After lunch, we had cake, and I started opening the rest of my birthday presents: a laptop from my parents, a magnetic hide-a-key from my brother, and some gift cards from Rob’s family. Then I spied the center of the table, figuring the last two presents were both books. Grandpa picked up the one wrapped in the Sunday comics and handed it to me. “This will remind you of what brought you and Robert together.”
Slowly, I slid my fingers under the tape and opened the package, pulling out a leather edition of Much Ado about Nothing. I smiled, knowing that was one theory. My brother had the other. “Now, my gift reminds them of the real reason why they got together. Chloe broke up with Austin the same day she locked her keys in the car. Coincidence? I think not.”
Rob faced my brother. “Well, if that’s the real reason, then it’s a good thing you didn’t give it to her sooner.” Rob picked up the hide-a-key thing and slid it across the table to my brother.
“Oh, you men have it all wrong!” Mrs. Callahan decided, and then she muttered an aside toward my mother, “Which is usually the case when it comes to love, isn’t it?” She raised her voice again, “Chloe and Rob are dating because we—” She gestured between my mother and herself, causing her emerald-cut diamond to glisten under the bright kitchen lights. “—have spent the last fifteen years praying it would happen.”
I turned toward Rob. “So, do you have a theory?”
He leaned back in his chair and rested his hands behind his head. “Sure, the reason why Chloe and I started dating is because it was the only way to settle a bet.” He glanced at me and winked. “And I won.”
“Only because I let you win.”
“You did not.”
“Did too.”
Aunt Nancy piped up. “Listen, if you two keep at it, then there’ll be no question about why you stopped dating.”
“Oh, no,” Riley squashed that silly notion. “Their fights are pure foreplay.”
My father coughed. “And this one is from your grandmother.” He pushed her gift toward me, and I opened it hastily, glad for the diversion. Every year Grandma Preston sent me a book. I received Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier for my twelfth birthday, and in the years that followed, she gave me novels by Bronte, Austen, and Hardy. When I was a young girl, she read me sonnets by Shakespeare and Rossetti while other grandmothers recited fairy tales, and as I unwrapped her gift, I wondered which classic it would be. I slid out the book; it had a blue suede cover with my initials embossed in silver lettering. I opened the front cover and read a message from her:
A place for your own story.
-Grandma
Later on, when Rob and I sat alone at the table, I stared at the words on the inside cover of the journal. “So Rob, if I wrote our story, where would I begin? With the night of the bet?”
He shook his head. “Nah, you’d start with the whole key incident.”
“Why? Then that proves my brother is right.”
“Nope, it just proves that I’m a great guy, and Austin’s a colossal jerk.” He draped his arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “But if you’re really going to write about us, then you should omit the parts where our clothes come off.”
“Why? That’s the best part.”
“Yes, it is, but I don’t want your dad to find your journal and have a reason to kill me.”
“Aw, Rob, my dad loves you. Remember?”
“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”
I folded my arms and leaned back. “I guess we’ve just run out of things to say to each other.”
“Maybe, but we still haven’t run out of things to do with each other.” He rose from the chair. “You ready to go out?” He smiled. “By ourselves.”
“Yeah, but I need to check something first.” I left the kitchen and headed toward the stairway. There was something I had to see, something that had been in the back of my mind ever since he had given me the ring. I examined the wedding photo of his parents and saw a Claddagh ring on his mother’s hand, and as I took each step up the stairs, I could trace the lineage back to his great grandparents, each one wearing the same style of ring.
“There you are,” he said.
I joined him at the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” His hands encircled my waist.
“Why doesn’t your mom wear that ring anymore?” I pointed at her wedding photo on the wall. “Like on her other hand or something?”
“She can’t.”
“Why? Did she lose it?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“It doesn’t fit her anymore?”
“Nope, that’s not the reason either.”
“Then why, Rob?”
He smiled. “Are you out of guesses?”
“I think so.”
He held my hand lightly and turned my ring with his thumb. “I’ll give you a hint.” His eyes dropped to my ring, and then climbed the wall of photos, and returned to my hand again.
I gasped, loudly, but he smiled as he brought me in for a hug.
-24-
Last Kiss
Later that night, Rob and I walked along the river eating ice cream under a darkening summer sky, and he told me the story of the Claddagh ring. Many years ago, his great grandfather, who resided in Northern Ireland, bought the ring for his bride-to-be on her sixteenth birthday. She wore the ring for eleven years before dying in childbirth with their sixth son. When her eldest son came to the States for school, he met his wife in Boston, fell in love with her and the city, and on her twentieth birthday, he proposed with his mother’s ring.
