Page 89 of Keeping Score

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me that was a stupid thing to do? Proposing?”

“No,” he said. “But I’ll tell you it’s not the end of the world that it didn’t work out.”

“Then you don’t know Maggie.” I shook my head. “Because it quite actually is.”

The end of my world, at least.

“Don’t be dramatic, kid.”

“I’m thirty,” I responded. “Not a kid.”

“Yeah, well, I was your age almost fifty years ago, so to me—you’re a kid.”

His words fell on deaf ears because I was leaping to my feet and barging toward the window.

There was Maggie, walking out of the law office with some man.

“That’s her,” I gestured wildly, looking back to Mr. Waterman to confirm he was seeing what I was seeing.

He rose to his feet, making his way to stand beside me as my eyes widened in a way that probably made me look like some disturbed insect.

“Who is she walking in with?” I asked frantically. “Who the hell is that?”

“Relax, boy,” he responded, staring out with equal intrigue. “Maybe it’s her coworker.”

“Well, why is she talking to him like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like with so many words!” I groaned, unable to tear my eyes away from the sight of my beautiful Maggie in her black pantsuit and tidy updo walking beside a man who wasn’t me.

“Maybe it’s her boss and she has to talk to him,” Mr. Waterman offered.

“I don’t care if he’s the patron saint of law, if he doesn’t stop talking to my girlfriend I’m going to—” I deflated.

“You’re going to what?” Mr. Waterman snorted as I tore my gaze away from the window.

Stepping aside, I paced in the center of his living room trying to get my head straight.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do, is there? Because Maggie isn’t my girlfriend anymore.” The words tasted like poison to get out.

“Is that so?”

“Isn’t it?” I asked. “Isn’t that what happens when someone says they don’t want to marry you?”

“Well, I suppose usually, but that depends on whether you and your Maggie are made out of the real stuff or not.”

“Who have you known to survive a rejected proposal and still have a happy relationship?”

“My wife and I.”

“What?” I asked, dumbfounded. “Your wife?”

He nodded, and suddenly I took notice of the woman’s face featured in so many of the pictures on the wall.

From what looked like her twenties up until what seemed to be a few years ago by the quality of the photographs.

Looking around, it was clear that there was no Mrs. Waterman living here, and I knew enough to connect the dots of what must’ve happened. Apparently, Mr. Waterman was no stranger to heartache.