These Three Words (6 page)

I could almost hear the sound of his laughter across the span of years. Even then I’d realized how rare it was and I’d treasured it.

I couldn’t remember the last time Gray had laughed.

I thought about the ice cream that was in the freezer, just waiting for me to come home.

I looked at
James with an S
. “My husband said that someday he’d ask me to marry him at a dinner in that apartment.”

“And he did,” he said, looking at my hand. I looked down and was shocked to see that I was clutching the papers in my left hand, which left my engagement ring and wedding band exposed.

I nodded. “He did.”

“Anne is forever showing me big-production proposals on
YouTube
,” James said. “I didn’t do anything like that. I took her out to dinner and slid the ring box to her. She’d picked it out, so even that was no surprise. But I asked, ‘Will you marry me, Anne?’ and she said yes. There was no big dance number, and no band or balloons involved. Just me and her—that was enough for me. Just her and me. That was more than enough then and it’s more than enough now.”

James got quiet.

I hoped that whatever was wrong with his Anne was fixable. I hoped that after all the hospital visits, this surgery would resolve her problem and allow them to still have more time together, just James and Anne.

Like Maude and Bertie.

James was lost somewhere in the past where he and Anne were simply enjoying just being the two of them.

I’d thought I wanted silence, but it weighed on me despite the fact the room was anything but quiet.

The television droned.

People conversed quietly, as if they were in a church where whispers were the norm.

They twitched and paced and talked on cell phones.

Occasional announcements over the PA system interrupted all the noise. Afterward, for half a breath the room would remain still and silent, then everything would spring back to life and begin again.

I thought I’d be thankful for the peace, but I wasn’t.

I checked my phone to see if there was an e-mail from Peggy. There wasn’t. Unable to sit any longer, I got up and got a cup of coffee. Thinking of Maude bringing me a cup earlier, I got one for James as well.

I handed it to him. He took it automatically, then looked down as if surprised to find coffee in his hand.

He smiled his thanks and then went back to whatever memory he’d been reliving.

I sat back down and tried to simply be still, but I felt as if I were suffocating under the weight of all that silent despair.

I picked up the conversation with James where we’d left it. “I don’t think most women want a big production.”

He fell back into the present and said, “Pardon?”

“You said your wife showed you big-production proposals online, but I don’t think most of us want that sort of thing. I think most of us treasure the small things. We value feeling that we matter. We want to be heard. To be noticed. If you did that for Anne, it was enough.”

“I keep thinking about doing some
YouTube
-worthy something for her when she’s better. Something to make her smile. She deserves a big produc—”

“Mr. Patterson?” a man in scrubs called.

I felt the entire room’s attention pivot to that doorway. The man said again, “Mr. Patterson.”

Everyone but James went back to their conversations, television watching, or forays into their private thoughts while James stood up and took a step toward the doorway.

“I hope she’s okay,” I told him.

He stopped, leaned down, took my hand, and gave it a squeeze. “Me, too.”

I watched as the man in scrubs said something. James listened intently, then turned back to me and smiled as he gave me a small nod.

His Anne was okay . . . at least for now.

After he left, I sat back and listened as snatches of the quiet conversations and the television drone blended together.

“. . . and then she said . . .”

“. . . I’d rather have my man wear nothing . . .”

“. . . in for a penny . . .”

I sat and focused on the weird bits of conversations blended into an odd monologue.

“. . . put the fast in breakfast by using . . .”

“. . . sneakers and sweats. I said, no . . .”

“. . . one memory I can’t shake . . .”

Listening to the snatches of television mixing with conversations might be easier than thinking about Gray, but it kept bringing me back to him anyway.

Everything kept bringing me back to him.

I couldn’t help but think about our past and trying to figure out where we went wrong.

In the months since I walked out the door, I’d figured out many things, but never that.

Chapter Four

Waiting.

Now that James had left, it felt like he’d taken what little oxygen had been in the room along with him. The weight of the waiting threatened to suffocate me.

I wondered if that’s where the word
waiting
came from . . . the
weight
of the experience.

I’d waited for Gray in the past.

Waited for him to feel financially stable enough to marry me.

Waited for a honeymoon.

Waited for him to say something when things fell apart. I needed him to say something. I talked. And he seemed to listen, but when I asked how he felt, what he was thinking, he said nothing.

We went to couples therapy, and he still said nothing.

When I’d planned a getaway for us, he’d finally said something . . . no.

He didn’t have time. He couldn’t make time.

After I left, he’d finally said he wanted to talk, but to be honest, I’d done enough talking to last me a lifetime.

Then I waited again for him to realize there was no fixing us. I waited for him to file for our inevitable divorce.

But he didn’t. He seemed content with the status quo.

