Coming to a Crossroads

by Marie Ferrarella

  Ethan sighed. Time to get back to work. “Let them in, Edna. They’ve been waiting patiently.”

  Edna made a dismissive noise at the word patiently.

  “Ha! Not long enough if you ask me,” the nurse grumbled as she unlocked the door again.

  As Liz slipped by the older woman on her way out, Edna muttered, “You did good,” to her in such a low voice that at first Liz thought she had just imagined it as she tried to sidestep around the returning patients. But as she glanced back, she caught the look on Edna’s face and realized that it hadn’t been her imagination. She had heard the older woman.

  Pleased, Liz left the clinic humming to herself. Her feet were barely touching the ground.

  * * *

  It turned out to be another exceedingly long day. The patients who returned to the clinic after Shirley had been taken away seemed to number almost twice as many as there had been initially. Not only that, but there was a steady stream of patients coming in all afternoon.

  So much so that that the clinic wound up staying open even longer than it usually did.

  At the end of the day, Edna left muttering under her breath that he needed to get a new watch to replace the one he had so he could keep better time.

  Ethan heard her even though he pretended not to, but the truth was nothing could have fazed him or wiped the smile from his face. All the patients had been seen, all the crises were averted and he was going to be seeing Liz sometime later tonight. When he came right down to it, that was all that really mattered—especially the last part.

  Ethan was home almost an hour when he finally heard the knock on his door. Having just finished with his latest journal entry—he had taken up writing in it again—he closed the book and hurried over to the front door.

  Flipping the lock, he threw it open. “It might make things a lot easier if I just give you a key,” he declared a second before he realized that the woman on his doorstep wasn’t Liz.

  Looking as regal as ever, Catherine Van Houghton gave him a distant, puzzled look. “Why in heaven’s name would I want a key to this place?” she asked. “It would make more sense if I gave you a key to mine.”

  “Catherine,” he acknowledged numbly, feeling as if he was having some sort of bad dream. “What are you doing here?”

  “I asked myself that several times on the way over here,” the woman responded. Not waiting for an invitation, she walked in as if it was her right, then shut the door behind her.

  Ethan continued to stare at her, trying to figure out what in the world could have possibly prompted this woman to deign to cross his threshold after what she had said to him the last time they had seen one another.

  “And what did you answer yourself?” he finally asked when it looked as if she was settling in.

  There was no way he was going to allow her to stay, and it wasn’t just because Liz was due at any minute now. It was over between Catherine and him, and he didn’t want to be a party to any sort of feeble resuscitation attempts intended to bring the corpse that had once been their supposed relationship back to life.

  “You’ll be happy to know that I have decided to give you another chance. In other words, I’m going to take you back.” She looked around the apartment, a distasteful expression on her lips. “All this supposed noble selflessness of yours has affected your thinking,” she declared. “That was why I broke up with you in the first place, so that you could rethink what you’ve done and get all this nonsense out of your system once and for all.”

  Catherine looked as if she was going to sit down on the sofa, then apparently decided against it. “Now that you’ve had time to think, I know you’ve realized how foolish you were being and have come to your senses.” She squared her shoulders, pleased with herself. “I have even convinced my father to let you join his practice the way you were originally supposed to,” she declared in a triumphant voice.

  When he started to tell her that she needn’t have gone to that trouble, Catherine held up her hand. “No need to thank me. Just promise not to act so irrationally again and we can put this unfortunate period behind us.”

  By the expression on her face, she apparently thought that was the end of it.

  The way the woman behaved just took his breath away. But he was in no mood for her games, and he wasn’t about to have any part of this.

  “Catherine, what are you really doing here?” he asked.

  “Haven’t you been listening, darling?” Catherine asked, a touch of impatience in her voice. “I forgive you. You can come back, and we will just pick up our lives where you willfully dropped them. There won’t even be any hard feelings as long as you promise to do what we agreed on.”

  “We never agreed on anything,” he reminded the perfectly groomed woman before him. “You were the one who agreed, not me.”

  A scowl creased her perfect forehead. “Well, someone had to be the logical one, and you were all caught up in the romance of helping the sick and penniless, so I had to do your thinking for you.”

  “I’m sorry, Catherine. I appreciate you coming all the way here, leaving your ivory tower in order to give me another chance—but I do not want it,” he told her flatly.

  Shock and then anger flashed in her eyes. “Have you lost your mind?” she shouted.

  “On the contrary,” he informed her calmly. “I think I finally found it.”

  Her eyes narrowed, the fury in her tone building. “I want you to know that if I walk out that door, I am not coming back.”

  “I am counting on that,” Ethan replied as if he was trying to get rid of an annoying telemarketer on the phone.

  There was disbelief coupled with rage in her eyes, as if Catherine realized that, for the first time in her privileged life, she was being rejected.

  For a moment, she didn’t speak. And then when she did, her tone bordered on ugly. “You’re going to be very sorry!”

  “I highly doubt that,” he told her honestly.

