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“Fair enough. Did I answer all your questions? Are we okay?” he asked.
“Am I okay that you interfered in my life? No. Do I understand that you aren’t going to apologize for it, and I can either get over it and move on or be pissed at you and not have a relationship with you? You know I’m not going to do the latter. I reserve the right to be pissed at you for a little while.”
“Whatever you need, son,” my father said.
“Please, don’t stay angry for too long. He meant well. We meant well,” my mother said.
“You were in on this too?” I asked.
“Of course, she was. Your mother was the one who came up with the whole idea,” my father said, proudly.
Frustrated all over again I stood up.
“I had wanted to believe that Dad had done this all on his own. I wanted to think he didn’t involve you or you knew he was doing it and you understood you couldn’t stop him, so you didn’t try. I never thought you were an active participant,” I said, incredulously.
“You needed our help. Once you get over the hurt and when you win Hope back, you’ll see that what we did, we did because we love you. Take all the time you need to get to that point, but don’t take too long,” she said.
“Gee, thanks for the support and understanding,” I muttered.
I walked away from them and then stopped in the doorway. I slowly turned to look back at them. They had been married for almost forty years and I hadn’t really noticed how much of a unit, a team, they were until that moment. They had both been so involved with their work and raising my siblings and me, I never thought about them as a couple. I could see then, in how they were with each other, the support, the love, the connection, everything that I wanted to have in my life. And the only person I wanted to have that with was Hope.
“I’m going to need some time to sort all this out and to figure out what I’m going to do next. While I do that, I’m going to spend some time on the island for a little while,” I said.
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” my father said.
“I wasn’t asking for your permission. I was just letting you know where I’d be,” I said.
“We appreciate that. Take all the time you need,” my mother said.
I could see my father wanted to tell me that he would tell Walker and the rest of the family and that the work would be taken care of while I was gone, but he held his tongue. I could see he was learning about when to let go, but it would take him some time.
“Love you,” I said as I walked out the door and heard them say the same.
As I took a cab back to my place, I was in a daze. Was my father right? Had I been wasting time by not trying to be with Hope sooner? I always thought that when we were supposed to be together the right situation would present itself. Had I just been deluding myself into thinking that it would? Should I be thanking my father for giving me the nudge and what I thought was the opportunity that I needed to ask her out?
I didn’t want to believe that Hope and I were over. I might have jumped the gun by telling her, not asking her, about going to Berlin. My brothers were probably right in that it was all too much too soon for her. I needed to back off, give her some time and space and then try to win her back.
She would have that when I went away. I wouldn’t be around, and I wouldn’t be tempted to go and see her. While I was on vacation, something I hadn’t done in years, I could regroup, see where I went wrong and come up with a plan to win her back. If I was lucky, by the time I came back to the city, she would be open to talking to me.
I didn’t want to just disappear on her. I would need to tell her what I was doing and what I was thinking. I wanted her to know that I respected her, I had heard what she had said, and I wanted to give her the space and the time she needed, but I was in no way giving up on us, on her. I could only hope that she understood and opened herself up to the possibility of giving me a second chance.
My mind was still on what I would do that I didn’t notice the woman standing in the lobby of my building until she was right next to me. Even when I heard her call my name, even when she started walking towards me, I didn’t comprehend that it was Hope until she was standing right in front of me.
“Hey. What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I came to see you. Can we talk?”
.
Chapter 30
Hope
I should have been nervous. I certainly had been waiting for Mac to come home for a while. But as soon as I looked at him, really looked at him, I could see what everyone else had. The man did love me. I could see it in how he smiled at me as he realized I was standing in front of him. I could feel it in how he touched my arm as if he couldn’t understand how I was really there. I could sense it in how my body responded to standing next to him and I couldn’t believe I had been such a fool to not see it before.
“You want to talk? We can talk. Do you want to come up to my apartment?” he asked.
“Yeah, that would be great,” I said.
