Chasing Sunsets (29 page)

“But that’s for another time,” I concluded for her.

She looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes. “Yes, indeed, it shall be.”

Steven had planned that on Saturday evening we’d spend a little time with his parents—whom I hadn’t seen in years—before he took me out to dinner. My inclination was to postpone for another evening; I feared the worry on my face might concern his mother.

“How are you feeling this evening? Better than last night?” he asked when we were on the way.

I nodded. “I’m fine.”

He reached for my hand and held it in his own. “You sure? You seem a little . . . preoccupied.”

My smile was weak, I knew. “I’m okay. Really. Don’t worry.” I peered out to the narrow winding road, down which his parents’ house nestled behind one of the many split-rail fences and between the foliage near the water’s edge.

“If you’re sure . . .”

“I’m sure.”

After a few moments he asked, “Have I done something to upset you?” which only made me laugh.

“No,” I said. I drew the hand holding mine to my lips and kissed the knuckles. “You’ve done not a thing wrong.”

Steven’s mother looked exactly as I remembered her, only much older. His father’s face and body showed sure signs of his recent illness. It broke my heart to think of Dad ever being in that kind of shape one day.

Steven and I visited his parents for nearly an hour. Mrs. Granger spoke with excitement about seeing Eliza the following month, and when she did, Mr. Granger’s expression became more jovial. Before we left, Mrs. Granger gave me several jars of her homemade preserves and home-canned vegetables. “You can’t get food like this from a store-bought can,” she said.

“You’re exactly right there, Mrs. Granger,” I said.

She kissed me on the cheek as Steven opened the old, rattling front door and said, “Thank you for bringing a little joy back into his life.”

I smiled and hoped my angst didn’t show.

From the house to that night’s restaurant choice, I thought of all the things that could go wrong now that Cody had made his objections known. I could force things, I knew, but what kind of relationships would we all have then? I could make it happen and pray for some sort of breakthrough. But what if it never came? More than anything, I was torn between allowing my son to call the shots in my life and standing my ground as the adult in our relationship.

During dinner Steven told me his offer on the house had been accepted.

“Oh, Steven, that’s wonderful,” I said. I reached over the pink-linen tablecloth and took his hands. “When will you move in?”

“I sign the papers in a few days, and I’ll start moving in on the first. My rent is paid up until then so . . .” He shrugged.

“Have you called Rosa already? To tell her?”

He nodded. “She was a little miffed that I didn’t buy through her.”

I winced. “I bet.”

“But I explained that I started looking before you and she had your talk, that I was still a little unnerved around her.”

Our fingers intertwined and danced with each other. “Dinner was delicious as always,” I said.

“You can’t beat Cedar Key for good food.”

“What are we doing next?”

“First of all, no dessert for you. I want to take you back to the house,” he said. I must have looked puzzled because he added, “There’s something I want to show you.”

I nodded an okay; ten minutes later, we left.

Steven had somehow—once again—managed to snag the key before the sale of the house was complete. “Dessert is being served in the Florida room,” he said. “Go sit. I’ll serve.”

The wicker chairs were still there. I sat in one and waited until he came in, carrying a large silver tray with two champagne glasses half-filled with something bubbly and a crystal bowl of chocolate-dipped strawberries.

“What are we drinking, Steven Granger?” I asked.

“Mom made it for us. It’s a nonalcoholic champagne punch.” He lowered the tray; I took a glass with one hand and a berry with the other. He placed the tray on the wicker table between the chairs, then picked up the remaining glass. He raised it and said, “To the most beautiful woman I’ve ever had the chance to love, not once but twice in my life.”

“Oh, Steven, that was beautiful,” I whispered. We both took a sip. “Delicious,” I said.

“Try it with the berry.”

I did. It was even better. We nibbled on berries and sipped on punch and talked about what he hoped to do with the house. He asked for my thoughts and ideas on each room. “What about the bonus room?” he asked.

“I thought you wanted to use it as an office.”

He placed his fluted glass on the tray and said, “I do, but . . .” He stood and extended a hand to me.

