A Thread So Thin

by Marie Bostwick

  I was nodding as Garrett spoke, and smiling, especially at the last words, because he’d summed it all up so well.

  “That’s it, Garrett. See? Love is a progression. It starts with attraction, falling in love, the spark you feel when you touch for the first time, that irresistible connection. Then comes romance, being in love, that part where you’re getting to know the person better. You like what you see and, even more, how they make you feel—understood, accepted, appreciated, valued, loved. That’s a wonderful time in a couple’s life, so exciting. But the thing is, that being in love stage is still really all about you. How that person makes you feel, meets your needs.”

  Garrett frowned and opened his mouth, wanting to dispute me, but I held up my hand to stop him.

  “Let me finish. I know that what you feel for Liza isn’t just about you—not anymore. Your love has matured. You’re not just in this for yourself, you’re in it for her now. You want to care for her, put her first, meet her needs. Love that lasts isn’t about you, it’s about her.

  “Mature love means you turn your natural human inclinations upside down, putting the happiness of your beloved before your own. That’s why you’ll be a good husband, Garrett. Not because you get it right all the time, not because you always know exactly what to do, or say, or how to care for Liza, but because you want to know those things. You’ve turned your love for yourself on its head, and now you’re redirecting it to Liza. That’s your new desire, your instinct, even, to try and make Liza happy.”

  “Well, I didn’t do a very good job of that today,” he said glumly. “She fell apart and I just stood there. And then I ran out on her, left the rest of you to pick up the pieces.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted. “That was not one of your finest moments. But you’ll do better next time.”

  “You think so? I hate it when she cries. I have no idea what to do, how to make it better.”

  I nodded. Garrett was one hundred percent guy. Uncomfortable with tears, uncomfortable with any situation he couldn’t fix.

  “Honey, you don’t have to make it better. That’s not your job. Most of the time that’s not what women are looking for, anyway.”

  “No?”

  I shook my head. “Women are all about relationships, communicating, just being there for each other. Next time she cries, don’t run away from her. Run to her. Put your arms around her. Comfort her. Listen to her. Tell her that you’re there and always will be, and that everything will be all right. Later, when she’s calmed down, you can help her work out the details of exactly how to make that happen—if that’s what she wants. Most of the time, she’ll just need to know you’re there.”

  Garrett was listening carefully, taking it all in, but he wasn’t entirely ready to let himself off the hook.

  “But I still don’t think I’m very good about putting Liza first. When I came in here today and found out that she’d gone to New York, I was really mad. It upset all my plans for the whole week. That was all about me.”

  “Not entirely. You want to spend time with her and naturally, when you found out that wasn’t going to happen, you were upset. But I also think you were concerned about Liza. You know how tired she’s been and how much she needed a break.”

  “Yeah,” he said in a voice that was almost a growl. “If I saw Abigail right now, I might smack her. What’s the deal with her? Doesn’t she see how much stress Liza is under? I’m worried about her, Mom. She isn’t sleeping.”

  Or eating, I thought, mentally conjuring the image of Liza’s too-thin frame. Garrett wasn’t the only one who was worried about her.

  “Well, Liza is young, Garrett. This is a lot of pressure for her.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then looked at me with those big brown eyes and said, “Too young, do you think?”

  That caught me by surprise. Was he having second thoughts? And what did I think? Was she too young? Was he? Maybe. But Liza was about the same age I’d been when I’d married and probably no more mature than I’d been then—though at the time, I’d thought I was extremely mature. On the other hand, my marriage hadn’t worked out. But that hadn’t been because I was too young.

  Until Rob dove headfirst into a midlife crisis by having an affair with a woman only a little more than half his age, we’d been fairly happy. So, had Rob been too young? He was three years older than I was when we married. If he’d waited, sown a few wild oats, would that have made any difference? In my heart, I didn’t think so, but there was really no way of knowing for sure.

