The burning sensation woke her up. She opened her eyes with a gasp. Her hands automatically started rubbing soothing motions on top of her abdomen, willing the burn to dissipate. She lay in bed quietly, afraid any motion might wake up her boyfriend. Mumbling in his sleep, she turned her head on the soft pillow to look at him. There was just enough moonlight to make out his features outlined by his silver curly hair. Strong Italian Romanesque nose, cheeks that always seemed to have a healthy bloom, lips that could kiss sweetly and under the closed lids, mossy green eyes that mirrored trust, honesty and love.
The burn came back swiftly, catching her off guard and her hands quickly responded with a faster paced rubbing. She remembered what she had been dreaming when the burn came over her. Later that day, she was going to have the annual discussion of marriage with her boyfriend. She had been having this talk for fourteen years with him and any thought of marriage made her gut burn as if she had swallowed gallons of acid. It was not marriage to him that made her panic, it was her first marriage, many painful years ago and the memories started replaying in her mind as she fell asleep again....
She was eighteen years old when she met her first husband at a New Years Eve party and he was fresh out of the Navy. She flirted but made it clear she was not going to fool around and he made up his mind to have her one way or another. Against the warnings of her parents who saw through his charming thin veneer, she married him and by six months later, knew she had made a terrible mistake. In one of their epic fights, he packed her suitcase, bundled up their five month old baby boy in their old Chevy and dropped them all off on her father's doorstep with a torn, crumpled $20 bill stuffed into the baby bag because that's "all she came with when he married her." Many failed reconciliations later, she had enough of the lies, affairs, and pitiful hand to mouth existence due to the fact alcoholism was not a paying job. She made one phone call to her father who never asked questions and picked up her and her three children and took them home for good.
Realizing it was up to her to provide for her family, she used the hard tested skills she possessed: money management, detailed cleaning abilities and lots of sweat equity in home and garden. This all parleyed into running a restaurant that morphed into running hotels, property management and restaurant businesses years later. She was a successful business woman but what about......
A snore wakes her up and she gently turns her boyfriend on his side and gives his back a gentle little pat.
"Love you," she whispers.
"Love you too," he automatically answers back.
As she closes her eyes again, her glance catches the pile of clothes her boyfriend had placed on her chintz slip covered chair in the corner. The delicate lace bras and panties are laying on the top like an explosion of candy wrappers. She smiles as she thinks of all the times her boyfriend will race her to get things done around the house: emptying the dishwasher, setting the table, grocery shopping, folding clothes, sweeping the floor, cleaning the toilet. She tried to think of one flaw or fault he had while laying in the dark and came up blank. She knew he was easy to get along with and her father loved him and included him in many fishing trips. As she drifted away in sleep, a sense of love and peace floated over her and settled in her heart.
"Good Morning Beautiful," were the words that awakened her in the morning. She opened her eyes into his mossy green ones full of love, happiness and hope.
"Good Morning Love," she easily answers with a smile and touch of her hand on his cheek.
"Will you marry me love?" came the annual question this time of year.
A moment of silence lays like a blanket over them in the bedroom. He lays there with the question between them and she waits for the stabbing burn to attack her like all the years before but there is nothing. Her eyes widen, her mouth pops open in shock that she feels fine. She feels totally, completely, no holds barred in love. In love with the man who has been patiently waiting for her to say "yes" for fourteen years but willing to go on loving her forever if needed.
"Yes," she barely gets out as she throws herself into his arms for a kiss to seal the deal! Catching his breath, her boyfriend reaches over to grab the phone and says,
"Let's call Pops. He has a bride to give away pronto!"
She was married standing by the koi pond in the backyard of their house. Her father walked her down the grey flagstone path to the pond and when the Minister asked him,
"Who gives this woman away?"
He answered in his booming voice,
"I do and this is the LAST time."
It was an issue of trust that had held her frozen all those years and once she could let go and trust in love again, it was an easy decision in the end. After all, she was 68 and he was 70!!
