Chapter 24

August 2008

"Absolutely not," my father says when I tell him about the engagement with Fred the next day over breakfast.

I'm hurt, but not entirely surprised. "I'm not asking for your permission."

"Olivia, my dear, you are far too young to get married."

"You and Mom got married young."

He glances up at me over the half-moon of his reading glasses. "That was a different time."

"Old people always say that."

"Are you saying that I'm old?" This was the greatest offense to my father, and not the way to convince him to be on my side.

"Older. And about this, maybe yes."

He takes his glasses off and lets them fall to the dining table. He almost never lets anyone see him wearing them, but he can't read his morning paper without them. "This isn't a discussion, Olivia. I've said no. It would be a mistake to get married so young."

I clench my hands "Is this because you don't like Fred?"

"It's entirely about you. I understand that you think you're in love. And perhaps you are. But one summer of flirting isn't enough to build a lifetime on. You will need to trust me on this."

His words descend like a weight on my chest. I hadn't expected him to be overjoyed. I thought I'd get his usual indifference. This was, after all, the man who'd showed zero interest in where I went to college, never asked to see my report cards, and only remembered my birthday because Aunt Tracy reminded him. I thought he might grumble at the expense of a wedding, which Fred and I had already decided we wouldn't put anyone through. I even thought he might be relieved at not having any financial responsibility for me anymore given what was going on.

But an outright refusal? That hadn't occurred to me at all. I was glad I'd told Fred I was going to talk to him on my own.

"You're ruining my life," I say, my lip trembling.

"Be that as it may, this is my final decision."

"And if I do it anyway? If I just run away?"

My father's face registers his exhaustion. "Does my opinion mean so little to you?"

"No, of course not."

"Then why press this?"

"Because we want to be together. We love each other."

"Can you not simply live together like so many of your generation do now?"

I almost laugh. "I'm pretty sure my generation isn't the first to live together before they get married."

"All the more reason to try it out."

He has me here. And if I'm being honest with myself, that's what I thought we'd do. I hadn't understood at first that Fred wanted to get married immediately, in a few weeks. But when I'd suggested to him last night that we live together first after he pulled my calendar off the wall and started talking about dates, he'd looked so hurt that I'd quickly retracted the suggestion.

Fred has insecurities about people leaving, I'm coming to realize, because of his father's death and what happened with that girl Phoebe. He's still mourning his uncle. Whatever it is, he doesn't want to wait—he wants to jump in. Or maybe it's that once you put yourself out there and ask someone to marry you, anything other than an enthusiastic "yes" and an immediate search for a date leaves you feeling vulnerable.

I wouldn't know.

"We want to get married," I say to William. "We don't want to try it out. We want to start our life together now."

"Your Aunt Tracy will feel as I do."

This is a blow, using her against me. "I think she'll be happy for me."

"You talk to her and see."

Tears spring to my eyes. Now, I think. Now is when you decide to suddenly decide to start caring about my life?

"Mom would be happy for me."

My father stands slowly. His hands are shaking, and I've so rarely seen him in a rage that I don't recognize it at first. "Your mother and I would be of one mind on this issue, of that I'm certain."

I leave the table, running crying to the kitchen to sob out the story on Aunt Tracy's shoulder. She listens to me, and then she surprises me. While she isn't quite as against it as William, she does agree with him.

I wipe my tears away with the back of my hand. "Don't you like Fred?"

"Of course I do," Aunt Tracy says. She's been gardening, and she's gathered an armful of summer roses and was trimming them in the sink, wearing heavy gloves so she doesn't get pricked by the thorns.

"Why shouldn't I marry him, then?"

"You're so young."

"I'm older than Mom was. She was only eighteen."

"Be that as it may, you're very different from her. You have all these plans for your life. What about the tour? How is that going to work?"

"Fred knows I want to do that."

"But does he really understand it?" Tracy starts to arrange her blooms in a vase, a mix of white and pink with a bloodred rose at the center. "You haven't even been training most of this summer. Does Fred have any idea of what your life is like when you're playing tennis?"

"No, but he'll be in class too."

"You barely have time to eat. That's not how to take care of a husband."

"Take care of a husband? It's not 1950."

