Tara Quinn - The Night We Met

“No.”

“Have you told anyone?”

I hadn’t known what to do. I’d answered a letter, but I had no idea what Nate’s intentions were. Or if he would’ve changed his mind by the time he got my reply.

“I spoke to the Mistress of Postulants. I didn’t tell her about…us…only that I didn’t feel I could enter the convent anymore.”

Even if I’d never heard from Nate again, that much had become clear.

We walked to the park and then inside, passing a woman dressed in jeans and a purple sweater holding the hand of a curly-haired blond toddler dressed the same. A young black woman pushed a baby carriage past us. An elderly man wearing an unzipped beige windbreaker sat on the bench just inside the entrance. I noticed them all. And the vividness of the green grass, the trees that were still bare now, the velvety magnolia blossoms.

“How long do you have before you need to be out of your room?”

“I’m at college on full scholarship, so I’m free to stay in the dorm until I graduate in June. You don’t have to be committed to the convent to live there, you just have to be willing to follow the rules.”

The sky was bluer today than it had been in a while. The sun brighter. Yet nothing seemed familiar. Because I’d changed?

“That gives us a few months.”

“I have to graduate.” I clung to that goal as though it was all that was left of me. Certainly it was the only part of myself I recognized at the moment.

“Of course you do,” Nate said, and I think that’s when I fell completely, irrevocably in love with him. Until then, my heart had ached to be with him, to bless his life in any way I could, but it had felt like a big risk to take. A perilous thing to do.

Now it felt safe.

Contrary to what my head might have been telling me, the words I’d written to Nate Grady the week before were not retractable.

On January 22 of that year, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In premiered on NBC. And I had a letter from Nate. He wanted to know if July 20th would be an acceptable date for the wedding. Camp would be between sessions the following week and would be closed, giving us time for a brief honeymoon and to get me settled in.

I visited my parents that evening. Nate had offered to go with me when he was in town, but I hadn’t wanted to share my brief time with him.

Late that night, I wrote him and said that July 20th would be fine. And that I’d like to get married in Colorado.

I didn’t tell him then that my parents had just disowned me.

On February 8th state police officers killed three black students engaged in an antiwar demonstration at South Carolina State. Nate called me three times that week. We talked about the Orangeburg massacre, as the attack was being called. About his brother. And he had some good news. He’d found a house he wanted to buy for us. I told him that if he liked it, it was fine with me. In truth, anywhere with Nate was going to be heaven as far as I was concerned.

Once I got past the initial wifely duty, that is. Nate and I still had not kissed. But I’d been doing some reading about the mating process and while I was trying to keep an open mind, I was pretty well scared out of my wits.

Charlotte Brontë had skipped the intimate details with Jane and Mr. Rochester.

March 1st was the day Johnny Cash married June Carter. I wanted the marriage to work, but I didn’t think it would. He was such a rebel, probably even did drugs, and everyone knew June was just a darling.

Nate called the next day. I wasn’t in a good frame of mind, missing him, and feeling so alone, since I no longer had either my family or the sisters to turn to.

I tried to explain my feelings but knew I’d failed miserably when he asked, “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No. Not at all.” Surprisingly, I wasn’t. “The one thing that seems to be a constant in my life these days is my certainty about marrying you.”

“You’re sure of that?”

I couldn’t tell if he was feeling insecure, or just trying to make certain I was all right.

“Absolutely.”

“Because if you’re having second thoughts, we need to talk about them, Eliza.”

“I’m not!” I was beginning to get irritated with his unwillingness to believe me. Which was testament to how out of sorts I felt. Generally I was a very patient person.

“It’s to be expected,” he said. “You’re young and I rushed you.”

I got cold then. “Nate, are you trying to tell me you’ve changed your mind?”

“No.” It was a good thing his response was so unequivocal, otherwise I might’ve become completely unraveled. “But I’ve had a few more years to find out exactly what I want, which enables me to recognize it when I find it.”

“And you think I don’t know my own mind?” Did he have as little faith in me as my parents?

“Oh, Eliza, I’m sorry.” His sigh was long and deep.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’ve been thinking too much and knotted myself up, that’s all. I just needed to hear your voice.”

“Well, I’d like to hear what you were thinking about,” I said.

“It’s late and you have class tomorrow. It wasn’t important. Can’t we leave it at that?”

“No.” I had an instinct about this.

“I’d rather not get into it. At least not now, on the phone.”

I’d figured as much. “That’s why I’m pretty sure I should hear about it.”

He sighed again. I leaned against the wall, holding the pay phone so tightly my hand was starting to cramp. That phone in the dark hallway of our dorm was the only one on which we could receive calls.

“It’s not a big deal, Eliza.”

“So you keep saying.”

“I don’t want you upset or jumping to conclusions.”

My skin was clammy and I was half-afraid I might throw up. “Tell me.”

“I wasn’t married just once.”

My only coherent thought was that he’d said his news wasn’t important. Whether I was incredulous that he could think that, or hoping I’d misunderstood, I couldn’t say.

“We were young,” Nate said a few seconds later. “Too young. It didn’t last long. A couple of months. Her parents were moving to New Jersey and we figured if we didn’t get married, we’d never see each other again.”

“How…young?” I could hardly speak.

“Eighteen.”

Wow. I had no idea how to react to this.

“Say something.”

“I’m not…I don’t—” Helpless, I just stood there clutching the phone, letting the wall support me.

“Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“Deflated. Like I’m not sure I know you as well as I thought.”

“I’ve lived thirty-two years, Eliza,” he said, his voice taking on a weary note. “There are many facts about me, things I’ve experienced, that you don’t know yet. But none of them change who I am. They’re things that happened—”

“A marriage is more than something that just happened.”

“This one wasn’t. We never had a life together, never even set up house. We lived with my mother for the couple of months it lasted.”

I was tired. Needed a good night’s rest. “You said you got twisted up in thought.” I returned to our earlier conversation. “Were you afraid you were making the same mistake twice? Getting married before you were ready?”

“No.” He actually chuckled. “I was afraid you were.”

Considering what he’d told me, I supposed I could understand that. Maybe. “I’m not a child living at home with my parents.” Quite the opposite, in fact.

“I know that.”

“Then please don’t treat me like one.”

“I love you, Eliza Crowley.”

“I love you, too.”

I just wished love didn’t have to be so hard.