Finally, I got as tired of waiting as I was of talking. Neither solved anything.

I took that last step myself. I thought I’d be done waiting.

Oh, the irony.

Here I was, waiting again. This time the waiting was worse than all the other times.

“I know, the waiting is the worst,” James said.

I realized I must have said the word out loud and right after that I realized that James had come back. “Is Anne okay?”

“Fine. She’s in recovery. They’ll come get me when I can go back.”

I nodded. “So you’re waiting again.”

“It’s easier with someone waiting with you.” He sat down, not in the seat he’d vacated, but next to me. “After I’m gone, you really should let your friend come down,” he said again.

I nodded. “She’ll be here when I need her. It doesn’t matter what I say, she’s the kind of friend who hears what I don’t say just as clearly as what I do say.”

He nodded. “It’s good to have a friend like that.”

It was. I patted James’ hand, just as Maude had patted mine.

I didn’t consider myself a big toucher. I found social hugs awkward. I never knew when one was appropriate and was always caught off guard when someone hugged me.

But here I was, patting James’ hand, just as Maude had patted mine. I didn’t feel awkward in the least.

Maybe it was a comrade-in-arms sort of thing. We were all here under fire. Maude had waited for her Bertie. James for his Anne. And me for Gray.

Talking to them had forced me to move past that one bitter moment in my relationship with Gray and start to remember other memories . . . the happier ones.

“Maybe sometimes we don’t need a friend who knows our stories,” I said. “Maybe sometimes we need someone new who doesn’t know them. Someone who makes us look into the past. I know that doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but I’d forgotten how happy Gray and I were that night as we drank cheap wine and talked about the future. Thank you for reminding me.”

I had a mental image of Gray on an operating table, his ribs cracked open. I could see it so clearly. I’m sure I’d seen something like that on some medical show. I could hear the sound of a saw and hear the bones breaking—

James squeezed my hand as if he could sense what I was thinking. “So tell me about another moment you and your husband were that happy.”

It struck me as absurd that for the last year I’d concentrated on the moments that had made me unhappy—the moments that had wounded me to the core.

Maybe I’d forgotten just how many happier moments there were.

“Gray and I talked about getting married from that night on. He said as soon as his business was standing on its own two feet we’d make it official. I’d reconciled myself to the idea of waiting years. I knew that most new businesses didn’t survive, and those that did took years to become stable. I knew the company was doing all right, but Gray caught me totally off guard when he finally asked. I’d found a place for myself at Harbor House. I loved working with the clients and helping translate their vision into reality.

“You might think that a chair is just a chair, but when it’s done right, it can be a work of art. Functional, useful, but ultimately, art. And Gray and Ash were working so hard to get Steel, Inc. off the ground. But one afternoon Gray called and asked me to have dinner with him . . .

I waited for Gray in front of my apartment.

“Wear something comfortable,” he’d said when he’d called an hour earlier.

Normally those words at this time of year meant a picnic on the beach.

Gray took me often, though he said he didn’t understand my penchant for watching a sunset. After all, the sun set every day, and he felt if you’d seen one sunset, you’d seen them all. I tried to explain that every sunset was different. Sometimes it was a subtle difference; sometimes it was a huge one. It didn’t matter—each change could alter the entire experience. And even if they were all exactly the same, each time we came, we were altered—even if only by being a day older. And viewing things through a different lens changed everything.

As much as he complained, I suspected he enjoyed them as much as I did. During the summer he made an effort to bring me out to the peninsula often.

I’d gone to the state of Washington with my parents when I was twelve. We’d all watched a sunset on a rocky beach there. Afterward we all agreed that Lake Erie sunsets were just as beautiful
. . .
and possibly more so.

At the ocean there’s a smell of salt in the air. There’s a different thrum to the sound of the waves. Almost deeper. As if the weight of that whole ocean reverberated through each wave as it crashed onto the shore.

The vista on the lake—my lake—was as expansive as an ocean view, but the waves sounded smaller, more manageable. The large stone breakwalls at Presque Isle were covered with seagulls, and their cries frequently harmonized with the beat of the waves. And the smell was something else entirely. There, underneath the slightly fishy aroma that punctuates every large body of water, was a sweetness. A hint of pine and poplar trees.

As I waited for Gray, I wondered about the differences between ocean and lake sunsets, knowing that I would always prefer my lake.

Gray pulled up in front of my old college apartment. I’d thought about moving into something bigger, something more adult, after I’d graduated, but I’d gotten comfortable here. I didn’t need much space.

I got in his car and saw a picnic basket on the backseat.

“I was right,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat. I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You know I love sunset picnics.”

He shook his head. “Not tonight, though we can make it a point of going out next week.”

There was a flash of happiness in his eyes. “This is something new,” he said. “A surprise.”

