Chapter 20
Twenty
G ita bit her lip. She and Don had put off telling Grace and Trevor long enough. The food was long since eaten, and they’d gathered up their garbage but had lingered at the blanket, waiting for an opening.
Grace and Trevor seemed to be sharing secret smiles and looks that encouraged Gita, although she felt like if they just kept things going a little bit longer, they could know without a doubt that Grace and Trevor were well on their way to the relationship that they’d lost back when they were younger.
But she agreed with Don—she didn’t want to keep deceiving them. She had just decided that she was going to open her mouth and just spit it out, when Grace smiled at Trevor, and he nodded his head. And then she said, “I have something to confess.”
“We have something to confess,” Trevor corrected her, emphasizing the “we.”
“That sounds serious,” Don said, not looking like he thought it was serious at all. He leaned on one elbow, lying on his side. Gita had a little chair, and she sat on the blanket. He had his hand over top of hers on the arm of her chair.
When he spoke, he squeezed her hand.
“It’s funny you should mention it, because Don and I have something we’d like to confess as well,” she said, watching her daughter carefully. Grace’s eyes opened wide, as though she were surprised, while Trevor’s eyes narrowed, as though he was speculating on what it could be.
“All right. You go first,” Grace said.
“No. I just wanted to let you know that we had something that we need to confess, so don’t go running off. But you said it first, so you can go ahead and say whatever it is that you need to say.”
“All right.” Grace took a breath, looked at Trevor, as though she were needing a little bit of extra courage, and then she seemed to decide that she just needed to say it.
“Trevor and I were pretending to be a couple because we wanted to give you guys an opportunity to be together, because we thought that if you guys were together enough, you would fall in love.”
She looked at Trevor, who nodded and then said, “It’s like she said. We…deceived you. Basically, lied.” He took a breath, and then he said, “I’m sorry. I think it was mostly my idea, and it wasn’t a good one. I’m ashamed, in any event.”
“Me too. I’m sorry, and it wasn’t Trevor’s idea. It was mine. I wanted to play matchmaker, because I wanted you guys to get together and be happy, and that seemed like a good way.” Grace shook her head and looked down at her hands in her lap.
Don cleared his throat. “Funny you should mention it.”
He looked up at Gita, who didn’t know what to say.
She almost wanted to laugh. Maybe she would have, if it wasn’t so serious, since they had been deceiving each other all this time.
Except, she and Don were serious about their relationship, and they had that to say as well.
But even though she waited a few moments, Grace and Trevor did not speak again.
“We forgive you. I can say that with confidence because we did the same thing.” She started off, and then Don took over.
“The thing is, we thought that you guys had a solid relationship when you were younger, and thought maybe if you spent some time together, you would rekindle that. I saw Trevor looking happy when he was with Grace. ”
“And I thought Grace looked very happy when she was with Trevor. The two of you seem destined to be together.”
“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 I loved 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.
He pushed the kayak out and got in beside her with Trevor pushing it the rest of the way out as they began to paddle.
“That was unexpected,” Don said when they were far enough away from the shore that their voices wouldn’t carry. They spoke low just in case.
“I feel so bad for Trevor.”
“Grace was hurt really badly. I can understand that, and I see how it might be hard to trust again.”
“You didn’t have a problem.”
“I have years on her. She just went through her divorce last year. I’m not sure I would have been ready to be with someone a year after my wife left.”
“You were married a lot longer. You raised children together. There’s a difference.”
“Some people just love deep and hard and with their whole souls, and when it goes bad, it goes really bad, and it hurts clear down to their bones in a way that they just can’t get away from.”
“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.” She wished to comfort him, help him through the pain. Feel it herself so he didn’t have to.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “But once you get through the other side, you realize that it’s probably the best thing that could happen to you.”
“I hate to say that I’m glad it did, but you and I wouldn’t be here together if it hadn’t.”
“That’s true. And this has been one of the best days of my life. I hope I have a lot more days like this with you.”
“I think we should plan on it.”
He grunted in agreement, and they skimmed out over the water. Gita was thrilled to her soul with the way her own relationship was going, but her heart hurt for Grace, who obviously was having trouble seeing what was right in front of her.