  Enough was enough, Ethan thought as he opened his front door. His indication was clear.

  Catherine unleashed a string of highly unflattering curses as she stormed out of his apartment and got into her brand-new Mercedes.

  As she started up her car, still viciously cursing at him, his lineage and his patients, Ethan patiently held his tongue. Instead of looking at her, he glanced over her and her car. That was when he thought he caught a glimpse of Liz’s car. It was driving away.

  His heart froze. Had Liz gotten here while Catherine was unleashing her tirade? Had she heard any of it, particularly the part where Catherine had told him that she forgave him and intended to take him back? He knew very well that Catherine had the kind of voice that carried. She had never been the type to speak softly, because the woman firmly believed that only what she had to say mattered. Everything else was just part of a wall of noise.

  A sinking feeling seized him as he watched Liz driving out of his complex and his life. By coming back and carrying on the way she had, Catherine had managed to chase away the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  Somehow, he had to make this right before it was too late.

  * * *

  It completely astonished Liz how she could go from feeling as if she was on top of the world one moment down to the absolute depths of despair the very next. But she had.

  Eager to see Ethan, she had been about to knock on his door when she heard a woman’s voice coming from inside the apartment. She froze.

  The second she realized she was listening to Catherine, Ethan’s former fiancée, telling him that she was willing to take him back, Liz knew that she had just been fooling herself. How could she have possibly thought that she and Ethan could actually have a life together? Why would he want to be with her when he could be with a beautiful, rich woman of the world who could easily open doors for him, take him anywhere he wanted to go? And they’d had all thi
s time invested together. Why would she ever think he'd choose her?

  The only door she could open for Ethan was one to a small storage unit stuffed with childhood memorabilia. It definitely was not the same thing.

  What in the world had she been thinking? Liz silently demanded. It was like telling herself Ethan could be happy with rhinestones after having held a diamond in his hand.

  Liz didn’t remember driving home. She didn’t remember parking her car or subsequently getting out of it. She couldn’t even recall placing one foot in front of the other until she had gotten back to her apartment, but somehow, she was there, opening the door and walking inside, feeling as if her insides had been hollowed out using a rusty, jagged carving knife.

  It was nice while it lasted, she thought with a deep sigh. But it was time she grew up and realized that they didn’t live in a fairy-tale world where the handsome prince chose the scullery maid over the princess. In the real world, he chose the princess who came with a dowry of gold, she thought sadly.

  Ethan was just an interlude. A wonderful, wonderful interlude. He was never your endgame, remember that. You still have your work, your goals and, eventually, you’ll have that degree.

  Numb, exhausted, Liz dropped down onto the sofa. Somehow, the bedroom seemed just too far away for her to walk to.

  She could just curl up and sleep here, she told herself. She could—

  The doorbell rang, and she jumped. But she remained where she was. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and she really wasn’t up to being polite right now.

  The doorbell rang again. She willed whoever was pressing it to go away.

  When she didn’t answer the door the third time Ethan rang her doorbell, Ethan doubled up his fist and banged on the door instead.

  “C’mon, Liz,” he called out. “I know you’re in there. I saw your car. Open up the door. Please.”

  Because the hour was getting late and she didn’t want to disturb any of her neighbors, she crossed to the door. Drawing in her breath, she unlocked it. But she didn’t open the door very far.

  “What do you want, Ethan?” she asked in a voice that sounded as dead as she felt.

  He was right, he thought with a pang. Liz had overheard Catherine.

  “Let me in, Liz,” he asked.

  “Catherine wouldn’t like that,” Liz heard herself telling him.

  Ethan’s brow furrowed in a scowl. It was the first time she had ever seen him look even moderately annoyed. “I don’t care what Catherine likes. You’re the only one who matters to me, Liz. Now please, let me in.”

  Stepping back, Liz pulled open the door. “I have no intentions of coming between you and Catherine.”

  “Good,” he responded. “Because there’s nothing to come between. Catherine and I have been over for a long time. I told you that,” he reminded her.

  But Liz was thinking about what she had overheard tonight. “Tell that to Catherine.”

  “I already did,” he answered. “Somehow she had gotten it into her head that despite the fact that she dumped me, this was just a hiatus and she was deciding to call it off. I told her thanks but no thanks. I also told her, in no uncertain terms, to leave.”

  But Liz shook her head, not sure if she believed him. “I didn’t hear that part.”

  “That’s because I’m not as loud as Catherine is when I talk. I want you to read something,” he told her, taking from his pocket the journal that had brought them together. “Here,” he said. “Read the last entry. I wrote it just before Catherine came over.”

  Still very skeptical, Liz looked at the page he indicated. The entry he wrote was in the form of a Yelp review. Next to her name he had written in ten stars—five more than the usual top rating.

  Next to the rating, he’d written an explanation: “I am giving Liz ten stars because being with her makes me twice as happy as I ever thought I could possibly be. I don’t know what I did to be this lucky, but I hope she never changes her mind.”

