Page 47 of Beside the Rolling Waves
“Concerned? What do you mean?” He really didn’t understand.
“I don’t know. I just feel weird. You’re buying a house.”
“Beckpet. It’s me, Rodney. Your bud. Remember? We used to be really, really good friends. We used to think about beingmore.” He held up a hand. “I’m not trying to insinuate that we should be or anything like that. It’s nothing immoral. It’s just… Why are you treating me like I’m some stranger being nice to you?”
She gave him a sour look and then turned and looked out the windshield.
Thankfully there were no new snowstorms, and they were getting toward the end of February, which did not necessarily mean spring, but at least it meant that the temperature should hopefully moderate some. Sometimes they got their heaviest snows in March though.
“Because basically you are some stranger being nice to me. It’s true that we were friends way back when, but that was a long time ago. We haven’t talked in years. We’re not that close. In fact, I would say I don’t know you any better than I know…most people.”
“What would you like to know about me?” he said, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice. He wanted to draw on their years of being close. Their years of doing everything together. How they’d written letters, love letters, to each other. Just because he had made one bad decision, well, two, and five years of silence, did it negate everything that had gone before?
But he supposed it did. It showed her that he wasn’t the man that she thought he was. That she couldn’t depend on him to stand beside her.
He felt like there was a big, gaping hole in his heart. It was just pouring out pain, and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. A hole of his own making, and he once again wished he had been a little smarter five years ago.
“Do you really have enough money to afford that house?” she said quietly.
Really? This was about money?
“Yes. I could buy a hundred houses, easily, and still have enough money to live a life of luxury for the rest of my life. I promise you. It’s not about the money.”
“You said the reason you stopped talking to me was because you lost everything. Could you lose everything again?”
“I got smarter. I lost everything because I got impatient and made some bad decisions. I also didn’t diversify like I should have, and as I have now. I also just sold a huge investment that I made, and I made a good bit of money on what I sold. Now, Ford Hansen, who bought it from me, is going to make a lot more, but… That was about seventy percent of what I had. I still have thirty percent of the moneymaking things that take my time and effort, but they’re mostly investments. And I’m basically living off the money that my investments are making. I am in the process of investing the money I made from selling, and then I’ll have even more than I can live on. I’ll just keep that money in investments, live off what I make from it, and everything should be fine. Now, if I wanted to buy a hundred houses like the one we just looked at, I would have to sell or liquidate some of my investments. Does that make sense?”
She had asked, and he wanted to give her the best answer he could.
If she asked if he ever slept with anyone else, he would answer that question too. But he waited, holding his breath and hoping that the things that she wanted to know were not things like that.
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
“Because I promised your sister.” That was an easy answer.
“Why did you promise her?”
“Because she asked me. I loved her. Not like you. You are different. You’ve always been different. But because I loved you, I loved your sister too. I cared about her. And I would have doneanything she asked me to do. Just like I would do anything you ask me to do.”
That was being raw and real.
They were on the interstate now, and headlights came and went, taillights as well. He kept the speed steady, just under the speed limit. He had precious cargo, and he wanted to be careful. Plus, he didn’t want Becky to worry about one more thing, and his driving was one thing he could control.
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean what am I going to do?” he asked, confused. Was she talking short-term or long-term?
“With your life. With the babies. Are you planning on being a stay-at-home dad for the next eighteen years? And how are we going to manage this? I know I’ve already told myself I just need to take a day at a time. Just one minute at a time if necessary, but the future just looks like some big black nothing that I don’t understand and don’t know how to navigate, and… I can’t help but want to at least have some hint of what it’s going to look like, you know?”
He wanted to marry her. It had been obvious since the first moment, yes, even in that confrontation at the barn, that he was still madly, wildly, passionately in love with her. All of that, plus there was a calm, strong friend bond that undergirded everything, and he wanted her to feel that too. He wanted that to be part of everything they did.
But she wasn’t ready to hear that. And maybe she never would be. He had a few things he needed to say before that could happen. Things that might ruin everything.
“I guess to me the future looks like, yeah. I’ll be a work-from-home dad. I’m working on getting rid of my office leases. And allowing my employees time to find other employment before I terminate them. I’m keeping a secretary, a virtual assistant, and my lawyer on retainer. I have an investment banker I workwith on commission and just a couple of other people. I’m really paring down. I plan to be home, I plan to have a laptop that keeps me connected, but I’m not going to be jetting all over the place, I’m not going to be going to meetings or highbrowing it with anyone. I’ve done that, and it’s empty. It’s empty…without you.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. He tried to continue quickly and hope that maybe she’d miss it. “So that’s what the future looks like to me. I don’t know what our living arrangements will be. We already agreed that we can’t live together if we’re not married. I suppose in my heart of hearts, that’s what I want. But I understand that you can’t trust me after I ghosted you for five years. So it will take some time, if ever, to get that back. But I wrote you letters, I told you I loved you, and I meant it. I always did. I can’t imagine this life with anyone but you. And if you don’t feel that way, that’s fine. I guess it will be really hard for me to handle seeing you with someone else. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For right now, I’m going to hope and pray that that doesn’t happen.”
Yeah. He was running at the mouth. Maybe he was more tired than he thought. He kept nagging her to take a rest. Maybe he should follow his own advice. Because he just said way too much.
