with that,
or are you going to get out of the car?” Max asked.

“No, I’m gonna go up there...I just, well,
I’m just a little nervous, that’s all,” I stuttered as I adjusted
uncomfortably in the passenger’s seat of our rental car and
continued to twist my ring around my finger. Any time I was going
to do something that I wasn’t too sure about, I would start
spinning my ring around my finger. It hadn’t taken long to create
the habit.

Max caressed his hand across my cheek before
nesting my chin between his pointer finger and thumb. Gently, he
pulled my head toward him, his eyes greener than usual, glimmering
with a glint of anticipation.

“She loves you just as much as I do. Think
about it, babe, she’s probably in there right now, feeling the same
anxiety about finally seeing her daughter again.”

I felt a rock hard bubble in my throat as I
struggled to swallow. I won’t lie; it felt good when he called me
Candice’s daughter. It has been ten years since I was someone’s
daughter. Sure, Nancy gives me what a family is supposed to feel
like, but there’s something different about belonging to someone
who shares your DNA.

I turned and looked across the impeccably
groomed lawn fenced with small, waxy green shrubs trimmed into a
perfect train like rectangles. A cement pathway curved its way to
the small but inviting porch.

“I can’t believe I’m here, in Seattle with
you, getting ready to actually see her for the first time in over
ten years. It almost doesn’t even seem real to me.”

Over the last six months, with Max’s and
Joanie’s persistence, Candice and I have been communicating and
building a relationship with the security of it being long
distance. She told me that she doesn’t go by Candi anymore. That
person disappeared when she became clean and sober seven years ago.
I told her it’s going to take me some time to work out everything
that is flying through my mind. The betrayal and pain that grew
from misconstrued stories and age-old apprehensions were still very
raw to me. She understood, and was willing to do whatever it took
to rebuild our relationship. So we’ve been working on forgiving my
grandparents for their good intentions gone bad. I’m learning to
let go of the anger I feel when I think back at how much of my
childhood I missed with Candice and the years I missed with my
brother, Connor.

We stood on the tiny stoop infested with
spider plants. Terracotta pots crowded with green and white leaves,
countless shoots of matching plantlets swaying in the air as they
hung from beige macramé plant holders. On the railing, a line of
smaller clay pots filled with black earth, giving life to tiny
bursts of miniature green and white. I looked down at the welcome
mat, burnt orange and bristly, and noticed the clumps of dried mud
that clung to the worn edges. Next to the mat was a small pair of
muddy tennis shoes, intentionally left outside. My heart pounded as
my diaphragm froze in mid breath. Those must be Connor’s shoes.

I don’t think I can knock. I’m gonna throw
up,” I said, trying to breathe deeply.

Max pulled me against his chest, my nose
against his silky black button-up shirt. I could smell the comfort
of lavender mixed with pine. Perspiration formed across my hairline
and down my neck as I felt my stomach take a somersault.

“You’re not going to be sick. Come on,
Wilson, you’ve talked to your mom on the phone. You’ve read and
re-read every letter she wrote to you for that last ten years.
Hell, we’ve even Skyped with her. I think you are stronger than you
know. Take a deep breath. You’ve come this far,” Max whispered
before he pressed his lips against the top of my head.

“You’re right, I can do this,” I said as I
pulled the door knocker back and slammed it against the hollow door
three times. My heart climbed up my throat and clogged my
airway.

Six months ago my family consisted of just
Joanie and me…now with the turn of a knob, and a door being opened,
everything will come full circle and change my life
forever….again.