  “Do you mean this?” Liz finally asked quietly, raising her eyes.

  “More than you could possibly know,” he told her. “Catherine coming over did accomplish one good thing.”

  “Oh?” Liz braced herself. “And what was that?”

  “She made me realize more than ever how very lucky I am to have found someone like you.”

  “I don’t come with an inheritance,” Liz pointed out.

  “I don’t need an inheritance,” he answered. “Haven’t you heard?” he asked with a smile. “Money can’t buy happiness.”

  “But it can buy peace of mind,” Liz countered. And in the long run, she thought, that was important.

  “What good is peace of mind without love?” Ethan asked.

  “Love?” she echoed.

  “Yes, you know,” he told her, smiling into her eyes, “that little four-letter word that makes the world go around. You must have heard of it. There’re all sorts of songs written about it.” He took her hand in his. “As for me, I really believed it was all a myth. And then you came into my life. Suddenly, the sky was bluer, the air was fresher and I could actually hear birds singing in harmony.”

  Thinking he was making fun of her, Liz tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. He captured her other hand as well, holding both of them in his. “Until you came along, I didn’t think I actually could love, not really. And now that you’re here, I don’t want to let you go. I certainly don’t want to learn how to live without you—because I can’t.”

  She stared at Ethan, convinced she had to be imagining all this. She could feel her pulse quickening. “Are you telling me that you love me?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Badly, but yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He reached into his pocket. “As you pointed out, I don’t have much, but I do have my mother’s engagement ring. When she gave it to me, she told me to give it to the woman I couldn’t live without once I found her.” Taking the ring out of the box, he slipped it on Liz’s finger. It was a little loose. He made a mental note to have it sized for her. But right now, he needed to have her say yes. “Well, I found her,” he declared. And then he lowered his voice. “Liz Bellamy, will you marry me?”

  She searched his face, convinced that for some reason, he was just going through the motions. “Did you give this to Catherine?” she asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” he told her. “Catherine informed me that she expected her ring to be at least five carats. I told her I’d have to save for that,” he said wryly. “She was still waiting for it when the engagement was terminated.”

  He was telling her the truth, Liz thought. She saw sincerity in Ethan’s eyes, and the next moment, she was completely undone. “Then it’s yes. Oh Lord, yes!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck.

  He grinned at her. “A simple ‘yes, Ethan,’ will do,” he teased just before he kissed her—and sealed both their fates for the rest of their lives.

  Epilogue

  Nine months later

  “I have never seen Ethan looking happier, Mother,” Nikki whispered enthusiastically to Maizie.

  Nikki’s husband, Luke, and their two children were sitting up front in the church’s pews that were reserved for the groom’s side, but Nikki felt she had to seek her mother out, to thank her and the other two women who had had a hand in orchestrating this happy ending.

  “I don’t know how you managed it, but you and the ladies really did it again,” Nikki cried. “Ethan still hasn’t a clue that this was all prearranged. I take it that his bride-to-be is equally in the dark?”

  Nikki looked from her mother to Theresa and Cilia for confirmation.

  Cilia’s mouth curved. “Like there wasn’t a single match left in the world to light up,” she told Maizie’s daughter with a wink.

  Nikki smiled warmly at the women. “I knew I could count on you. You did good!” she told them in
a stage whisper.

  Theresa nodded, her handkerchief clutched in her hand, ready to be pressed into use at a moment’s notice. She always teared up at weddings. “We always do,” she told Nikki.

  “I’d better be getting back to Luke before the kids start getting restless,” Nikki told the trio. “But I’ll see you at the reception.”

  Maizie nodded. “Count on it.” She turned to her friends as Nikki made her way back to the front of the church.

  Liz’s mother, Ruth, had already been by—twice—to express her gratitude, putting them in an even better mood than they already were.

  “Well, ladies,” Maizie said to her friends, “looks like we’ve done it again.”

  “Was there ever any doubt?” Cilia asked.

  Maizie shook her head, happy to have brought yet another couple together. “No, none whatsoever.”

  “Does it ever bother you?” Theresa suddenly asked her friends. When they looked at her quizzically, she explained, “That the principals in these little arrangements don’t even suspect what’s going on?”

  “Not at all,” Maizie answered without hesitation. “It’s part of the challenge. And part of the fun.” Maizie looked at her two cohorts in matchmaking. “Don’t you think so?”

  “Absolutely,” Theresa answered.

  “What she said,” Cilia agreed, nodding.

  Maizie’s smile widened. “I thought so.”

  * * *

  “You look absolutely beautiful,” Ruth enthused, circling Liz as she did a little last-minute—although entirely unnecessary—fussing with her daughter’s veil. “I wish your father could be here to see you,” she added wistfully.

  Liz knew that her mother was referring to Howard, who had become more than a father to her over the years they had together. “He is, Mom,” she assured Ruth. “I can feel it.”

  Ruth abruptly stopped fussing as she heard the organ music beginning.