“I wonder who he gets his over-confidence from,” Ethel asked, pointedly looking at Sylvester.
He held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just an honest man—never overconfident.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed.
“Hey, you’re lucky,” he claimed. “Janice was looking at me the other day like I was water in a desert. I’m a hot commodity.”
“We’ve been married fifty years. No one is looking at you,” Ethel deadpanned.
“I’m just saying…like water in a desert.”
Austin snorted, and I looked over and watched him watch his grandparents bicker. With every word and action, you could see how much they loved each other. And with every move, I could see how much Austin idolized what they had.
“Wow, fifty years is a long time,” I said.
I watched my parents be in love, but fifty years was incomprehensible to me. I struggled to believe that kind of love existed when I’d been introduced to so much destruction that stemmed from love early on.
“Yet, not enough,” Sylvester said to Ethel, resting his hand on her leg where she gripped it tight in hers.
“Marriage is such a commitment,” Ethel said, looking between Austin and me with glassy eyes. “A commitment to love each other even when it’s hard. A commitment to not give up and fight for each other even when the other is acting like they don’t deserve it.”
“I sure didn’t deserve as much as your grandma fought for me.” Sylvester smiled at us. “I have no doubt Austin would never marry a woman who wouldn’t fight for him just like Ethel did for me, even though I’m sure he’ll make it hard,” he said with a laugh.
I tried to laugh with him, but a lump lodged itself in my throat, and I struggled to make noise past it.
“I know we didn’t get to meet before your spur of the moment wedding,” Ethel said. “But even in the short time I’ve gotten to know you, I can see how amazing of a woman you are, and I know how much Austin values marriage.”
“He always claimed he’d only marry once he knew he’d found the one he could spend forever with,” Sylvester added.
Each word poked a hole in the bubble of denial I’d built over the last week. We’d spent every minute basking in each other, and I made sure to not look beyond that minute alone. But with Ethel in front of me with her watery smile, it was like looking at every minute before, now, and beyond, all at once.
I remembered Austin’s words from the morning in Vegas, his panic when the message from his grandma came through. I remembered his frustration and passion. It started adding up. I didn’t think I had all the information but seeing who raised him made a lot more sense.
It’s too bad it didn’t make it any easier.
“Whew,” Ethel breathed, dabbing at her eyes. “I must be getting tired. I always get emotional when I’m tired.”
“And when you drink,” Sylvester muttered, earning him a smack to the arm.
“One glass of wine is hardly going to make me weepy.”
“Thank goodness. You’d be crying every night,” he joked.
She rolled her eyes. “Like, I said, love them even when they don’t deserve it.”
Somehow, I managed a laugh despite the band of guilt pulling tighter and tighter around my chest.
“Well, I’ll let you two be for the night. Coffee will be ready in the morning, and I’ll be up to make some breakfast.”
“Do you need help?” I offered.
“I’m not a woman to turn down help, so if you’re up, I’d love it. Then we can make these boys clean up,” she joked.
“I like the way you think,” I said with a wink.
They said their goodnights and left Austin and me alone. I studied the worn wood exposed where the rug didn’t quite meet the edge of the carpet. Anything to avoid looking into the eyes I could feel urging me to look up. The silence stretched on so long I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. But then he cleared his throat, and I knew he was still waiting me out.
“Rae—”
“They’re amazing,” I interjected before he could say anything. As bad as the silence had been, I was sure that whatever he planned to say next would be worse.
“Yeah, they’re pretty great. I’m lucky I had them.”
Finally, finding my vagina, I bucked up and stopped looking at the floor, finding his intense green eyes shining right at me even in the dim lighting of the living room. “You never told me how they ended up raising you.”
You never asked, my subconscious whispered, hammering home that I was a shit friend.
He exhaled hard, puffing out his cheeks. “It’s kind of a long story. I’m not exactly sure where to start.”
Tension radiated off him as he dragged his hand through his hair and took his turn to avoid my eyes.
“Give me the cliff notes version,” I suggested.