Chapter 41 #2
“We didn’t talk about it much. It never seemed important after we were married, after we’d built our life together.
” She smiles softly, then chuckles. “But when he first asked me out, I turned him down flat. I thought he was joking or maybe just looking for some fun with the help. Kept turning him down for months, actually. Every time he’d ask, I’d make some excuse. ”
“Why?”
“Because I was convinced he could never be serious about me. That someone like him, from his world, couldn’t really want someone like me. Our places in society were too different. His family had expectations, and I knew I’d never meet them. I was too plain, too poor, too ordinary.”
Her words hit close to home, echoing my own fears so precisely that I wince.
“What changed?” I ask, leaning in a little.
“He wore me down with persistence.” She smirks, and I can definitely picture my grandfather doing just that.
He died about ten years ago, but he was a stubborn, charming man.
“He kept showing up at my little section of the office with coffee. Started timing his lunch breaks to match mine so we’d run into each other.
Sent me flowers with notes that made me laugh.
His family was horrified, of course. They made that very clear. But he didn’t care.”
She pauses, her gaze growing distant as she gets lost in the memory. “But more than his persistence, I realized I was being foolish. That I was about to let fear rob me of years of happiness. Decades of it, potentially. All because I was scared.”
“What made you realize that?”
“I was talking to a friend one night, pouring my heart out about this wonderful man who kept pursuing me and how I couldn’t let myself have him.
And she looked at me and said, ‘Beverly, you’re going to regret this for the rest of your life if you let him go because you’re scared.
’ And she was right.” My grandmother huffs a little laugh, her voice turning fond.
“If I’d let that fear win, I never would have known the life we shared.
The children we had, the grandchildren. The home we built together, the memories we made.
All of it would have been lost because I was too scared to believe I was worthy of being loved. ”
I swallow, staring down at the Christmas cookies as I try to process her words. I’ve always been close with my grandmother, but she’s never shared this particular story with me, never shared these vulnerabilities.
“Love lifts you up,” she continues with a firm nod.
“Your grandfather never once made me feel less than. Not once in all our years together, even when his family made snide comments or his friends looked down their noses at me. He defended me, stood by me, made it clear I was his choice and he was proud of it. That’s how we ended up in Maplewood.
He adapted his life around what mattered to me instead of expecting me to change everything about myself to fit his world. That’s what real love looks like.”
She looks at me intently, ducking her head a little to meet my gaze.
“Now, I don’t know what all happened between you and Asher.
That’s your business, and no one can truly know a relationship except the two people in it.
But whether it’s with him or someone else, you deserve what I had.
Someone who will lift you up and see your worth.
Who makes you feel like you’re enough exactly as you are.
No matter what the outside world thinks. ”
Memories rise in my mind unbidden. How Asher defended me when Daniel showed up at the cabin.
How proud he seemed to be when I got that book deal, as if my success was his success too.
The way he looked at me when I talked about my art, like he was really listening. Really seeing me, not just humoring me.
“He did make me feel special,” I admit softly, the words barely audible.
Beverly squeezes my hand. “Well, that’s because you are special, sweetheart.”
The tears come again, but they’re different this time.
Not just heartache, but something more confused, a tangle of emotions I can’t sort through.
I’m trying to figure out which parts of our relationship were real and which were just for show.
Trying to see it clearly, to understand what we actually had versus what I imagined we had.
But it’s so hard when everything is clouded by hurt, and that confusion makes me scared to take the leap, scared to let myself believe we could overcome the real challenges of life when the whole basis of our relationship was fake.
My grandmother scoots closer on the couch, wiping my cheeks before smoothing my hair.
“No matter what happens with Asher, no matter how this all turns out, I’m so glad you came to Maplewood for a long visit this year,” she tells me. “It’s been wonderful to see you, to spend this time with you.”
“I love you, Grandma,” I whisper, my voice thick.
“I love you too, sweet girl. So much.”
After a while, when my tears have slowed and I’ve eaten two cookies without really tasting them, I tell her I should probably get back. My grandmother walks me out to the door, and we hug again, longer this time. Then I walk to my car, the snow crunching under my boots.
I get into my old beater, and the engine struggles to life with that grinding sound it always makes in cold weather.
The noise immediately makes me think of Asher teasing me about it, calling it a death trap and offering to look under the hood.
Everything makes me think of him, every small thing a reminder of what I lost.
I sit there for a moment with my hands on the wheel, gazing through the slightly smeared windshield.
I don’t know if she’s right. I don’t know if Asher and I could ever overcome the vast differences between our lives, between his world and mine, or the expectations that come with being a professional athlete’s partner.
But as I pull onto the road with my grandmother’s words echoing in my head, I feel better than I did this morning. My chest still feels tight, but for the first time in three days, it feels a little less suffocating.