Chapter 18 Douglas
DOUGLAS
It’s four o’clock on Christmas morning. I have no idea why I woke up since we only fell asleep two hours ago. But I did. Afraid of waking Mona, I snuck out of the bedroom and into the library. And now I’m writing in this journal because I’m feeling so much that some of it has to finally come out.
I haven’t lived through so many emotional highs and lows since Hannah died. I truly believed I wasn’t capable of them anymore, that I’d moved beyond them, that real life wasn’t for me anymore.
I was wrong. And now I might as well be an adolescent falling in love for the very first time.
That’s how it feels.
She’s with me in it. I can’t doubt that anymore. Our connection is mutual. She wants me as deeply and fully as I want her. But we’re in very different places in life. And what she wants now might not be what she wants forever.
I need to be careful. I need to not push her into a relationship too quickly before she’s had time to consider all the repercussions.
When she’s my age, I’ll be in my seventies.
That’s going to be difficult for her. We’ve never talked about children.
She has a thriving career—one she’s uniquely suited for and through which she’s brought so much order, warmth, and peace to people’s lives.
She needs to be free to do the work she wants to do.
So do I. Our lives won’t necessarily fall into place together easily or neatly.
I don’t care. I’ll change or adapt or spend time without her if I must. Anything to make her happy and keep her in my life. But the path of her future would be easier and straighter with a different man. She might decide that’s what she wants.
So where does that leave me?
Hopelessly, forever in love with her. But also trying very hard to give her the freedom to make the best choice for herself.
It’s not going to be easy because what I really want is to get on my knees and offer her a ring. Right now. Today. I’d claim her as mine and never let her go.
But I’ve tried to be good all my life—doing what’s right even when it’s hard—and I haven’t always succeeded. But I need to keep trying.
She deserves the best man I can be.