  “You are young, Garrett. Both of you. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re too young. That’s one of those questions only you can answer. Learning to be a good husband or a good wife is like learning to play a musical instrument. No matter how old you are when you begin, it takes practice. And the more you practice, the more you determine to put her needs ahead of your own, even when you don’t feel like it, the better and easier it will be. It won’t happen overnight. You’ll make plenty of mistakes, but if you keep at it, in time your marriage will reflect that.

  “But,” I cautioned, “a good marriage is also a duet. It takes both spouses, both putting their partner first, to make it work. You’ve both got to be on board. Love is a verb, Garrett. Something you do, even if you don’t feel like doing it. That’s what ‘for better or worse’ means.”

  “We’re supposed to start our premarital counseling pretty soon.”

  “Good! Take it seriously. A lot of couples rush through that, and they shouldn’t. If every engaged couple spent half as much time preparing for marriage as they do preparing for the wedding, I think we’d have about half as many divorces.”

  Garrett scratched his temple with one finger. “In our case that would mean we’d have to spend about three years solid in premarital counseling. I swear, the collective man-hours involved in putting on this wedding must be running up close to a decade’s worth of work by now.”

  “You might be exaggerating a little there.” I laughed. “But not by much.”

  He looked at me, waiting to see what else I might have for him. I wished I did have more, some special gnosis, some secret nugget of truth that I could pass on to my son about love and marriage that would ensure its endurance, some warranty against nicks, dings, breakdowns, and catastrophe. But I could offer him no such guarantee. Life just isn’t like that. Who would know better than I?

  Garrett clasped his hands together, dropped his head, and looked at the floor again, mulling things over, trying to sort everything out and arrive at some definite conclusion, something he could hang his hat on.

  That’s Garrett, through and through. He’s a computer guy. He’s not afraid of complex problems. In fact, he relishes them. But Garrett’s world is made up of numbers and codes and formulas, things that can be theorized with reasonable certainty, tested, and ultimately proven. In Garrett’s world there is always one optimal solution. It might take a while to reach it, but there is great comfort in knowing it’s out there, somewhere.

  These were uncertain waters and they scared him, I could tell. Frankly, they scared me too. They had from the first moment Garrett had called me and said he was getting married.

  After a long time, he raised his head. When he did, the searching little boy look was gone.

  “Mom, would you mind if I took off a little time this week? I’d like to go into the city and see Liza. Maybe just for a cup of coffee or something. I don’t want to put any more pressure on her. But I think I should see her, let her know I’m thinking about her.”

  His gaze was steady and full of resolve. He had made up his mind. Never again would Garrett stand distantly, helplessly by when the woman he loved needed him. Next time, he would do something. Maybe not the right something, but something.

  I smiled. I was right. My son was a good man, and he would be a good husband. One way or another, he would be okay. They both would.

  25

  Evelyn Dixon

  There was a sound of tires crunching grav
el. A pair of headlights beamed two columns of light through the living room window. A moment later, I heard the slam of a car door, a 1968 Chevy Corvair.

  “Finally!” I said to the empty room. I stopped pacing midway between the kitchen and breakfast room and marched to the front door, ready to fling it open and shout, “Where have you been? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  But as my fingers wrapped around the glass knob, I had a mental image of my mother and Gibb Rainey standing on my front porch lip to lip, and it stopped me in my tracks.

  What if they were out there doing just that? Was that something I wanted to see? Definitely not. The thought of seeing my mother locked in the embrace of a man besides my father, especially if that man was Gibb Rainey, was a scene I didn’t want to witness, now or ever. Not that I had anything against Gibb personally—he was a nice enough guy, but he was short and monosyllabic and spent his days sitting in a lawn chair in front of the post office, for heaven’s sake! While my father, my darling father, had been a college professor—tall and handsome and respected in his field! So respected that when Dad died, the alumni had endowed a full-ride scholarship in his name. After living fifty-one years with my father, what could Mom possibly see in Gibb Rainey? What?