"Of course not, but relationships need care just the same. You need to spend time together, to build a life. And what you're trying to do is very solitary."

I bite back the angry sentiment that rises in me: to ask her what she knows about marriage because she never made a success of it, the ink on her divorce long dried. But that would be cruel, and I love her so much. Why isn't she on my side?

"We can figure it out."

"Maybe. But what happens next year when you're traveling everywhere?" Tracy says. "And what about the family? I thought you wanted to contribute to your father's finances? To help save this place."

"Is the house in danger?"

"Everything is in danger. Bad things are coming, Olivia. My friends in New York are very worried."

"We should sell it."

"Is that what you want?"

"No, I … I just want to live my life."

Tracy pulls her gloves off slowly. "And you shall. But don't rush into this. You haven't even been together for a summer. I don't want you to regret this choice. If you want to change schools and go to Boston, that's fine. But somehow, I don't think you do. You love your team, you're always saying, and your coach."

It's true what she's saying. But. "I also love Fred."

"You can do a year apart. It's not like you'll be in Europe. You can see each other on weekends."

"I play tournaments on weekends."

Tracy nods her head slowly. "Yes."

"Fred can come watch."

"I'm sure he can." But will he? she means. "But why Boston? Why are you the one going to him and not the other way around?"

"I … " I stutter to a stop. And for the first time, I let myself wonder why the plan involves me uprooting my life to go and be where he is instead of the other way around. If I can switch schools, why can't he?

But no, no. That's not the point. The point is for us to be together. It doesn't matter where. That's a detail we can figure out, like the objections Aunt Tracy and my father are raising. Everyone starts their life together with questions and uncertainties.

"William said that Mom would be against this too."

Tracy's face turns grim. "There's no way of knowing that."

But it turns out she's wrong. Because when I leave the kitchen and go upstairs to my room, to lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling while I play Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" and try to figure out what the hell I'm going to do, I see my mother's card sitting on my dresser, where I left it six weeks ago. And I'm not sure what drives me to it, but after so many weeks of letting it lie, I pick it up, my heart thrumming. I use my thumb to pry the old glue apart.

My love,

Today you are twenty-one! I'm so happy for you on this milestone. And I'm sad also that I'm not there to share it with you.

But that's selfish. I hope you're living a good life. I hope you're surrounded by love. I hope you and your sisters are a comfort to each other, and your father too.

Are you still playing tennis? I hope that you are. I've never been prouder of you than when I watch you on the court, your concentration, your glee at making a good shot.

Are you in love? I hope that for you too. I hope that you're happy and with a good man. I want to think that we'd have the kind of relationship where you'd tell me all about it. That you'd want my advice on love, like when you used to ask me about the color of the sky and why rainbows exist.

And what advice would I give you? Love wisely, my dear. Be careful who you give your heart to. I got married so, so young, and I would tell you not to follow my example. Don't be in a rush. If the love is real, it will wait until you're ready for it. Marriage is a blessing, but it's also a challenge. You might feel old today, but you're so young and have so much living left to do.

So live, my darling. Live your life to the fullest.

No one else can do it for you.

Love, Mom

When I meet Fred at the summer house that night, right away he knows something's wrong. It's after the cocktail hour, and I've had a few, sipping gin and tonics on the veranda as the party whirled around me, tasting the bitterness of the tonic as I watch the usual crowd wander around as if there's nothing out of place.

"No one thinks we should get married," I say, trying not to sob.

Fred expels a long breath. "Who's ‘no one'?"

"William, Aunt Tracy—even my mom."

"What?"

I gulp back the misery that wants to escape. "It's this card she left me for my twenty-first birthday. It's like she knew. How could she know?"

He takes me by the hand and leads me to one of the moldering benches. The windows are partly fogged, the temperature change from day to night closing us off in this bubble.

"Tell me about it."

I summarize it for him. The conversation with my dad, with Tracy, the card.

"She was just giving you general advice about life. She doesn't know you now, or us …"

"No," I say, my voice rising. "She did know me. She was my mom."

"I'm sorry." He gathers my hands in his. They're warm and moist. "You're right—I don't know her. And to be honest, my mom isn't thrilled either. But that isn't the point. It's our life. It's what we want that matters. They'll get over it."

