~ Twenty ~
“You really think this is going to solve something?” Leah asked.
She lowered her voice as she lifted the box from the trunk of Sam’s car, checking over her shoulder to make sure Colt was out of earshot.
A couple of days earlier, Sam made the mistake, when telling her sister about the new living arrangements, of terming it a ‘trial run’.
“We’re not looking to ‘solve’ anything, Leah. We just want to give this a shot.”
“Give this a shot,” Leah snorted. “That’s the kind of language that couples on the verge of divorce use. And you two have only been together for a hot minute. By the way, Maxine thinks you’re bringing him over for dinner on Sunday.”
“What made her think that?” Sam paused, box in hand.
“I did. Because if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get her on your side. She thinks Colt is half-stepping with this moving in stuff. And she’s still livid she heard about you two from his parents and not you.”
Leah’s eyes darted toward the front door of the house where Colt had just disappeared inside, carrying an armload of Sam’s clothing, still on hangers.
Sam said nothing.
Half-stepping.
The term seemed unusually apt under the circumstances. But “full-stepping” seemed like insanity to even consider at this point. Sam’s acceptance of Colt’s shacking up proposal had come on the tail-end of being separated for a few days, and immediately after their emotional exchange (she didn’t like to think of it as an ‘argument’) about Drew. Not to mention that Sam had been sick and medicated at the time.
But later, she woke up in the still gray early morning light to a head of damp and knotty hair, lying on clean sheets haphazardly put on the bed, and Colt curled in one corner to make way for her sprawling sleep position. It took her a little while to figure out that he had probably taken care of her during the night, undressed her, and somehow gotten her hair wet?
But whatever happened, Sam didn’t recall a second of it. She just knew that he had stayed and taken care of her, and her heart felt so full that she nudged him awake.
Looking at her with confused, sleepy eyes, Colt said nothing when she shoved him onto his back. Sam climbed atop him, and did her best to express physically, what she still wasn’t confident enough to say.
Instead she just whispered, ‘I think my fever broke.’
Moving in together seemed so perfectly right that morning.
Shoving the pinprick of doubt to the back of her mind, Sam suggested that they get her move done that very weekend. She would list her house on Airbnb for now and find a more permanent tenant in a few weeks.
Colt was so excited, he said he would cover her mortgage if she wanted him to, but she refused. Some things had to remain separate. Until they figured things out. Until they were sure.
Even that admission to herself, that some things were unsure, was a little scary. But what she was sure of were the important things, right? That she loved him, that there wasn’t a single scenario that would result in them not being in each other’s lives in a meaningful way … those things were certain. And so, Sam clung to them like a life-raft.
“I think it’s disrespectful,” Leah said.
“What is? And to whom?”
“Sam, Kieran and I dated for two years, but you know we were screwing like bunnies … everywhere … even in Maxine’s house once in a while …”
Sam rolled her eyes. “What’s your point?”
“My point is, we weren’t traditional either. But when the time came that he wanted us to cohabitate? He knew that the right thing to do was to give me a ring and a commitment, not some BS ‘let’s give it a shot speech’.”
“It wasn’t a speech. It was a mutual decision.”
Leah rolled her eyes and then looked up toward the front door again. “And moving into this weird-ass house, too? With all the windows?” She shuddered. “It just looks so … cold.”
Sam looked up at the house and didn’t mention that she often thought the same thing.
“Let’s go in,” she said instead. “I want to make sure he isn’t being stingy with the closet space.”
“Okay, fine, but let me say one last thing …”
Sam rolled her eyes.
“Don’t let this turn into the same ol’-same ol’ with him.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, your relationship with Colt doesn’t get transformed just by adding sex. You need to have new rules, new boundaries, new expectations. A full, damn overhaul.”
The only thing worse than getting advice from your younger sibling was getting good advice from your younger sibling.
As soon as Sam and Colt arrived at her mother’s house, and she opened the door without greeting, it was clear she wasn’t pleased with them. Instead of their customary hug and kiss, as a greeting, Sam got nothing at all, and Colt received a brief, tight, smile. Maxine didn’t even take from his hands, the pastry box he’d brought along, with red velvet cupcakes from one of her favorite bakeries in downtown Washington DC.
Sam and Colt exchanged looks as they followed her back into the living room, where not only Leah was waiting, but Colt’s parents, Josiah and Nora, as well. Colt hesitated a moment, then laughed.