I took his hand; he led me to the bonus room. “Where would you suggest I put my desk?” he asked.

“I don’t know. How big is it?”

“It’s an executive desk—single pedestal—so, it’s about five and a half feet in width and I’d say about two and a half feet in depth.”

I pointed to the only windowless wall wide enough for such a piece of furniture. “Then I’d say over here.”

“But what if I wanted to have it in front of the windows? You know, so I could look out over the marsh.”

I looked at him. “And what if we have a blowing storm like we did the other day and the water leaked through and got everything wet?”

He moved around me until he was behind me. His arms slid around my waist and his lips whispered near my ear, “But what if I want to look at the marsh?”

My skin turned to gooseflesh. “Steven . . .”

“Come on,” he said, slowly walking me over to the window, keeping step behind me. “Look at how beautiful it is.”

The windows were covered in dark plantation shutters, four sets—two on top and two on bottom—over one wide window and then duplicated over the second window beside it. When we reached them, he reached around me and pulled open one of the top panels. “See?” he said. “Isn’t this quite a view?”

“Steven . . .” I felt my legs turn to rubber. Placed on the sill, pointed directly at me, was an exquisite ring—a large radiant-cut yellow diamond flanked by two half-moon white diamonds.

The fingers of his right hand gingerly picked up the ring as his left hand brought mine toward the fading light from the window. I felt him slip it over my ring finger; it was cold and heavy. He turned me toward him, his hands cupped my face, and he kissed me ever so sweetly. “Kimberly Claybourne,” he spoke against my lips. “I want you to marry me. Please say yes.”

“Oh, Steven, I . . .”

His lips nuzzled my chin, my jaw line, my ear. “I know. It’s so soon. But I’ve waited a very long time to find what I know in my heart is right. I’m not asking you to marry me tomorrow.” He drew back; his eyes looked directly into mine. “I know we need to allow your boys to grow to love me as I know I’m going to love them. Time for us to be a family. I know we need time to work out all the details. I know.”

“I know that too.”

“And all that’s fine. Until then, I just want to know that you’ll marry me, one day, when you and they are ready.”

Was Patsy right? I wondered. Was this the beginning of God taking care of my problems? Of me, without me at the helm? Could he possibly be at work so soon? “Well, why not?” I heard the elderly lady say, and I smiled at the notion. “He works in mysterious ways; he clearly does.”

So I nodded. “Yes, Steven Granger.” I nodded again. “Yes, I’ll marry you . . . one day.”

I told Steven that I wouldn’t wear the ring until my sons had met him, and he agreed. Until then, it would stay with Steven.

I also had no choice but to wait to tell Heather. She was my best friend—not just my sister—and yet I couldn’t share one of the most important moments in my life with her.

Jayme-Leigh and I had never been particularly close, but I decided to call and tell her, hoping perhaps it would bridge part of the gap. She mumbled “hello” into the phone followed quickly by, “Dr. Claybourne.” Though Jayme-Leigh was married, she continued to practice by her maiden name.

“Jayme-Leigh, it’s me, Kim.”

“What’s wrong? Is it Dad?” Her voice cleared remarkably fast.

“Dad? No, why would you ask that?”

“Oh. Wait.” There were several moments of silence followed by mumbling and finally “Hey. I’m back.”

“I’m sorry if I scared you. Or woke you.”

“It’s okay. I just . . . you never call unless something is wrong.”

That wasn’t true—exactly—but I didn’t want to start my news with an argument. “I have something to tell you, though. Something personal, and this time it’s good news.”

She cleared her throat. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“Do you remember Steven Granger?”

“Yeah, of course I do. Dad already told me you’re seeing him again.”

“More than seeing him . . .”

“Don’t tell me you’re going steady or something equally as juvenile.”

“Um, no. We are, however, engaged. Unofficially . . . but engaged.”

I heard my sister’s breath catch in her throat. “Wow. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’ve been gone, what? Not quite two weeks? And you’re engaged?”

