The One who got Away

“No, Sherry,” Sherry said to herself. Her hand gripped the steering wheel as she turned and looked up at the house. “You came all this way. If they’re not happy to see you, then that just tells you

to go on back to Fort Wayne and continue your life with Darren.” Life with Darren….Wow, that sounds strange. Who would’ve ever thought this was coming?

Sherry climbed out of the car and headed up the sidewalk toward her parents’ porch. Just as she was about to step up onto the first step, the screen door two porches down swung up. Sherry spotted Maria, a church girl who probably would never move out of her parents’ house, stepping out. She smiled for the brief moment they made eye contact then stepped up onto the porch. Sherry didn’t realize the effect it would have on her to have to knock at her parents’ door rather than just pulling out a key and letting herself in. She rubbed her palms together in anticipation.

The lock turned then the door swung up. Sherry looked inside, but the glare on the screen glass made it difficult to see into the dim house. Not to Sherry’s surprise, curtains were still closed and the house still shut off from the world. In a matter of seconds, a set of eyes came forward, toward the glass – eyes she knew so well, but hadn’t seen in so long.

“Sherry?”

Sherry forced a smile. “Mom?”

Sherry’s mother, Donna, pushed the screen door open then Sherry walked inside. The 50-year-old woman looked her estranged daughter up and down then hugged her, albeit coldly. The thin, graying woman, whose hair lay down on her shoulders, stepped back, holding Sherry’s left hand. She looked up into Sherry’s eyes, her own eyes demanding questions a mother would never allow her daughter to leave the house without answering.

“Can we talk?” Sherry asked. Even though she’d fallen out of touch with her mother for so many reasons, the look in her eyes made the drive over to Goshen worth it. Sherry followed her mother to the kitchen at the back of the house. As they made their way through the house, Sherry took in the house’s condition. She couldn’t help but to compare it to when she’d gotten into a cursing rage with her mother to run out to her car then drive off to be sight unseen for several years.

Donna sat down across the table from her daughter and listened as Sherry lay the events of her life out in recent years out on the table. The Christian woman in Donna made her reach out and hug Sherry tightly when she teared up while revealing having a child then giving it up for adoption. Donna managed to look passed the part about having a child out of wedlock and saw the situation for what it was. Then, to hear her daughter faced cancer and she hadn’t known about it all this time broke the mother’s heart. Donne was truly shocked hearing that Sherry just so happened to get a job as a nanny for the child she’d given up for adoption.

“Wow, what an unreal coincidence, Sherry,” Donna said, shaking her head. “And now you’re engaged?” she then asked, looking down at Sherry’s ring.

“Yeah,” Sherry said, blushing. She held her hand out so her mother could see the ring.

Donna chuckled under her breath then smiled. “Well, congratulations, baby. This ring does look nice, I must say.”

Sherry laughed, sniffling a bit and pulling her hand back over to her side of the table. She then twisted her ring, in thought. “Yeah, a lot has changed, so I figured I would come back to town and fill you in. I’d been thinking about you, Mama. I don’t want you or Dad or anybody else to think that I wasn’t thinking about them all this time… It’s just...It’s just...”

“It’s okay, Sherry,” Donna said. “I understand. So, tell me about this guy who is supposed to be marrying my daughter and I haven’t even seen him yet.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Wait until your father hears about this. He’s probably gonna want to follow you back to Fort Wayne and sit the guy down. Ask him questions all day long. Your father hasn’t changed much.”

Sherry giggled, so very vividly recalling how her father would run certain boyfriends off. Even though he’d never been in the military, he tried to run his house as if he was a Sargent. Even his son’s girlfriends were put under scrutiny. Mr. Calhoun was notorious for wanting to make sure his son didn’t marry a skanky woman.

Donna listened as her estranged daughter talked about Darren and how their relationship bloomed. Sherry admitted to having met Darren one night when he’d originally visited Ft. Wayne. She couldn’t concern herself with what her mother thought. Rather, she knew she would just have to lay the facts out on the table and that would be that.

Donna glanced away when Sherry finished telling the story. Her own eyes then swelled up as she looked across at her baby girl. She processed her having gone off for all these years and now coming back, having had a child, beaten cancer, then now engaged to a guy who sounded pretty well off. If she were younger, Donna would be jumping down Sherry’s throat. However, over the years, she and her husband both reflected on some of the mistakes they made with their daughter. And it looked like now would certainly be the time to make amends.