  And if I opened that door and saw Mom and Gibb together, there was no doubt in my mind that I would ask Mom exactly that, undoubtedly with my voice raised. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.

  “Don’t go there, Evelyn,” Charlie had said when I told him about my suspicions regarding Mom and Gibb. “I’m telling you, do not go there. It’s none of your business. And even if it’s true, why do you care? So what if Virginia and Gibb have a little romantic fling? They’re both of age.”

  Ha! They certainly were! I’d done a little sleuthing and found out that Gibb was even older than I’d thought. Come October, he’d be eighty-eight. Eighty-eight! What business did Gibb have going around luring innocent little old widows into romantic flings at his age? At Gibb’s age, a romantic fling could be fatal. I told Charlie that.

  “Oh, stop it,” Charlie said with a roll of his eyes. “Virginia is healthy and Gibb looks pretty fit as well. I’d sure never have pegged him as eighty-eight. And we’ve all got to go sometime. Can you think of a better way?”

  Yes, I could. Pretty much any way that involved lifetime fidelity to the memory of my deceased father would be a much better way. Charlie had a good laugh over that one. Easy for him to be so glib. How would he feel if Margaret, the legendary matriarch of the Donnelly family, inventor of the many secret family recipes and, since Charlie’s father’s death, the sole proprietor of the county’s only three-star restaurant, suddenly took up with a busboy at the local diner? Huh? Answer me that?

  “There are no diners in Ireland.” Charlie made a sucking noise with his teeth. “Evelyn, your father was a great man, I’ve no doubt about that. But he’s been gone for ten years. Even if this were any of your business—which, I repeat, it is not—is it possible that you’re being just a wee bit irrational?”

  Well. Maybe.

  I backed away from the door and went back to pacing. After what seemed like an age, the door opened. Before she came in, Mom turned around and waved. “Thanks again, Gibb.”

  “My pleasure,” Gibb replied.

  “Go, Huskies!” She laughed.

  “Go, Huskies!” Gibb called back, raising his fist over his head as he made his way down the sidewalk and got into his car.

  Not noticing me at first, Mom chuckled to herself as she closed the door and took off her coat.

  “How was the game?”

  Mom looked up and jumped a little. “Oh! Evelyn, I didn’t see you there. What are you doing up so late? The game was fine. We won!”

  “I know,” I said. “Almost three hours ago. I listened to the radio broadcast.”

  Mom frowned as she hung up her coat on one of the wall pegs near the door. “Evelyn, is something wrong?”

  “No,” I mumbled, feeling suddenly ridiculous. Charlie was right. It was none of my business. I should have left it alone. If Mom had, I would have. But she didn’t.

  Mom narrowed her eyes. “Evelyn Dixon,” she said, “don’t stand there looking at me like that!”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I am some sort of delinquent teenager who’s been caught sneaking in after curfew, that’s how. Take your hands off your hips and quit glowering at me. If you’ve got something to say, then say it!”

  I shoved my hands in my pockets. “All right, I will. Do you have any idea what time it is?” I asked before answering my own question. “Nearly one o’clock in the morning! Where have you been?”

  “That is none of your business, Evelyn.”

  So I’d been told, twice, by Charlie.

  Mom’s lips flattened into an indignant line. “Quit looking at me like that!” she demanded.

  “Like what?” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration. This wasn’t fair. My expression was a blank canvas, as neutral as Switzerland. I was sure of it. “I’m not looking at you like anything. I just asked you a simple question. I’ve been pacing around here for hours, worried to death that something might have happened to you. I mean, you might have at least called or something. Just to let me know everything was all right and you were going to be late. After all, I am responsible for you, and I think…”

  “Responsible for me?” Mom barked. “Responsible for me? Oh no. I don’t think so. I am a mature, experienced, and capable adult. Only I am responsible for me. That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it will be until I die!”