"But, Fred, I don't want to do this if everyone is against us."

"They won't be, I promise."

"They are." I pause, and then it all comes out in a rush. All the questions and insecurities I'd absorbed that afternoon. "Why do we have to move to Boston? Why can't you come to my school? Did you even consider that?"

Fred lets my hands go and leans away from me. I feel cold, a shiver going through me like when the weather shifts suddenly right before a storm.

"Honestly? I didn't."

"Okay."

"I should have, and I didn't. I'm sorry."

I expel a breath, tasting tonic, my cheeks red with it. "Why are we in such a hurry?"

"Is that what you think?"

"I don't know, Fred. I'm just asking questions."

His eyes darken. "Your own or other people's?"

"That's not fair. I can think of problems all by myself."

Fred laughs, but it's bitter.

"William said we should live together. To make sure."

"You're not sure?"

"I didn't say that."

"You just did."

"No, I—"

"You don't want to get married."

I touch his hand. It's cold. "I only said maybe we should wait. Take some time to figure this out."

His head droops. "So, what, we just call the engagement off?"

"No, I don't want that."

"It sounds like you do."

"Why does it have to be so black and white?"

"Because I asked you to marry me. It was a yes-or-no question, and you said yes."

"I meant it. I do want to marry you. Just not …"

"Not now."

"Not like this. Not only because you're scared of losing me."

The words surprise me as I say them, but it's true.

Fred wasn't going to propose until I told him I was leaving on tour. We hadn't even talked about the fall, what it would look like. And we'd both been okay with that.

So what had changed?

"That's not why—"

"Isn't it?" I put my hand on his chin and turn his face toward mine. His eyes are almost black, his face in shadow. The opposite of when he proposed to me. "Fred?"

"I bought that ring weeks ago. I was only waiting for the right time to ask you."

"Oh." I sit back and try to catch my breath.

"Are you going to go on tour?"

"I can't afford school."

"So you'd rather quit than be with me?"

"No, I … I have plans, Fred. A path. I need to follow it. I'm twenty-one. My mom is right. I'm at the beginning of my life. And I want to walk through life with you—I do—but I'm too young to get married. You're older than me, you've seen things in the military I can't even imagine, and maybe for you it's the right time, but not for me. But I want to do it with you. I want to figure this out. Can't we?" I slip from the bench and crouch in front of him. "I do want to be with you. I love you. Please believe that."

He shakes his head slowly. "I don't want to do it this way."

"What way?"

"Full of uncertainty." He grips my arms, almost too tight, his eyes wet. "Because I'm certain. I've never been more certain of anything in my life. But you're not, are you?"

Every fiber of my being wants to tell him what he wants to hear, to erase the terrible expression off his face, to make everything back to like it was last night when we were giddy with happiness, and everything seemed perfect. But he's right, I'm not certain, and I can't lie to him even if I wanted to.

"I just want us to take some time to figure this out."

"I can't do that."

I don't have the energy to ask why. I know why in my bones. Because he doesn't want to be with me if I'm not one hundred percent sure that I feel the same way as he does.

Which means that this is the end of us. Again.

"So, we're over?"

"I don't know, Olivia. I'm trying to figure all this out, same as you."

He's saying this to give me hope, but I have none. I've heard this tone before, I've felt this ache in my heart, and I know. Five years later wasn't enough time for us to be the right time.

"You know what you want. You're just afraid to say it."

I rub my hand across his cheek and feel a tear fall against it. My own tears are wet on my face. And my god, my god, this hurts. It hurts so fucking much.

I thought things were bad before, the last time, but that was nothing compared to this.

Fred leans down and his lips touch mine, and in an instant, we're wrapped up together.

He pulls me into his lap, and I curl myself around him, hoping that if I get close enough, if there's nothing between us but skin, then maybe all of this will end up differently.

We make love ferociously and more tenderly than ever before. We make love like it's the end of the world, and it is the end—it's the end of us.

Because when we're done, he gathers me close and wraps us in an old musty blanket. I try to keep myself from falling asleep because I'm sure that when I wake, I'll be alone.

But I can't keep my eyes open, I've been through too much today, and sometime in the night, Fred slips away, and when I wake up in the morning he's gone.