In a daze, I walked through the doorway and into her stunning house. Just past the foyer was a sitting room, the furniture probably costing more than my entire college education. It was formal with a touch of personality. I half expected the house to be museum-like, but it wasn’t. It was a house for a family, and I could just picture the fights Tyler and his brother must have gotten into in this house.
The sound of paws clicking on the hardwood floor caught my attention and I looked down, my eyes growing wide as a stubby French bulldog came wobbling toward me, a silly grin on his face.
“Griffin!” I exclaimed, bending down to scratch his head. He barked in response, as he always did when someone said his name. “It’s so good to see you, buddy.” Panting, he briefly showered my face with kisses before a photo on the mantle in the sitting room caught my eye. I strode to the fireplace, Griffin close on my heels, and picked up the framed photo of a happy family.
“Griffin seems to like you,” Colleen commented, approaching me.
“He’s a great dog, stinky breath and all.”
She laughed. “You’ve got that right.”
“Is this your husband?” I asked, referring to the man in the photo who had those same green eyes as Tyler and his siblings.
“Yes. That’s Thomas.”
I returned my eyes to the photo, seeing a strong resemblance between the man and his two sons. He was tall and built, having dark hair and an exquisitely handsome and distinguished face. Colleen stood next to him and looked somewhat younger, perhaps in her late forties. In front of them sat a young woman with blonde hair and those trademark green eyes. Carol. She was probably in her late twenties or so. Next to her sat Alexander, a forced smile on his face. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Beside Alexander sat a child of no more than six. Tyler. He had the biggest grin on his face, his arm slung around his brother’s shoulders. From the photo alone, I could sense Tyler looked up to Alexander. I supposed he still did.
“You have a beautiful family,” I offered as I returned the photo to the mantle.
She placed her hand on my arm in a consoling manner, obviously noticing I was struggling not to crack. Not only was I pregnant, which caused my emotions to go from one extreme to the other within seconds, but I was still struggling with my feelings about what Tyler did.
“He’ll come back,” she encouraged. “I promise.”
“What if I don’t want him to?” I met her eyes. “What if I’m not ready to see him? To forgive him?”
“Mackenzie, sweetie,” she sighed, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the ornate white couch where we both sat down. “Forgiveness is a funny thing. Sometimes we don’t forgive people because they deserve it. We do so because they need it. I saw the guilt and remorse etched on Tyler’s face that day in March. It was a look unlike anything I had ever seen on my baby boy’s face, even after Melanie…” She glanced down, gently caressing my knuckles and squeezing my hand. “I don’t know when he’ll be back, but I can tell you this much. Not one day has gone by where you haven’t been on his mind. He may seem to have a tough exterior but, inside, he’s still a boy who has had his world ripped out from underneath him. His love for you is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
“How can you tell?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“He’s my son. He’s part of me. There’s not a whole lot of gray when it comes to Tyler.”
I laughed, wiping my tears. “I noticed that.”
“When he loves, he loves with his entire heart. When he hurts, the pain is excruciating. I’m sure he’s spent every day since you left trying to figure out a way to convince you he’s worth you taking a risk on him again, despite what happened between you two.” She squeezed my hands, the gesture warm and precisely what I needed to assuage my fears. “Now,” she continued, her voice returning to its typical frivolity, “you must be starving. Do you like lasagna?”
I beamed at her, nodding.
As I sat watching her prepare dinner, I couldn’t help but be reminded of spending time in the kitchen with my own mother. Despite the posh surroundings, everything was so homey and comfortable. Time passed seamlessly as we sat at an informal farmhouse-style kitchen table and she told me stories about Tyler when he was a little boy. I told her about our crazy whirlwind romance that only lasted all of two weeks, but felt like we had known each other for years.
“Time doesn’t matter, dear,” she offered when I questioned whether he could feel as strongly about me as she insisted he did. “You can be in a relationship for years and feel nothing for the other person, or you can be together for mere weeks and feel something so strong, so beautiful, so perfect, you’d be a fool to walk away just because it hasn’t been long enough. Don’t let society dictate how long you need to be together. Love doesn’t grow. It happens, and you can’t control it. If you don’t feel it from the beginning, it’s not love.”
“When did you know with Thomas?” I asked, sipping my water. The smell of garlic and tomatoes made my stomach growl, and I couldn’t wait to devour the cheesy deliciousness she had prepared.
“Before he even said a word,” she responded, a dreamy glimmer in her eyes. “It was the summer after I graduated high school and I was enjoying my time with friends before we all went our separate ways. I was supposed to be leaving for college in a few months, and some of my friends were heading to teaching or nursing school. Others were hitchhiking their way across the country, trying to get to California. It was the sixties, after all.”
Her voice was gentle and calm, a warm smile crossing her face as if she were remembering the moment like it was yesterday.
“My girlfriends and I took the train into the city so we could go to the esplanade to listen to the Fourth of July concert and watch the fireworks. At the time, the drinking age was eighteen, so we brought a cooler and a few blankets, found a spot on the grass, and spent our day soaking up the sun. After a few hours, we ran out of beer, so I went in search of a concession stand to buy some more. There was a long line, but I waited, knowing my friends would be disappointed if I returned empty-handed. As I was heading back to them, balancing four beers in my hands, I ran into a very tall, very hard body, crushing the beers between us. It was like it happens in all those cheesy romance movies. Everything was in slow motion as I looked up from my beer-soaked tank top and shorts. I finally knew where the term love-struck came from because it felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the atmosphere. When I saw his eyes, the most ferocious butterflies began fluttering in my stomach. The rest of the evening was a blur as I got to know this beautiful man, and I’m fortunate that I got to spend nearly forty years with him.”
“That’s beautiful,” I sighed.
“It wasn’t all easy for us. For the first several years, especially after Carol was born, we were barely scraping by. He was over in Vietnam for years, so I was forced to raise Carol without him. When he returned, she was already four. He had missed all of her firsts. After finding out he volunteered to stay in Vietnam after his first tour was over, even after he told me he didn’t have a choice, I kicked him out. His lies hurt, Mackenzie, so I know how you feel. But the time apart gave us both an opportunity to realize how much we couldn’t survive without each other. We both realized what was important in life. Thomas vowed never to lie to me again. He wanted to be there for all our next baby’s firsts, but we were in no position to try again. We were living in a studio apartment, barely making ends meet. I couldn’t find a job, even with the college degree I eventually got after having Carol. Employers didn’t want to hire me because I had a child. They wanted someone reliable who wouldn’t have to miss work because of an ill child. Things were a lot different back then.”
“I guess so,” I responded, shaking my head. I couldn’t imagine what she went through raising a baby while the father was overseas fighting a war.