Though it was well past 8:00 on a Sunday morning, I lay in my bed still, flat on my back. I threw my arm over my eyes at the retort and sighed. “I know. It’s fast. But we’re not getting married right away. We know we need to wait a while, I want the boys to meet him and him the boys, I need to meet his daughter, and . . . Jayme-Leigh, I love him.” I giggled like a schoolgirl. “I
love
him. And he loves me and . . . it just feels right.”

“And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Fools rushing in. Where
is
Ricky Nelson when you need a theme song?”

My sweet, wonderful, intelligent, overanalytical sister. Mother of none, wife of Dr. Isaac Levy. I sat up, pushed the pillows against the headboard, and crossed my ankles. With my arms draped over my knees I said, “Shall I remind you of the stink you caused when you fell in love with Isaac and decided to get married under a
chuppah
?”

“I should have known you’d go there.”

I hung my head. “I’m sorry. But, just remember that we gave—
I
gave—the two of you a chance, and look how wonderful your relationship has turned out. You
are
happy, aren’t you? I mean, in your academic sort of way?” And in spite of your lack of faith on both levels, I thought, but decided not to go there.

“Yes. Very much so. In our academic sort of way.”

“So then be happy for me.”

She pondered the idea but eventually said, “Okay, Kimberly. Just don’t rush anything.”

“We aren’t. We know we’ve got a lot to take care of first.”

“Will you come back here to teach school after the summer?”

“I haven’t really decided that yet. Maybe for another year. Then come here on the weekends to see Steven. I don’t expect we’ll marry before next year anyway.”

“It’s going to be a long year, you know.”

“I know. In more ways than one. But, we’ve waited this long to find each other again, I’m sure we can make it another year.”

“What do you think Charlie will have to say about all this?”

I shrugged. “What can he say? He divorced me. There’s nothing he can say or do to control my life.”

Steven and I met at church—Patsy was there this week. Both she and Maddie sat with us—and then Steven took the four of us out to lunch at Anne’s Other Place on Dock Street. We sat at a table out on the deck and under an umbrella. While Steven entertained me with his plans for our evening, Patsy and Maddie watched the pelicans line up along the long pier and the recreational boaters already heading out into the Gulf. When I told him I’d made my decision and please let’s drop it, we ate in relative silence the remainder of the meal.

Not ten minutes after I arrived back at the house, my phone rang.

Charlie.

“Hello, Charlie,” I answered.

“I received some very interesting news from my youngest son this morning.”

It couldn’t have been that I was engaged; I’d not told Dad yet and I certainly didn’t want the boys to know. Unless Jayme-Leigh . . . “What’s that?”

“He tells me you’re seeing someone in Cedar Key. That boy from high school you told me about one time.”

I walked over to the sliding glass doors off from the living room, pushed them open, and stared out at the marsh. The day was unusually cool so far, and I planned to enjoy the low heat and humidity as long as I could. “First of all, Charlie, he’s not a boy. He’s a grown man now. And secondly, what’s it to you if I’m dating someone? After all, you’ve been dating
a lot
of someones, have you not?”

“But I don’t intend to get serious. I know you, Kim Tucker. You aren’t the date-and-see kind of woman.”

You don’t know me
. . .

“Again, I hardly see that this is any of your business.”

“It most assuredly is my business. Do you plan to have him around my sons after they leave here?”

“Of course I do.” I leaned against the door frame, crossed one leg over the other, and pointed my toe against the floor. The sweet smell of marsh and summer wafted toward me. Out in the distance, an airboat raced across the surface of the water.

“I want his name, social, anything and everything to do some background.”

I nearly dropped the phone. “Don’t be ridiculous, Charlie. I’ll give you no such thing. Whatever you need to know about Steven, I’ll tell you, but you’re not about to do a background check on him.”

“Steven . . . what was his last name again?”

I stood straight. “Don’t be idiotic, Charlie. I’m certainly not. You’ll just have to trust that I’d never allow my sons around anyone who might hurt them.”

“Let me make something very clear to you, Kim.
Very
clear. If you get the dim-witted notion of marrying this guy and moving my sons across the state, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“What does that—”

“What that means is very simply that the state of Florida has a law against such things. It states that the custodial parent may not relocate more than fifty miles from the noncustodial parent after a divorce. So you just date all you want. But any thoughts of marriage and moving will have to be put off until
after
my sons are grown. Unless, of course, you send them to live with me. Then I don’t care who you marry or where you go.”

