The Face In The Mirror (12 page)

School begins tomorrow and I find myself dreading it, because it means you
have to leave me. I’m looking into going back to work so that my days won’t
feel so empty. Your dad is gone so much, and Derek is off doing his own thing,
I’m afraid the house will feel like a dungeon if I am here alone. There is a firm
who has approached me to come and work with them, but I only want parttime. I want to be home when you come in from Granny’s every afternoon.

I started to lay your clothes out last night, but changed my mind. You are so
headstrong that I decided to get you up ten minutes earlier and let you pick
what you want to wear, and I’ll proudly send you on your way in whatever
quirky ensemble you choose that makes you happy. I will never inhibit you as
your father has done with Derek. You, my dear sweet Renee, will be a free
spirit; this I know for sure.

“Oh my gosh Mitchell! I remember my outfit on that first day of school!” I
laughed. “Red and white stripped tights and a pink dress with pink sneakers!”
“Style maven!” he laughed. “I love this, Renie.”
I did too. Each word we read gave me more insight into my mother, but it
also opened my eyes – wider – to who I really was. I could feel Mitchell and I
grow stronger together as we read, and all I could think of was what she’d really
shared with me by leaving these journals for me – Mitchell.

We read to the end of the second book. Mom and I were in the kitchen at
Granny’s preparing for a Christmas cookie-baking extravaganza for a cookie
swap at Granny’s church.

Granny brought a step stool to the kitchen for you and we lined up all the
ingredients for our cookies. You looked adorable in the apron that she made for
you, standing on the stool absolutely giddy over the entire ordeal! You were so
excited, waiting to help, and Granny let you try it all - measuring, adding the
ingredients to the mixing bowl - all of it. You seemed to love it, and it made me
happy, because the other granddaughters didn’t have much interest. I know
that Granny loved it, but the two of you have always had a special
relationship…

“So that’s where it all began?”
“Hunh?”
“The cooking bug.”
“She taught me so much. You remember that Mom never cooked a lot, it

was always Granny. Mom and I spent a lot of evenings at Granny’s.”
“Where was Derek?”
“Usually with Dad, or at some sports camp or practice.”
We closed the book and got ready for bed. “I have a special request for

breakfast.”
“And that would be?”
“One of your kitchen sink omelets.”
“Ask and you shall receive.”
“Well, in that case…”

I realized, as we read, how very deep my feelings for Renie were. Her
sharing this extremely personal experience with me showed me that she was
inching toward letting go of the past. I tried hard to go slow. I tried to keep the
pain of our past close and not get my hopes up too much, but all I could think
about was all that I’d missed with her.

I watched and waited to see if she expressed any resistance, or an unspoken
desire for us to slow the pace, but all I felt from her was love. She expressed
regret over her choices in our past, and as she spoke, I heard Wayne Ridgeway
in my mind making it easy for her to believe that
she
needed more.

He was never pleased with my chosen profession. He’d constantly told me
that I needed a ‘respectable career’ and that I should go to school and make
more money. I would remind him that being an electrician
was
a respectable
career and that I was going to school. I told him many times of my desire to
learn more and start my own business. Obviously, he never listened. My
mission now was to remind Renie of what we shared in the past and show her
what we could be going forward.

Even though we stayed together, I made sure our time was special. We
went on dates, and each date became more flirtatious and romantic. I wanted to
be what she’d been missing, but more than anything… I wanted her to be what
was missing in my life these past nine years.

Our time together was full of conversation. We talked about the mistakes
we’d made. I admitted that I could have been home more, but I’d been eager to
learn so that I could make a better life for us.

Renie reminisced about how taking a lighter load at school might have
given us more balance. Mona had begged her to just take a class or two, but
Wayne had pushed for more to get it done. We both talked about her dad
pressuring her on that. Even John Welsley, the president of the firm where she
worked, had suggested she lighten her load.

And then we talked about the conversations we should have had back then
to discuss what was happening, what she was feeling, but she was right - we
hadn’t learned to talk. We acknowledged that young couples often don’t learn
to communicate because they are so wrapped up in the romance. But mostly
we talked about how nothing ever pleased her dad. Nothing was ever good
enough. Wayne Ridgeway had always demanded more.

