“Here we go again,” Terry says.
“Hush,” she says, swatting at him. “We were married three years, and Terry was driving truck for his dad. I was pregnant when we met and working double shifts at a diner, but Terry didn’t mind, even if his dad did. We eloped. When Terry’s dad found out, he threatened to cut him off. But my sweet husband—” Pat reaches over and pats Terry’s arm, “—didn’t tell me any of this. He thought he’d convince his dad and was sure he needed to handle everything himself. Heaven forbid he let his wife know his father was hanging our livelihood over his head.”
“I was trying to protect the woman I loved,” Terry mutters, but it feels like something he’s used to saying, not something he believes.
“Right, he ‘protected’ me right into thinking he was leaving us!” Pat’s laugh has an edge to it, even forty-one years later. “One night I ‘overheard’ a phone call?—”
“Listened in,” Terry corrects her. “And I don’t blame her,” he adds.
She shakes her head. “I’ve never been so hurt in my life. Terry’s daddy was going on about ‘that gold digger and her child,’ and saying he’d cut Terry off if he didn’t get rid of me. I waited for Terry to defend us. Instead, he just said, ‘I’m handling it, Dad.’ Like he agreed with him.”
Whoa.
Terry looks ashamed, as he should. “I didn’t agree with my dad. I was looking for another job. Didn’t want him to know I was planning to quit so he wouldn’t cut us off before I had a way to take care of my family.”
“I could have gone to work,” she says. “You should’ve stood up for us.”
“I know. And I’ll never stop apologizing for it.”
She leans across the table and kisses him. “Good man.”
Their kiss is more than a peck, and I almost feel like I shouldn’t be watching these two 70 year-olds kiss, but I have to know what happened.
“My dad wasn’t all bad,” Terry says. “But I made that excuse for too long.”
Oliver’s fingers drum against the table once. I take a drink of my cocoa, but it’s still too hot, and it burns the whole way down.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“I barged into the room and told him if he didn’t want us, we’d find where we were wanted.” Pat’s matter-of-fact tone makes the words hit harder. “I packed a bag for me and our daughter, and all the while, he told me I didn’t understand, that he was looking for another job so he could quit.”
“Did you believe him?” I ask.
“Funny enough, I sorta did. But I couldn’t stay, not after what I’d heard, not with how mad I was. I took our daughter and drove home to my parents in Las Vegas. Two thousand miles away.”
“In a 1972 Buick that barely ran,” Terry adds with a grimace. “I should’ve stopped her.”
“You couldn’t have stopped me with a roadblock,” Pat says firmly. “I was hurt and betrayed. Even if he was telling the truth, we weren’t gonna last with him treating me like I was some delicate flower who couldn’t be trusted with the hard stuff.”
My ankle gives a guilty pulse.
“I figured she’d come back,” Terry admits, looking sheepish. “Thought she’d realize I was just trying to be a good husband. But after three weeks, I couldn’t risk it anymore.”
“You waited three weeks?” Oliver asks.
“Took me a week of being angry to admit I made a mistake, a week of calling her and her not returning my calls. And then another week of trying to figure out how to make it right. I didn’t care about the money or my relationship with my dad anymore. Problem was, Pat took our only car with her when she left.”
Oliver chuckles. “Please tell me you stole one of your dad’s trucks.”
Terry grins. “Close. I got him to put me on a route out to Oregon. Drove to Vegas, instead.”
“One day, Terry shows up at my parents’ house at six in the morning,” Pat says, a smug look on her face, “and he looked likehe’d been dragged there by wolves. Hadn’t showered or even slept. Had three weeks’ growth on his face, and believe me: my sweet husband does not grow facial hair well.”
Terry frowns. “Not sure that was necessary.”
Pat winks at him.
“What did you say when you saw each other?” I ask.