Wherever we were going might be new, but this teasing, surprising side of Gray was newer still. Graham Grayson was not a man given to unexpected things, nor was he a man who was prone to teasing.

“Give me a hint?” I wheedled.

He shook his head. “Be patient.”

“I think that maybe I missed the patience line when they were handing out virtues,” I told him, not for the first time. “To be honest, I think we both know that there’s no
maybe
about it.”

“I might not have gotten a full dose either,” he said.

I snorted at his statement, then laughed when I realized that he actually believed what he’d said. “You are the most patient, methodical man I’ve ever met. You set a goal and then work your way toward it, one step after the next. You never seem to get sidetracked or frustrated. You just keep moving toward that goal with utter assurance you’ll reach it.”

“I am not as patient as you think,” he said cryptically. I noticed he drove with his hands at ten and two, just like the drivers’ manuals said. There was a slight paleness to his knuckles, as if he was clenching the steering wheel harder than necessary.

I stopped teasing and asked, “Gray, are you all right?”

He nodded. “I’m fine, of course. I’m with you, aren’t I?”

Gray was not a man who waxed poetic. To be honest, he didn’t wax much of anything. Most of the time I did the talking for both of us. So, his I’m-with-you-aren’t-I was probably one of the most romantic things he ever said.

As I swooned over it, he added, “But, for the record, sometimes I set a goal and realize it’s unrealistic, then I rethink things. I am capable of changing directions.”

I snorted again. I’d yet to find an instance where Gray altered his course. But I was too happy to argue the point.

“So where are we going?” I asked, thinking my question might catch him unaware.

I should have known better.

“We’ll be there soon,” he answered.

“Captain Cryptic strikes again,” I muttered.

Gray reached State Street and headed south. State Street started at the bay and split the city into an east and a west side. It also split the city’s downtown park, Perry Square, in half.

I loved driving through Perry Square. They’d spent the last few years sprucing it up and I thought it looked lovely with its welcoming arches and its fountain.

Beyond Perry Square we passed City Hall, which sat on the west side of the street, and a couple of blocks up from the historic Warner Theater, which sat on the east side.

I found myself counting the streets, whose number increased as Gray drove away from the bay. Twelfth Street, Thirteenth
. . .

We reached Thirty-Eighth Street and I was sure he’d take this other main street either east or west. Once he picked a direction, I might have a chance at guessing our destination.

But he kept driving. At Forty-First, he turned right, then a couple of blocks later, turned left, so we were heading south again, on Willow Lane.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and said, “Let’s go.”

“Where are we?” I might have thought we were going to some colleague’s house, but if so he’d have asked me to dress up, not down.

“You’ll see,” he said.

“Mr. Mysterious allies with his pal Captain Cryptic on another mad adventure,” I said in my best radio-broadcaster voice. “Join them in tonight’s episode as they set out with their sidekicks, Obie Obscure and Peter Perplexing—”

Gray interrupted, uncharacteristically joining in my weirdness. He did a mean radio-broadcaster voice as well. “As they set out to woo Addled Adeline—”

“Hey,” I protested. I muttered as I got out of the car, “The ‘addled’ part wasn’t nice, but I did like the wooing part.”

“I hope you like the rest of the surprise,” he said.

Gray grabbed the picnic basket. It was his mom’s, so there was a good chance Peggy had helped him pack our dinner.

His mom was an amazing cook. I frequently teased her that she should consider cooking instead of waitressing, but she laughed and told me that cooks get no tips so she’d be wasting her innumerable charms.

Gray walked to a gate in front of an unfamiliar house. It squeaked softly as he pushed it open. There was a wrought-iron fence that reached my waist. The gate, however, was taller. It was the same as the rest of the fence, but the top extended into a circle, beyond which I could see a well-manicured lawn that was split by a brick sidewalk.

That sidewalk led to a small, L-shaped, brick home that had a touch of a Tudor element.

Ivy draped around the arched front door.

This was a home that could be part of a fairy tale. I could imagine some princess in disguise waiting here for her prince.

“It’s adorable. Whose is it?” I asked.

“That’s the surprise,” he said, no less cryptic than he’d been in the car.

The grass-covered lawn was meticulously trimmed, as were the boxwood hedges that lined the porch.

We reached the arched doorway and Gray set down the basket, reached out, and opened the door. “Gray, you can’t—”

He cut off my protest as he scooped me up and carried me into what I quickly saw was an empty house.

“Do you like it?” he asked as he set me down on a wide-planked, hardwood floor that had some wear. But rather than make it look neglected, the slight imperfections made it look homey. Inviting.

There was a bank of three windows, three-by-threes, and across from the windows was a brick fireplace that was flanked by built-in shelves.

“It’s beautiful,” I assured him.