“What the …? What are you guys doing here?” he asked.
“Wow,” Sam said.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, her face grew hot with embarrassment. Trying to recover from the appearance of the two additional unexpected guests, she went over to each and delivered hugs and polite kisses. Over Colt’s mother’s shoulder, she glared at Leah.
Sister Code dictated that this kind of thing warranted a text message as a heads-up. But Leah looked back at her evenly, her expression giving away nothing.
“Good to see you, Sweet Thang,” Colt’s father said as he held her. His voice was deep, and soothing, which helped settle Sam’s nerves a little.
“We havin’ an intervention, or something?” Colt asked once he had greeted both his parents individually. It sounded like he was making a joke, but Sam knew from the tension underlying his voice that he was not.
“Of course not. But since you and Sam are setting up house,” Maxine said, “we thought it might be nice to have a family dinner. Hear a little about y’all’s plans.”
“No plans, Ma Maxine. Sam’s all moved in as of yesterday.”
The living room fell silent for a few beats and then Colt’s mother cleared her throat.
“Maxine? May I help you bring anything to the table?”
“Yes, let’s do that …”
The mothers exited the room and Sam looked at her sister again. Leah shrugged, as though she hadn’t a thing to do with it. And maybe she hadn’t.
“Where’s Kieran and the baby?” Sam asked pointedly. “Since we’re having a family dinner, I would’ve expected to see them.”
Leah shrugged. “Kieran was too comfortable, and the baby was sleeping, so I let them sit this one out,” she said, her tone impassive.
Dinner was her mother’s usual roast chicken, brussel sprouts, garlic mashed potatoes and wild rice. Maxine had made two chickens this time around, taking into account the appetites of two grown men, when it was usually just Sam, and her and Leah.
The conversation around the table while they all ate was surprisingly comfortable, and after a while, Sam was able to settle in, enjoying being with everyone and catching up on everyday matters. Occasionally, her eyes drifted toward Colt who mostly stayed in conversation with his father while the women had their own talk. When he caught Sam looking, he smiled at her. She could almost see them, doing this for years to come—dinner at one of their parents’ homes, for Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays. Even the uncomfortable beginning to the afternoon was okay, because they were all so familiar with each other that it felt like it was still all in the family.
And then her mother cleared her throat.
“Colton and Samantha,” she began. Her tone was solemn, like someone about to begin a prayer, or benediction. “It wouldn’t be honest of me if I didn’t tell you how disappointed I am.”
Colt looked up, his lips parting slightly as though he was about to speak, but Sam shook her head almost imperceptibly, warning him to simply listen.
“You’ve both been together since you were just about babies, in one way or another. So, it isn’t a surprise to me that you might have found your way to each other like this, eventually. But what surprises me, what disappoints me is the way you did this thing.”
“What ‘way’ are you talking about, Mom?” Sam asked. She could feel the tremble behind her voice.
Where her parents were concerned, she had always been the easy one. Fear of their disappointment and disapproval had always been enough to keep her in line. Leah was the one who could roll her eyes and have roll off her back the news of parental disappointment. To Sam, it stung as sharply as a whip. She was surprised to realize that even now at this point in her life, that had not changed.
“You all had hired movers before Colton even came over here to discuss with me …”
“We didn’t hire movers,” Sam said. “It’s not even that big a deal. We just … I moved a few things in, and we don’t even know if it’s …”
Across the table, Leah folded her arms, leaned forward, and sighed. And Colt was looking at her with narrowed eyes. His parents, by far the most easygoing people at the table, simply looked on and listened.
“You don’t know if it’s what?” Maxine asked.
Sam said nothing. If she spoke the word she had intended to end that sentence, it would sound terrible.
“You don’t if it’s what, Sam?” This time it was Colt asking.
Still she said nothing. He narrowed his eyes further. “Permanent?” he suggested, his voice slightly raised. “Serious? You don’t know if it’s what?”
“Young people are more modern about these things,” Colt’s father suggested. He lifted his hands, palms facing forward, poised to calm things down. “There’s nothing wrong with taking some time to figure things out by …”
“Pardon me, Josiah, but you don’t have daughters,” Maxine interjected. “If you did, you might not take as kindly to one of them living with a man, having him get full … access to her, just so he can ‘figure out’ whether or not he wants to make a permanent commitment.’
