I wanted to tell everyone face-to-face, all at once. In a weird way, it would be perfect timing. Our families would be together in Cousins in a week. A battered-women’s shelter that Susannah had volunteered at and fund-raised for had planted a garden in her honor, and there was going to be a little ceremony next Saturday. We were all going—me, Jere, my mom, his dad, Steven. Conrad.
I hadn’t seen Conrad since Christmas. He was supposed to fly back for my mother’s fiftieth birthday party, but he bailed at the last minute. “Typical Con,” Jeremiah had said, shaking his head. He’d looked at me, waiting for me to agree. I didn’t say anything.
My mother and Conrad had a special relationship, always had. They got each other on some level I didn’t understand. After Susannah died, they became closer, maybe because they grieved for her in the same way—alone. My mom and Conrad spoke on the phone often, about what I didn’t know. So when he didn’t come, I could see how disappointed she was, even though she didn’t say so. I wanted to tell her, Love him all you want, but don’t expect anything in return. Conrad isn’t someone who can be counted on.
He did send a nice bouquet of red zinnias, though. “My favorite,” she’d said, beaming.
What would he say when we told him our news? I couldn’t begin to guess. When it came to Conrad, I was never sure of anything.
I worried, too, about what my mother would say. Jeremiah wasn’t worried, but he so rarely was. He said, “Once they know we’re serious, they’ll have to get on board, because they won’t be able to stop us. We’re adults now.”
We were walking back from the dining hall. Jeremiah dropped my hand, jumped onto a bench, threw his head back, and yelled, “Hey, everybody! Belly Conklin is gonna marry me!”
A few people turned to look but then kept walking.
“Get down from there,” I said, laughing and covering my face with my hoodie.
He jumped back down and ran around the bench once, his arms up and out like an airplane. He zoomed back over to me and lifted me up by the armpits. “Come on, fly,” he encouraged.
I rolled my eyes and moved my arms up and down. “Happy?”
“Yes,” he said, setting me back down on the ground.
I was too. This was the Jere I knew. This was the boy from the beach house. Getting engaged, promising to be each other’s forever, it made me feel like even with all the changes over the past few years, he was still the same boy and I was still the same girl. Now nobody could take that away from us, not anymore.