The best adventures of our new journey were the weekends at the condo
and Mona’s journals. I believe that each discovery in what we read in the
journals brought us closer.

As the weeks passed, I noticed that Renie wanted to go to the condo more
often, but I also noticed that we weren’t making the progress that she kept
suggesting in the beginning. It seemed the beach was becoming our place. We
did tackle the paperwork and organize, but the condo seemed more a place of
refuge. We read from Mona’s books and Renie was happy.

I was learning to love Mitchell in a different way. The man he’d become
intrigued me. Something about him kept telling me to let go of my inhibitions.
This was something out of my comfort zone but with him, I’d always been
carefree.

It was late September and we’d finished Mom’s bedroom and were figuring
out what we would dive into next. Friday evening, Mitchell joined me on the
sofa.

“Hey,” he said, “I just had an idea.”
“Uh oh,” I laughed. He slipped his arm around my shoulder and eased me
closer to whisper in my ear. “Let’s get up early tomorrow morning and take a
drive up the coast and clear your head.”
“I really…”
He looked at me, his eyebrows raised in an ‘Oh really?’ expression. “You
really what?”
“I
really
like that idea,” I laughed.
“Let’s make it a few days,” he suggested.
I took my phone and called my director.
“Hey, Maureen.”
“Renee. Everything OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I need a couple of days to get away.”
“You haven’t really given yourself any time since your mom died. Take the
week off. This place will be here when you return.”
That’s what I’m afraid of
, I thought as I hung up.
“Monday and Tuesday?” Mitchell asked.
“No…”
“Wait. I know by the look on your face that you aren’t going in Monday.”
“Or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday!” I exclaimed. “Hell, I
may not go back next Monday!”
Mitchell pulled his phone from his pocket and called his foreman. “Dave,
something came up. I’m going out of town for a couple days. You got this,
right?” As he hung up he turned to me and said, “We’re leaving at o’dark-thirty
in the morning.”
“For where?”
“We’ll see where the road leads,” he said.
I threw the clothes we had with us in the wash and we packed for a trip to
parts unknown.

When I woke the next morning, our bodies were nestled snugly together.
As I lay there, wrapped in his arms, feeling his warmth, hearing that soft ‘puh’
sound that he made when he exhaled, it finally sunk in. I never wanted him to
leave me.

I scooted closer and he held me tighter. “Wake up. You said you were
gonna take me for a ride,” I whispered.
“Before we hit the road?” he snickered.
I turned in his arms to face him, “You’re cute.”
“I know,” he said.

We were out the door by six, making a quick stop for coffee and donuts at
a Dunkin drive-thru. As Mitchell drove, heading north on I-95, we talked about
time past, or ‘time lost’ as Mitchell called it. I thought about that as we talked.
You can’t go back and change ‘what was’, so I focused on the future - thinking
about what could be. Finally, I dozed off.

When I woke, we’d been on the road about three hours. “Where are you
taking me?” I asked.
“Not sure yet. You OK with flyin’ by the seat of our pants?”
“I’m all yours,” I said, and as soon as I did, I turned to catch the big smile
on his face.
“I can live with that,” he said. The smile on his face brought one to my
own, and I experienced a feeling I hadn’t had in a long time – peace.

We drove a while longer and finally Mitchell changed direction, heading
west on I-26. I had an idea, but I didn’t say anything. “We’ll stop when we get
hungry, and then hit someplace to grab anything we might need that we didn’t
have with us to pack.”

By 11:30 we were in Spartanburg and stopped for a bite of lunch. We made
a quick trip to a nearby Target, grabbed what we needed and were on our way
again. I could see the skyline, further confirming my thoughts.
The mountains.

Finally, we picked up I-40 and around 5:30 in the afternoon, we got off of
the interstate to cross the mountain on the Foothills Parkway. Mitchell stopped
at the highest point where there was a pull-off. Ready to stretch my legs, I
stepped out of the truck to admire the view. Mitchell came up behind me and
put his hands on my shoulders, turning me for a panoramic sweep of the
mountains and the color parade before us.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“I’m glad I thought of it.” He hugged me and kissed my cheek. “Let’s go.”
On the way into town we came across a little log cabin BBQ restaurant and

stopped to enjoy some of the best BBQ I’d ever eaten - smoky, tender, moist
and very flavorful. The menu claimed the sauce was homemade; it tasted sweet
with just a little bite. The owner came to our table to ask about our meal. I
invited him to sit down and we talked.