Much to Sherry’s surprise, her mother stood up and motioned that she too do the same. Sherry did just that, coming around to the side of the table and stepping up to her mother. The mother and daughter looked into each others eyes then hugged. “I missed you, Sherry,” Donna said, breaking into tears. “Really, I mean that. I’m sorry about how we were toward you. Believe me, me and your father talk about you and think about you all the time and we really are truly sorry. I love you, Sherry… We love you and hope you knew that we always did, regardless.”

Sherry couldn’t let go of her mother. With everything she’d been through in recent months, she wondered for a moment how things would’ve turned out if she had her mother around. This guilt she lived with at this point could’ve very easily been avoided if Sherry had been opened to rebuilding the bridges she helped to burn when she was much younger. “I love you too, Mom. And I missed you guys too.”

***

The rest of the summer then well into the fall was hectic for the both of them, but especially Sherry. Her life seemed to be wind up like a fairy tale, but she was certainly going to enjoy the ride. She felt she deserved it and wasn’t afraid to accept whatever blessings fell into her hands.

By the time August rolled around, Darren went through the internet process again and an older woman to be nanny to Gabriel. This left Sherry with a lot more free time so she could plan their wedding with a wedding planner Darren contracted. Together, she and Jeanette – an older, perky woman who loved working with bright-eyed brides – rode around Ft. Wayne for a couple days looking at churches. Sherry hadn’t yet ever belonged to a church while living in town, so she basically had to start from scratch. She wanted a nice, quaint church. Her family was small and she still wasn’t officially back in “touch” with all of them, so she wasn’t expecting a big turn out. Plus, she didn’t want the all the hoopla and extra-ness.

After riding around for a week, they decided on a historic church downtown. As it was one of the city’s oldest churches, the architecture was by far something that would be hard to find in this day and age. Sherry fell in love with the inside. Not only was it laid out perfectly to have a kick-ass wedding, but also had a small building built on to the side that would be perfect for a reception.

Halfway through the planning, when Sherry was deciding her color scheme as well as what kinds of dresses she wanted for herself and her brides maids – Chrissy and her sister Leah – there was a knock at the door. Sherry excused herself from the meeting with Jeanette to go and answer the door. “It’s Darren’s mother,” she had said to herself.

Joan took a deep breath and held her head high, realizing that even though she didn’t prefer this particular situation when it came to her son getting married, she was just going to have to accept it. Sherry greeted the woman then welcomed her inside. After telling Jeanette to go ahead and continue brainstorming some of the things they already discussed, she walked with Joan to the kitchen then out to the terrace. Sherry picked up on Joan’s efforts to be a bit more warm toward her this time around.

Joan looked over at Sherry as they sat next to one another on a bench. She started the conversation off with a congratulation then a kiss on the cheek. “I remember when I was getting married,” the woman said, smiling as she wiped her pants. “I was about your age. Just graduated with my B.A., about to get my masters and Darren’s father proposed to me. My mother and father were pissed for months...and I loved every moment of it.”

Sherry laughed. Even when being humorous, Darren’s mother Joan still remained stern in a sense. She crossed her legs like a woman who had seen the world. “Sherry, I’m going to admit something to you. I’m still having a hard time processing this. And not because it’s you or anything like that, so please, please don’t think that. But, as you probably know, Darren explained to me the...the...um...sequence of events that led up to all this.” She nodded, signaling that she was coming to grips with it all. “And, okay...I get it.” She looked over at Sherry and smiled. “And I think it’s a good thing.”

Sherry looked at Darren’s mother with surprised eyes. “Yeah?”

Joan placed her hand on top of Sherry’s then smiled. “Sherry, I really do mean this. I’ve been dealing with my son and his, um, love interests for such a long time at this point, as you can imagine.” She chuckled then shook her head. “And I have to say, I wanted to say to your face I should say, that as his mother I feel like he actually made a good choice this time around.”

Sherry covered her mouth; her eyes swelled with tears. Since she started planning the wedding, she just wasn’t all that convinced that Darren’s mother Joan would be all that opening to a woman like her marrying her son. Now, however, hearing that Joan was happy about it truly made a difference. “Thank you, Misses McWaters. You don’t know how much that means to me.”