Love you, Coert. A lot.
It was ragged when he repeated, “She forgives me.”
He drew in breath, sat up, sat back, set his phone aside and trained his eyes to his Christmas tree.
Then he flipped off his boots, lifted his stocking feet to the coffee table and turned his attention to his TV.
Totally Show Me
Cady
Present day . . .
MIDNIGHT ROAMING MY BACK SEAT, a pie in the seat beside me, the next night, I drove to Coert’s.
No matter all the good that had happened the night before, part of that being after it happened I had the girls right there to process it with over wine, I still hardly slept at all.
I couldn’t believe in it.
I couldn’t believe it was real.
I eventually fell into a fitful sleep sometime in the early morning hours.
And I did this only to have Coert not waste any time proving to me it was real.
This came through a text at six thirty that made my phone on my nightstand buzz.
I woke immediately, saw his name and snatched it up to read, Morning, honey. Hope you slept good. I’ll give you time to have breakfast with your family and call around 10:30 or 11:00. If you need me sooner, you have my number.
That was so sweet, so wonderful, so everything, I didn’t hesitate to text back, Good morning back to you. Hope you slept well too. That time will be great. Look forward to it. Love you.
And I immediately got back, Love you too. Talk soon.
I was up on an arm in my bed, the sun not yet even a promise in the sky, my dog awake and knowing I was as well thus sharing with some nudges it was time to be let out and then provide doggie breakfast, and in my hand as I scrolled down with my thumb, I saw the proof.
Ample proof.
In writing.
This was real.
Coert and I were real.
On that thought, regardless of the little sleep I’d had, I’d bounded out of bed.
The morning had been interesting, assessing the two camps that had formed around this situation.
Kath, Shannon and Verity (the last now of an age that her mother and I had allowed her to be a part of the women’s discussion, but it was just her mother who let her drink wine) were all in, Verity going so far as to declare it, “Like a Christmas romance movie, Auntie Cady. With a lighthouse and everything!”
The night before, Pam had fallen when I shared Coert broke down under the crush of emotion he was feeling and all he’d given me when he did.
That morning Pat, I could tell, was happy it happened, but still watchful.
Daly and Mike did not hide they had yet to be won over.
The rest of the kids didn’t really know what was happening, but they’d seen Coert and sensed it was something. Though they had pancakes, were staying at a lighthouse and Christmas was around the corner so the conversation about Coert had been limited, starting when Ellie asked, “Who was that tall man at your house last night, Auntie Cady?”
To which, under smiles from the women, a thoughtful look from Pat and glowers from his brothers, I replied, “Since I’ve been here, I’ve reconnected with somebody I knew a long time ago. We had something important to talk about so we had to do it alone. But you’ll meet him soon, sweetie.”
“Gross, a boyfriend,” Riley declared.
“Not gross, he’s an old guy but still it was right there to see Auntie Cady scored herself some hot,” Bea, my fourteen-year-old (in truth), twenty-five-year-old (in her head) niece announced.
“Sick.” Riley.
“Lush.” Verity.
“He was really tall! Taller even than Daddy!” Melanie.
“He jacks you around, I’ll break his neck.” Dexter (or my now eighteen-year-old nephew who’d lived with a sister who was a serial girlfriend who (until her crush on Elijah) had chosen poorly so he’d also lived through the dramas and tantrums of many a breakup).
“He’s the sheriff, Riley,” Verity declared a little smugly, rubbing the youngsters noses just a tad bit in the fact that she was now an “adult” so was in the know.
“The sheriff! I change my mind! That’s awesome!” Riley cried.
“Let’s stop talking about the sheriff and start talking about bacon,” Daly cut in to put an end to a discussion he didn’t like (as any mention of bacon would do). “Who wants some and how many pieces?”
This prompted a cacophony of shouts and a feeling of relief that when we’d gone to the grocery store, we’d bought eight packets of bacon.
And I lounged on the sofa in the studio sipping coffee and eyeing Daly and a grumpy-faced Mike while Shannon made silver dollar pancakes for everybody, Daly fried up enough bacon to feed an army, and I decided to let Coert be Coert, which would bring Mike and Daly around.
And if the unlikely event occurred that he didn’t manage that, I could not let that faze me.
Fortitude, honey. We can do this.
We could.
We would.
We had to.
And I had to stop thinking about what everyone thought about me. I had to make my own decisions, live my own life, and if doing that meant I’d need to, bear my own consequences.
Last, I had to stop believing what my mother (and brother) thought of me and I had to start believing in me.
I was a good person. I’d done things that might be unwise, but the person I was, I’d earned happiness along the way.
Now it was my time.
And it was the time to stop thinking so much about what others thought of me, trying so hard to earn the love of certain people—two of which were now dead, one I’d never win over—and concentrate on what I’d already earned, how precious it was.
And what it said about me.
As promised, Coert had called at ten forty-four and it wasn’t a quick chat, a duty call because he’d promised to do it.
We talked for over twenty minutes.
I told him about the family. How they were taking it. Then got into who was who with husbands and wives and kids.
He told me how he’d had a chat with Kim about getting along better for Janie, how well things went at Thanksgiving and how Janie wasn’t acting any differently but it still felt like things were healthier for all of them.
This was the only time when we were talking that things turned sticky, because I needed to know and Coert was giving every indication he wanted us communicating frequently, but more importantly openly, so I had to ask.
What I asked was if Kim knew about me.
I’d be sharing his life. I’d be sharing his daughter’s life. And thus I’d have to be in her life.
So I needed to know what I was facing.
“That’s a talk for when you’re with me, honey,” he’d replied.
That didn’t seem like open communication, and I didn’t know what to make of it so I fell silent.
“I told Darcy,” he shared into my silence.
Darcy. His fiancée that he’d never married.
Because of me.
“There’s a lot to this,” he continued when I said nothing. “And I’d like you close when I explain it. But so you understand now and don’t get anything twisted in your head, it was her and it was me doing it to her. She knew she didn’t have all of me and that’s on me. How she handled it is on her. And when things got tough, her throwing you in my face all the time instead of trying to talk to me about it, using you as a weapon which kept you sharp in my mind, including the guilt I felt, rather than understanding you’d been a part of my life and finding our way with that made matters worse. So I learned from what happened with Darcy and I never told Kim.”
“I . . . that . . . I,” I stammered, because I was thinking too much and feeling too much to put any of it into words. The only thing I could push out was, “I’m sorry about that.”
“I’m not because if I was married to Darcy, I wouldn’t have you.”
That made me grow silent for a different reason.
“But that would never have happened,” he went on, “because all I ever wanted was you.”
That made me grow warm.
“Coert,” I whispered.
“I know that it happened as it should now. I hurt a good woman along the way and that really sucks. I have to live with that. The worst part about that is that I let it go on too long. With her and with Kim. I should have let them both go long before I did so they could find someone to make them happy. But to deal with that, I have to look at the bottom line. And that’s the fact that, since I was in love with you, it took too long but it turned out better for Darcy in the end too. She’s married to another guy. They have a kid and one on the way. I hear this from others. She doesn’t stay in touch with me. But I also hear she’s happy.”