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19
Frank
Caroline was starting to notice that I was gone a bit more. She’d woken up a couple of times to me not being there and that had set off a whole whirlwind of questions. She wanted to know where I was and who I was with. She didn’t believe that it was work.
We were in the middle of another one of those conversations, and I just told her finally that I had a friend. She immediately knew what that meant, and I had to wonder what they were teaching her at school. Or, what were her little friends talking about. Either way, Caroline had questions.
“It’s not like that, Caroline.”
“Is it a girl?”
I agreed that it was.
“Is she a friend?”
I agreed.
“Then she’s your girlfriend.”
“Well, I guess you’re right, then.”
“See, I told you.”
I agreed that she had. Caroline was getting to something, but she was taking a long way about it. I waited patiently to hear what she was going to say next. I had a pretty good idea what it was going to be.
“So, why haven't I met her? You bring all of your other friends over.”
“I guess you're right. She's just been really busy. We both have been, and I guess it hasn't happened yet.”
Even as I was struggling to find an excuse, I knew that it probably sounded just as made up as it was. Even my young daughter that hadn't yet reached double digits could see that I was lying.
The truth was that I wanted them to meet. It was Amber that was acting like she didn't want to. Amber was worried about it, and when I asked her why, she wouldn't give me an answer. She just kept saying that we weren't ready, but I don't think it was we. She wasn’t ready. What was holding her back? I had no clue.
Caroline said something about how she hoped that my friend could come visit soon and I agreed. The two most important people in my life were going to have to meet, eventually. For a while, I was waiting for it to all come together naturally, but now I was going to have to push Amber. I felt like at this time I really didn't have a choice. For whatever reason, she was moving too slow, and I was ready to start a life with her. I had already started looking at rings and was planning to ask her to marry me. How could I do any of that when she hadn't even met Caroline? I was getting ahead of myself and Caroline asking to meet her just added more perspective. They should have already met by now. I was still clueless why they hadn’t.
I got her off the subject talking about the weekend that she had planned with my mother. She always looked forward to them, and I was glad for the distraction. I was thinking of the visit, as well, and what I was going to do with the time that I was given. I decided that I was going to take Amber out, and now I had decided that we were going to have the conversation that I’d been putting off, the one that made us more concrete.
While Amber said that she liked kids, I wondered if that was true or not. What if that was it? What if she just didn’t like kids?
It was laterthat evening and I was thinking of what my daughter had said earlier. It made me realize that there were some things that we needed to talk about. There was also something I needed to ask her, but I was still working up the courage to do so. Could I really ask Amber to marry me, when she hadn’t even met my daughter?
When I got to her grandfather’s house, I noticed that everything was completely different. She must have really been busting her butt on some project, and I asked her what she was doing.
“I am going to set up a fashion house.”
“In Hampton?”
“Why does everyone keep saying it like that?”
Surely, she had to see how strange that was. She was in high-fashion out of Paris, and there was none of that to be seen in Hampton. I didn’t know if she was being serious or not. Considering she had moved everything around and a considerable amount of effort was put in, I guess she was.
“How is that going to work?”
She shrugged. “I don't really know. I just thought if I'm going to be staying here, I'm going to have to justify it, somehow. I went from Paris to the middle of nowhere. The only thing that I have going for me right now is this house. I know Grandpa would want me to use it, instead of selling it and it leaving the family. He wouldn’t want that, and it’s too beautiful of a house to let it go to waste.”
I stopped listening after she started talking about staying. Here I was so worried that she was just going to take off again. I knew there was a possibility of it, just like I knew her staying could be, too. I just didn't think she would. Now she just gave me another reason to clear things up.
Now I knew that I had to bring up what came next. I felt like we were finally there, even though I’d felt that way for a while, now. She was finally catching up.