Mitchell told him about my love for cooking, and I shared my idea on
Convenient Cuisine.
“Dark brown sugar is the key to good BBQ sauce, but the real secret is in
the wood we smoke it with,” he told me with a wink as we talked.

Finally, we drove through the town of Gatlinburg, busy with pedestrians
and shops. As we made our way up a long winding road, I saw a tall building.
When we reached the top, it was a hotel that appeared as a sentinel looking out
over the town below.

“Wow,” I said. The sign read, The Vista. Mitchell went in to check on a
room, and I waited in the truck. It was a cool evening and the autumn colors
popped as I looked around. The view was beautiful. I could see mountains in
the distance and the little town below. I’d been to the mountains before, but
this was different, and I was eager to explore.

Finally, Mitchell returned and grabbed our bags. “Let’s go. There’s some
kind of convention in town. I got the last available room.”
“It was in the stars,” I replied, happy that this whole trip was falling into
place. As we stepped into the elevator; he pushed the button that read 15 and
we were on our way.
“Wow,” I said as he opened the door to our room. “You didn’t have to get
all fancy-schmancy to get laid.”
“Renee Donovan, do you believe in signs?” he asked, coming to me after
he’d put our bags down.
“Like ‘stop,’ ‘yield,’ and ‘McDonald’s?” I laughed, but I noticed he wasn’t
laughing back. He looked serious, and I began to feel anxious.
“Renee,” he blurted. Suddenly, the look on his face had me fidgety. Just the
way he said my name caused feelings that overwhelmed me. And he called me
‘Renee’, adding to my nervousness.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,” he began.
“Think of what?” I asked, my heart racing.
“I told you this was the last room available.”
“Mmm hmm…”
“It’s the honey-moon suite.”
I felt my knees buckle, glad that he had a tight hold on me because I was
sure I was going down.
“Will you marry me? Again?”
I said nothing, not because I didn’t want to respond - I just couldn’t. I felt
as though I was having an out of body-experience.
“Renie?”
“Oh my gosh, Mitchell, I was so not prepared for this.”
He didn’t say anything at first. He just stared so deeply in my eyes that I
knew he could see every thought, every emotion, every feeling I was
experiencing.
“I didn’t want to let you go the last time. You said we were immature and
young then. We aren’t now. Renie, I can’t even think about another day without
you.”
I still hadn’t responded. Finally, the thoughts in my head babbled from my
mouth. “There’s something I should have talked to you about before. I just
don’t think about it much anymore. We need to talk before we go any further.”
“What is it, Renie?”
“I know we’re older, and I know I should have brought it up sooner, but
everything has been such a whirlwind - a good whirlwind,” I said, and paused.
“I should have talked to you, it’s just all happened so fast.” I took a deep
breath, thinking how to continue. “We talked about it the first time, but life was
different then.”
“Renie, just tell me what it is.”
“Do you want a family?”
“I’ve got you,” he said taking my hand.
“But what about kids?” I asked, pausing to gather the courage to say the
rest. “I can’t have children, Mitchell.”
“Renie, I saw the scar, and we’ve been together long enough that I know
you haven’t had a period. I figured you’d tell me when you were ready. Do you
want to talk about it?” he said, reaching to caress my cheek in the sweetest way.
“I guess we should.”
“Why don’t I make this easier for you. If we decide at some point that we
need to expand our family, there are plenty of options.”
“I love you, Mitchell Donovan.”
“Now, you didn’t answer my question.”
“Although the words ‘are you sure?’ ran through my head over and over,
along with thoughts of my mom, the years without him, and the weeks since he
returned, I heard myself say ‘yes’.

That night we made crazy love. Lying in Mitchell’s arms afterward, I
couldn’t imagine being happier. I rolled closer to him and whispered in his ear,
“Wednesday.”