Page 44 of Below the Far Horizon
“And we decided that we would pretend to have a relationship in order to get you to spend time together.”
“Something didn’t feel right about that,” Grace said, and the look on her face said she felt validated for having the feeling. “I just thought it was because it was weird to see my mom with a man who wasn’t my dad.”
“But you two are together for real now,” Trevor said slowly, looking at Don’s hand sitting on top of Gita’s on the arm of her chair.
She looked down, saw that his hand was there, and twisted hers until their palms met and their fingers twined together.
“You’re right. We were the ones who were fooled. We thought we were going to get the two of you together, and we ended up falling in love with each other.”
She smiled at Don. They’d talked about that in the kayak as they’d been paddling around the bay. They both admitted that they had fallen in love. They didn’t know exactly what that meant at their age. It wasn’t the giddy, completely oblivious love of their youth. It was a more mature feeling, more serious, but at the same time an almost desperate feeling, because life was short, and they knew it better now than they did back then.
“Wow. So… You two started out doing something that was a little deceitful, and then you ended up falling in love with each other?”
“That’s right,” Don said, looking at his son. “We started out wanting the best for you and being deceitful in order to get it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to manipulate you, which, in hindsight, is what it was.”
“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have suggested it.”
“I’m the one who suggested it,” Don said, turning to her and arguing.
She smiled. “Is this something we’re going to fight about?”
“We need to have our first fight at some point. This seems like as good a time as any.”
“Should we do it in front of the children?”
“I resent being called a child,” Trevor interrupted them.
“I guess that’s a no. We’ll need to take this to the kayak, Gita Baby,”Don said, making her insides twirl as he used her nickname. She didn’t think she would ever get tired of hearing it.
“All right. A truce for now; we’ll fight later,” Gita said. Wanting to agree with whatever he said. There was nothing that was so important that she would fight over it. They agreed about the important things, God and character, and everything else could be a compromise at some point.
“So, what are you two?”
“Us?” Grace asked, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
“Yeah,” Don said. “We’ve admitted that we were deceitful, but it bit us, and something happened that we weren’t expecting. We fell in love,” he said, looking at Gita with a look of admiration that made her insides twirl.
“That’s right. We did.” She paused and then squeezed Don’s hand as she looked back at Grace and Trevor. Grace looked scared, but Trevor looked thoughtful. “What about you?”
“No. That didn’t happen at all,” Grace said, and then she stood abruptly, making a show of brushing her lap off and looking around at the three who were still seated. “Are you guys ready to go?”
No one said anything for a moment, and then Gita took pity on her daughter. It was obvious she felt something but didn’t want to admit it. Maybe she was scared, or maybe she was afraid that Trevor didn’t feel the same.
Gita could disabuse her of that notion, but maybe that was something that she had to figure out on her own. That seemed to be the way love was. A person had to navigate the waters alone. Or at least navigate the waters with the Lord. She supposed it was more important to find someone who loved God and wanted to serve Him than it was to find someone a person was “in love” with. That was one of the things she had learned over her life.
“I’m ready,” Gita said, sliding to the edge of her chair and standing up the way her therapist had taught her to.
Getting in and out of the kayak was a little bit of a stretch for her, but she didn’t feel any pain at all, although she figured her muscles were probably going to be sore the next day and possibly for the next week.
“Same. I’m eager to get back on the water. I forgot how much Iloved it,” Don said as he pretended that there wasn’t anything wrong and ignored the fact that Grace seemed to be paranoid that she might have to deal with her feelings. There wasn’t anyone here who didn’t understand or feel that at some point. When she was ready, she’d come around.
Trevor seemed disappointed, and Gita pitied him. He had been patient with Grace for years. Or maybe, he had been patient with Grace, waited on her for years, and now needed to be patient again.
She wanted to tell him to just keep waiting, that Grace would come around. That there never had been anyone Grace had looked at the way she looked at Trevor, but she knew as well as anyone that sometimes people didn’t do what they should do, even when they knew it. Sometimes they chose the hard way, even when they knew it was going to be the hard way, or the less desirable way, or even the stupid way.
She didn’t want to think Grace would do that yet again, but she knew from experience, from watching other people live their lives, that it was quite possible that Grace would do exactly that.
They folded everything up and went down to their kayaks, with Don being such a gentleman and holding her hand, helping her in, making sure she was comfortable.
