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“I don’t even know where you’re going.”
“To London to see Regina and Graham and share the news of our engagement and then to Ireland to sign papers to allow the sale of my father’s estate. After that, we decide. It could be Antiqua, Belize, Lima, the Azures. It doesn’t matter.”
“Our engagement?”
“By then, I’ll have asked you to marry me.”
“And you expect me to say yes?”
“I hope you will.”
The waiter serves our first course and pours more wine. “Is there anything else you need?”
“We’re good.” Immy smiles at him.
I watch her closely, noticing that she is surprised and cautiously happy. I don’t know how I fell so completely in love without warning. She somehow slipped behind my protective walls and burrowed into my heart. And now, after realizing how all-encompassing love is, I’ll never go back. I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy.
She takes a bite of roasted mushrooms. “You decided to sell your father’s estate?”
I pick up my fork. “A wise person once told me that I could choose to do good with the funds raised from the property sale instead of letting it rot into the ground.”
She smiles. “What changed your mind?”
I take a bite of the thinly sliced beef. “By walling myself off, I had never grieved his loss properly. It sounds so simple now. I didn’t realize that I carried around guilt, and I had to let that go.”
She looks at me. “Why would you feel guilty?”
I say quietly, “I left him to his own devices. I stopped trying. When I found him dead, I felt relief and built walls so I wouldn’t have to feel anything else.”
“You were a kid, Alex.”
I take a sip of wine. “I know, but he was my father. He wasn’t perfect. On some level, he did care about me. It’s unfortunate, but he prioritized alcohol over me. Probably as a way to dampen his pain. I don’t want to live like that. I finally realized that I wasn’t punishing him. I was punishing myself. So, I grieved his loss and put the estate up for sale.”
Immy slices a mushroom in half. “You did all of that in three weeks?”
I meet her gaze. “It was long overdue. I took the sailboat out and released his most prized possessions into the ocean. I bought some flowers and said a few words. At that moment, I decided that I would live my life differently. I don’t want to hold onto the pain or the regret.”
Tears form in her eyes. “I’m in awe of you. I don’t know how you knew to do that, but it had to take tremendous courage.”
I shrug. “My grandfather sent me to a therapist when I was eighteen and angry. The therapist suggested that I have a celebration of life ceremony and talked through exactly how to do it. It took me fourteen years to recognize that he was right.”
After removing the appetizer plates, the waiter places our entrees in front of us. “Enjoy.”
She takes a bite of pasta. “The food is delicious. Before you arrived, I was cleaning out my kitchen cabinets and would have had ice cream for dinner.”
“I wish we had figured all of this out without having you leave. There is a silver lining. I had to face things I had been ignoring. I knew for us to have a future, I had to heal my past.”
“I haven’t done anything remarkable. Just cried my eyes out and insisted that I’d never recover.”
I grasp her hand and hold it. “Immy, it turned out to be a brave move. You saw the dysfunction and said I’m not on board with this. It made me reconsider how I want to show up in relationships. From the start, I knew I didn’t want anything superficial with you, but it took some gut-wrenching moments to reach greater clarity.”
“I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by all of this. Now, I feel grounded and optimistic. I can’t wait for us to begin a life together.”
I kiss her fingers. “Maybe you’ll get to happiness tonight? Let’s linger over dessert. Eventually, I’ll take you home.”
She brushes her hair away from her face. “My roommate is coming home tonight. Will that be awkward for you?”
“I booked a suite at One Hotel Brooklyn Bridge for the month. Maybe you can join me? We’ll spend a few days packing up your apartment and deciding what you want to be shipped to Belize?”
