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I’m not sure how he knows I was there that night, other than common sense. I nod, but I have no words to follow.
“I felt you,” he said. “I felt you there.” He sips his beer, but he turns his head away from me, shaking it as he does, as though he can’t stand to even look at me.
I remember when he used to look at me with admiration, as though I were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But now, he can’t stand the sight of me. My heart sinks. Choking back my tears is no longer an option, and so I let them roam freely down my already tear-stained cheeks.
“I’m sorry, J.R. I’m really, really sorry for…for everything.”
J.R. just nods at me. His jaw is clenched, and he doesn’t say anything. His lips are tight.
We sit quietly for a moment until I decide to speak again. “I’m not here in hopes of you taking me back. I would never ask that of you. But we have an amazing daughter, and she should know you. She deserves you. You deserve her. I don’t want to keep you two from each other anymore.”
J.R. looks at me. His gaze is soft, his expression relaxed. “Tell me about her.”
10
February 2002
J.R. was in town for a few days, and we hadn’t left my apartment since he had arrived. Outside, snow had been falling for a couple of days, so we stayed inside where it was warmer. We watched movies, baked cookies, and, if I’m being honest, we lived those days like an old married couple. It was bliss.
J.R. and the Band was growing in popularity. They were getting bookings in all fifty states, and what was even better than that is they were headlining their own shows. They had their own opening acts. He was excited, but all this meant for me was that he’d be gone a lot more often.
I would graduate in a few months, and I had plans after college. I did wonder what would happen to J.R. and me. I thought about getting married to him all the time, but we never talked about it. I wasn’t even sure if it had crossed his mind. We didn’t even really talk about the future. We sat and reveled in the present. I suppose that wasn’t a bad thing. The present was quite nice.
“I graduate in a few months,” I told him. We were huddled under a blanket on the couch. I was curled up into him, and the television was playing reruns ofFriendsin the background. I was comfortable in his warmth. My head was nestled in his chest.
“Does it bother you?” he asked me.
“Does what bother me?”
“That I didn’t go to college.”
I lifted my head to look at him. “That’s never bothered me, J.R. Why would you even ask that?”
“What would your mother think?” he asks.
My mother? I couldn’t comprehend why he was even asking me about what she would think. He knew that I hadn’t spoken to her in quite some time, and even if I had, I had to at least act as though I didn’t care what my mother thought.
“Who cares what she thinks?” I ask him.
“I’m going to have to meet her eventually, Rach.”
“No. You won’t have to. And if you insist, then I insist on meeting your parents.” I said this, knowing that his family was a sore subject, too. We had never talked about the discord with our families in deep detail. We just knew it was there.
J.R. let out a huff. “Well, that’s not happening.”
“Neither is meeting my mother.” I settled my head back on his chest and sat quietly for a few minutes before I spoke again. “You know, she used to tell me that I would grow up to be an old cat lady. Unloved. Unmarried. Just my fifteen cats and me.” I couldn’t recall how many times she had told me that in my past, but I remembered that she would say those things every time I turned down a date or when I wouldn’t give my phone number to an interested boy. Sometimes, I would think that maybe she was right. Maybe I never would get married. Maybe I should have started cat shopping, even though I had never been much of a cat person.
No one in my life had ever been less encouraging than my own mother. In her own way, though, I believe the words she spoke to me were out of love, even if they sounded like the exact opposite of love. Maybe she never wanted me to expect anything great out of life because all life had given her was heartache.
“You won’t be an old cat lady,” J.R. said to me. “And I love you. And Kelley loves you. You are very lovable.”
“You’ll marry me then?” I smiled up at him, trying to pass off the question as a joke, but I had never been more serious about anything. With my graduation coming up, I had nothing but the rest of my life left ahead of me. I wanted to get married. I wanted to marry J.R. I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else. Still, we had been together for nearly a year, and not once had he mentioned getting married.
J.R. shrugged. “Why do we have to put a name on it? Why can’t couples just be happy together without some legal document binding them together?”
My heart sank. I would have never guessed that this man didn’t believe in marriage. Not a romantic like him. He was too perfect. Too kind. Too loving to not want to marry someone one day. I wondered if it was me. Maybe he didn’t want to marryme. “You don’t believe in marriage?”
“I didn’t say that. I just… I like this. Right here with you. I don’t want this to change.”