I could hardly find the sofa so I could sit. Tears stung my eyes; I refused to let them fall. My chest hurt and my mind whirled. “I don’t understand . . . how . . . or why . . . you are so mean to me, Charlie. What did I ever do . . . to make you . . . hate me so?”

“I don’t hate you, Kim. You’re the mother of my children. I just couldn’t live with you. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to allow some other man to raise my sons.”

Rear! Rear! You
raise
cattle, Charlie Tucker!

“I’d never,
ever
leave my sons,” I cried instead, then threw the phone across the room. It hit the wall with a thud; the battery popped out of the back, slid out the door, across the balcony, and dropped over the edge to the grass below.

I had to pull the phone battery out of Max’s mouth. Thankfully, he hadn’t bitten down on it. I dried it on a towel in the kitchen, then set it on the table and prayed for full recovery of power. Otherwise, I’d find myself driving across the bridges to get a replacement.

While I waited to see what the damages would be, I walked over to Patsy’s, thanking God for her along the way.

“I need to borrow your computer,” I said.

“Oh? Want to Facebook a little?” She stepped back and I walked over the threshold.

“No. I need to look up a Florida law.”

“Oh, dear.” Patsy closed the door behind me. “Sounds ominous.”

I nodded. “It is. Charlie says I can’t move the boys here if . . . when . . . Steven and I marry.”

Patsy tsk-tsked as we walked to the computer, which was booted up and displaying a game of online Scrabble. “I play with my great-granddaughter,” she said. “Here, let me tell her I’ll have to get back to her.”

“Oh, I can wait.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re obviously disturbed by this, and we’re just having fun.”

Patsy typed a few words then x’d out of the game. After she rose from the chair, I took her place. It felt warm beneath me.

“I’m going to go make a fresh pitcher of sweet iced tea, how does that sound?”

I looked over my shoulder at her. “Marvelous.”

She gave my other shoulder a pat and said, “Just take your time.”

I didn’t know where to begin. Charlie had been specific when he’d said “relocation,” so I started there by typing “relocation laws in Florida” into the search engine. Pages of links came up; I clicked on the one that seemed to have the information I needed.

Patsy came up behind me. Her arm rested against my shoulders. “How’s it going?”

“It says here that under a new law in the state of Florida, a custodial parent cannot move more than fifty miles from the noncustodial without following strict procedures.”

“So, it’s not impossible?”

I shook my head. “But it is improbable. I’d have to get Charlie to agree in order to move our sons here.”

Patsy leaned over and pointed to a paragraph on the page. “Or, file a Notice of Intent to Relocate with the court and hope a judge sees it your way.”

I looked up at her wise face. “What are the chances of that happening? I won’t even begin to go into what happened when I brought it to the G.M.’s attention that Charlie spends more of his visitation time with women and whiskey than his children.”

Patsy patted my shoulder. “Come drink your tea. It’s about ready.”

I rose from the chair and followed her into the kitchen. Together we prepared the tea while I continued in my lament, telling her how hopeless I felt at that moment.

We went out to her balcony, sat on the Adirondacks, and together we gazed out over the marsh. “Tell you what I’d do if I were you . . .”

“What? Please tell me, Patsy. Advise me.”

“Clearly, the first thing I’d do is I’d go talk to my sweetheart. In your case, Steven. Then, I’d either call or go see my attorney and see just what my options are. Legally, you know.” She nodded once. “You don’t really know what you’re up against until you talk to someone with a little more knowledge about the law.”

I sipped my tea slowly; the sugary nectar of it slid down my throat icy cold and delicious. “You’re right,” I said finally. “I’ll talk to Steven tonight.” I looked at Patsy. “He’s cooking for me—grilling, I believe he said—at his place.”

Patsy’s eyes narrowed. “You behave over there, now.”

I laughed out loud; it felt good. “Oh, Patsy. I promise you.” I raised my right hand. “We’re behaving.”