“Can I just … I have something to say,” Nora, Colt’s mother jumped in. “We love Samantha just as though she is our daughter, Maxine. We would never …”
“Nora, with all due respect, you can’t and don’t love my daughter as much as I do.”
“Maxine, all I mean to say is …”
The cacophony of voices speaking over other voices continued for a few seconds while Colt stared at Sam from across the table. His jaw was rigid, and his eyes angry. After a moment, he stood, dropping his napkin next to his plate.
“Sam,” he said. “Let’s roll.”
“Colton!” His mother said. “The meal isn’t over, and …”
“It’s over for me, and for Sam,” he said. Turning, he looked at Maxine. “Ma Maxine, I don’t mean no disrespect, but Sam is a grown woman. I’m a grown man. The choices we make for our relationship we don’t have to sit here and justify to anyone. Not even to you. But if you really want to know … I’ve got nothin’ to figure out. I’m going to marry your daughter. When she’s ready. When we’re ready.”
Sam’s lips parted, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Leah’s eyebrows had crept up, and she was leaning back again, her arms falling slack. Josiah was smiling, and Nora did as well.
“Sam?” Colt looked at her.
She stood, dropping her own napkin, and shoving back from the table.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, and when Colt turned to leave the room she smiled an apologetic smile.
“Thanks for dinner, Mom. And everyone …” She let her voice trail off as she exited the room.
“That was so infantilizing,” Sam said, when she and Colt were in his truck, and about a block away from her mother’s. “So … 1950s or something. Right?”
“What did you mean back there?” Colt asked.
“What did I mean about what?”
“You said, ‘we don’t even know if it’s …’. I want to know what you meant by that.”
Sam glanced at him, but he was looking straight ahead, eyes fixed on the road.
“Nothing. I just … I wanted to get them off our backs, that’s all. It didn’t mean anything. I’m going to kill Leah. I bet she stirred the pot before we even got there, and …”
“You think we’re playing a game? That this moving in thing is just like, for fun?”
“Colton, no. I was just … I mean, you have to admit, we made the decision kind of spur of the moment. And it was kind of weird the way the whole thing went down.”
“In what way?”
It felt like he was an inquisitor, asking questions designed to trip her up.
“I was sick. We’d just been having that discussion about Drew … it was all emotional … we were all shaken up because we hadn’t seen each other in days, and you took care of me …”
This was all coming out wrong. Sam could tell from the way Colt slowly shook his head.
“So, it was all circumstantial for you. It’s not that you really wanted to move in, it was just that you were sick and feeling needy.”
“No! I mean, I wanted to live with you … I mean I want to, but I’m just saying, you must admit that people generally give things like that more thought and deliberation. People usually …”
“I’m not talking about people! I’m talking about you and me.”
“What does that even mean?” Sam asked, feeling her own annoyance rise. “‘You and me’? Like we’re so special and different? We don’t have the same kind of relationship now as we did before, Colt. We need new rules, new boundaries, new expectations …” Horrified to hear Leah’s words coming out of her mouth, Sam was still unable to stop herself. “It doesn’t matter how long we’ve known each other, or that we were exchanging little lip-kisses at three years old. Now we’re almost thirty! And playtime is over.”
For what felt like a long while, the car was silent.
“Wow,” Colt said. “So you agree with your mother then. That I did this all wrong. That we …”
“No,” Sam said wearily. “I don’t care about the … traditional stuff that’s important to her. I’m just saying that … I don’t know what I’m saying.” She sighed and let her head fall back against the headrest.
“You’re sorry you moved in?”
“No! I just …it just feels like you’re too … confident of us or something. I mean, what was all that about marriage back there? Colt, we’ve never even talked about something like that.” She exhaled sharply. “Do you have any idea what the pressure from my mother is going to be like now that you dropped the M-bomb?”
Colt said nothing. He didn’t even make a sound. But somehow, Sam knew that she had hurt him.
Sam closed her eyes, cursing her stupidity. He had mentioned marriage—marriage—and in front of his parents and her mother and sister, no less. And her only response to that was to complain.
Sighing, she slid her hand over to rest on his thigh.
“Colton,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Colton.”
Silence.
I love you.
But those words, she didn’t say aloud.