“Oh, good.” His mother’s approval made what we were doing that much more appropriate. I relaxed more, trying not to feel as though I were leaving purgatory for hell. I was going to spend the weekend alone in an apartment with a man.
But he was a man I could trust.
And the place had two bedrooms.
We chatted some more. I asked him if he’d had any turkey. He hadn’t. But he didn’t much care. I gathered that a big dinner on the table for Thanksgiving hadn’t been a common occurrence for him growing up. I felt sorry for him. And wanted to change that for him.
I wasn’t sure how I’d go about doing that. I didn’t have a family to invite him home to anymore. But maybe by next year I would.
By next year, I’d be graduated from college and probably wouldn’t ever see James again. He was from Atlanta. I was from Ohio. And he had another year of college to complete.
“I want to talk to you.” His words were kind of ominous, but they needn’t have been. His tone was as gentle as always.
“Sure.” I turned to face him. Thankful that he’d come all that way to get me. I didn’t deserve such loyalty. While James had been spending his holiday alone on the road, coming to get me, I’d been thinking of Tim. Yearning for Tim.
“I was thinking . . . you and I . . . we’re a lot alike. We’re both converts to the church. We like the same things . . .”
We did? I wasn’t sure what those were. We we
re both involved in the same social clubs, and those obligations and activities kept us busy, but . . .
“We’ve been dating for a while now and, with you graduating in the spring and having nowhere to go . . .”
I had nowhere to go? I’d be a college graduate. I’d get a job. And a place of my own and . . .
I was graduating with a degree in English because I was going to write for Harlequin someday. I hadn’t certified to teach. I hadn’t minored in anything that could sustain me.
Where on earth was I going to find a writing job in enough time to support me the second I had to move out of student housing the day after graduation?
James had been talking. I’d missed what he said. But I tuned back in time to hear, “So I was thinking we should get married.”
Married.
“I love you, Sweetie Pie, so much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
I’d just had a proposal of marriage.
Once, a long time ago, I’d wanted nothing else.
“Just think about it,” James said, his voice filled with excitement. “You don’t have to answer me right now, but think about it. We could get married next summer. We could go back to Armstrong next year, live in married housing, and you could get one of the jobs on campus that they save for wives of students.”
An office job.
But I’d be at Armstrong. Could still attend the college church. And would have plenty of time to write.
“And you’d be married in the church,” he added, tapping into another of my worries. At Armstrong we were encouraged, voraciously it seemed to me, to pick a mate because once we got out into the real world, into the work world, the secular world, our chances of meeting an eligible member of the church diminished greatly.
I was a convert. I already didn’t have family in the church. I couldn’t bear the thought of a mixed marriage as well.
Nor could I bear the thought of living my life all alone. Heck, I couldn’t even seem to survive Thanksgiving alone.
Marrying James would solve a lot of problems.
But did I love him enough to marry him? I cared about him.
I remembered how happy I was to see him.
How, at Rachel’s grandmother’s house, I’d been certain that spending the weekend with James was the right thing to do.