  She was mad, and rightly so. What was wrong with me? Why was I behaving like a jealous daddy’s girl? Maybe because I still was. I was also out of line.

  “Mom,” I said, deliberately lowering my voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—”

  “You don’t have to tell me what you meant. I’ve known for a long time. Ever since you showed up in De Pere to spy on me.”

  “Spy on you! Mom, I wasn’t spying on you.”

  “Oh, yes, you were,” she said, pointing her finger at me accusingly. “Poking around my refrigerator and my cupboards. Not letting me drive. Insinuating that I couldn’t take care of myself anymore, that I needed some kind of babysitter.”

  “Mom, be fair. I never said you couldn’t take care of yourself.”

  “You didn’t have to say it!” she scoffed. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to, Evelyn. Ever since I came to New Bern, you’ve been trying to convince me to stay, to give up my home. Well, I’m not going to do it! Your father and I lived in that house for our entire married lives. All my memories are tied up in that house. I’m not going to sell it. Not ever!”

  Mom was clenching her jaw so tight that I could see the muscles twitch in her neck. I took a step toward her. “Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Let’s sit down and talk about this.”

  She turned her head away and held up her hands to ward off my approach. “No,” she said in a voice that was calmer but no less resolved. “There is nothing to talk about. I’m tired and I’m going to bed. And in the morning, I’m going to call up a travel agent and book a ticket back to Wisconsin.”

  “But,” I protested, “what about the wedding?”

  “I’ll stay until the wedding to help you and to help Garrett and Liza. But after that, I’m going home.”

  I tried to speak but she wouldn’t let me.

  “No! Don’t start. I’ve made up my mind. There’s no use trying to talk me out of it. If you do, if you bring it up again, then wedding or no wedding, I’ll be on the next plane back to Wisconsin. Don’t test me on this, Evelyn. I am dead serious. I won’t hear another word about it, not one.”

  26

  Liza Burgess

  I glanced up and looked at the clock that hung on the red brick wall, right next to the poster announcing the new “Summer Can’t Come Fast Enough!” line of citrus-flavored Frappuccinos.

  “I wish
I had more time. I feel guilty that you drove all the way into the city again just to have a cup of coffee with me.” I paused and looked up at him from under my lashes. “But I’m glad you did.”

  “I’m glad I did, too. It isn’t that far.”

  I raised my brows. “Two hours?”

  “Okay, so it is that far. So what? I wanted to see you, even if it was for only twenty minutes.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said for the third time since we’d sat down.

  “Liza, forget about it. Besides, later we’ll actually get to spend some time together. We’re still on for tonight, right?”

  I nodded. “I’ve got to meet Abigail at Byron’s office at ten sharp. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. That’s my last obligation in this very long week. Unless, of course, Abigail thinks up some other obligations for me—which seems like a good bet.”

  “It’s all right,” Garrett said patiently. “We’re in the home stretch. Things will be better after the wedding, you’ll see.”

  I nodded, hoping he was right. Hadn’t I been telling myself the same thing for weeks now?

  He reached out to adjust my engagement ring, turning it so the diamond sat square on the center of my finger. “This is really loose. Didn’t I get the right size?”

  It used to be the right size. When Garrett gave it to me it fit perfectly. But I’d lost seventeen pounds since then, and my fingers were as bony as the rest of me. I wasn’t dieting; I just wasn’t hungry. When I did eat, the result was an instantaneous stomachache.

  “It’s fine,” I said, pulling back my hand, picking up my Frappuccino and pretending to take a sip. “I’ve just lost a couple of pounds.”

  “Just a couple? Looks like more than a couple. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Oh yeah. Really. I’m fine,” I assured him and then took a big slurp, a real one this time, to prove it. “Just busy. Byron says that most brides lose a few pounds before the wedding. It’s perfectly normal. Like you said, things will be better after the wedding.”