It was so rude that I nearly smacked him. But, though the rumors around town were that my mother had spent twenty-five years grooming a spinster, she had at least taught me manners. “Iamhere with Ernest,” I said, rolling my eyes the least bit so that he would understand. “Maybe we could catch up later on?”
“We could,” Dan said. “But I’ve waited long enough.”
With that, I heard myself squeal with delighted surprise as he leaned over and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I put my hands behind my back to keep my skirt from flying up, and, as Dan ran down the dirt path and to the road, Ernest hollering, “Put her down right now,” we were both in the kind of hysterics that make your stomach hurt.
When Dan finally dropped me at the edge of the road, he fell into the tall grass, wiping his brow and feigning exhaustion.
“That was quite an entrance,” was all I could manage through my giggles.
I sat beside him on the grass, and he said, “Some pompous shrimp isn’t going to tell me that I can’t seemygirl.” He kissed my hand. We stared at each other a long moment, and I could see the horrors of war written in the fresh lines of his skin. They started when he was fighting, but the anxiety of the what-ifs of the Cold War had deepened them. But that light in his eyes, that love burning like a kerosene lamp when he looked at me, was still the same. “I’ve been counting down the hours until I get to ask you this,” he said. With that, he propped up on one knee, put his hand in his pocket and produced the most beautiful diamond with baguettes flanking it. I couldn’t imagine where he had gotten the money to buy it, knowing that this was decidedly against his parents’ rules, but if he had proposed with rolled-up tinfoil, I would have been short of breath all the same. He picked up my left hand. “I first held this hand fifteen years ago, when I was just a kid. And all this time later, every time I see your gorgeous face, the life and love that springs from my bright and beautiful girl, I feel like that same restless boy trying to reel in the catch of his life.”
I could feel the ecstatic tears coming down my face.
“You are the only woman in the world to me. Life isn’t worth living without you by my side.”
I gasped, wiping the tears from my eyes, and said, “Well, ask me already.”
He sighed. “Before I ask you, there’s something you need to know.” He paused and took a deep breath, and I could feel my heart racing with fear. I had heard the stories of soldiers coming home with love children in foreign countries or marriages made out of the desperation of war. So when he said, “I’ve already asked your father,” I laughed.
“Well, of course you have,” I interjected. “You’re a perfect gentleman.”
He shook his head.
“No, Lynn, you don’t understand.” He furrowed his brow. “He said no. He said he’d already promised your hand.” He rolled his eyes. “ToErnest.”
I put my hands on his shoulders, shifting to my knees in front of him, and sighed. “But, all the same,” I whispered, “I’ve already promised my heart to you.”
He smiled. “Please marry me, Lynn. You’re all I want forever.”
As my lips met his, urgently, passionately, I made a deal with God, one that I’ve kept all these years: If He would just let me marry this man—if, this time, He wouldn’t take him away, I would stand faithfully by Dan’s side until my last breath.
•••
When you make a decision, you have to stick with it. Being wishy-washy hasn’t ever gotten anyone anywhere. But, though I tried, I wasn’t as resolute as my momma.
“I never should have done this,” I said to the nurse that second week in the new assisted living apartment. “I think we need to go back home.”
Every night since we had been here, Dan had tried to get out of bed, convinced that the house was on fire and he had to get the children. “You get Sally and Lauren,” he’d shout. “I have Louise, Martha and Jean.”
I’d try to soothe him, but he was so much stronger than I was, so out of his head, and unaware that his legs, if he tried to get up, would fail him like an injured mare. And then where would we be? Head injuries and broken hips would race through my mind as I pushed the call button, thankful to be on the second floor, only steps away from the night nurses.
“You know what, honey,” the nurse said to me, her hot pink scrubs seeming too cheerful for my downtrodden mood.
“What?”
“I think that Ativan we’re giving him to calm him down is keying him up.”
“You think that could be it?”
She nodded. “Sure do. We’ll try something else tomorrow night.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked Dan’s hand.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here. And remember what you said? You said that anywhere we were together, we were home.”
Dan had been looking at me the entire time since he calmed down, but it finally seemed like I was coming into focus.
“So, the girls...”