As the story goes, Grandma Callahan wore the ring for over thirty years, but one Christmas Eve, she slipped it off and handed it to her oldest son, and on the next morning, and in the presence of his family, David Callahan proposed to Tracy Wesley. It was her twenty-first birthday, and a few months prior, she had given birth to a child out of wedlock.
David was a young doctor, fresh out of medical school, and with only a few deliveries behind him, he felt an unusual surge of emotion during her son’s delivery. At first, he chalked it up to the novelty of his profession, but in the weeks that followed, he grew more and more eager for Tracy’s follow-up appointment. He knew she was his patient, and he understood that certain lines shouldn’t be crossed; but still, he kept her needlessly long with questions. At the end of her check-up, he asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”
“Yes, just one.” She looked up at him with a smile. “Do doctors still make house calls?” He nodded and had dinner at her house the same night, and even though they only dated for a few weeks before he proposed, he suspected that he had fallen in love with her well before then.
She wore the Claddagh ring until her tenth anniversary when she received an impressive emerald-cut diamond to mark the milestone event, and following tradition, she gave the ring to the eldest male of the next generation, which was her son, my boyfriend.
One night, as she tucked her son into his bed, nestled in a room full of baseball paraphernalia, he begged for the story of the ring again. After she explained how the ring moved from one generation to the next, she asked, “So, who will get the ring now, Robbie?”
“Probably Chloe because she doesn’t throw like a girl,” he said, rolling over.
His mother laughed and brought the covers up to his chin. “Is that the only reason?”
“Yeah, what else is there?”
That, of course, was the part his mother had told me, the part he had forgotten, and now, several weeks after my birthday, as we walked through the woods that connected our houses, he reassured me that there was something else. And like any curious girlfriend, I asked him to tell me what was on his list.
It was our conversation on the night before he left for the annual bike trip. All the guys, along with my mom, who drove the support vehicle, were headed to North Florida in the morning; whereas, Mrs. Callahan and Riley had already left for NYC. They invited me, of course, but I was saving my
money for other flights—like ones headed to Washington-Reagan in the fall.
At present, Rob was opening the gate to my backyard and leading me onto the back porch, and once there, we nestled next to each other on the wicker bench. “You want to know what else, huh?” he asked nonchalantly. I bit down on my lip and nodded eagerly. “Well, you’re very smart, and extremely well read—not many kids read the classics just for fun.” I smiled, knowing intelligence ranked high on his list of dating prerequisites. “And you’re naturally beautiful, which is why you look so pretty first thing in the morning. You know, when your hair is all over the place?”
In an effort to recreate my morning allure, I did a quick hair flip, but when I leaned over, I forgot to take into account the wicker table in front of me. “Ow,” I said, rubbing my forehead. I got up slowly, heard him laughing, and added quickly, “But don’t worry, Rob. I’ll be okay.”
He chuckled a little more and continued on with his list, “Of course, you make me laugh—and not always on purpose.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “But most importantly, you’re not afraid to feel. Your heart is so tender, and by knowing you all these years, I have experienced life differently than I would have without you. You have opened me up and filled me with love, and for that, I am most grateful.”
I stared back at him. “You should write that down, Rob.”
He shook his head gently and brought my hand to his heart. “It’s all right here.” But to me, his lines belonged in romance novels, and sometimes after a night with him, I wrote his words down in the journal that my grandmother had given me for my birthday.
I rested my head on his shoulder and sighed. “This’ll be our last kiss then.”
“Forever?” he teased
“No,” I chided back and pressed my lips against his neck. My mouth traveled up to his jaw line, and I started kissing the corner of his mouth. Rob had a serious five o’clock shadow by nightfall, so my lips burned a little as I kissed his sandpapery face. I left his mouth and came at him from another direction, a little more vigorously this time, and he emitted a low groan. I answered him with a softer, longer one, and we settled into a rhythmic kiss.
“Hey, guess what?” He pulled back suddenly. “We don’t have to do this.”
“But I want to do this.”
“No, I’m talking about this weekend. Since you’re not going to your grandmother’s house, you should come with us.” I nixed my annual trip to Kentucky because Rob and I only had two months left of summer, and I couldn’t bear to spend a whole week away from him.
I grimaced. “And do what?”
“Be with me.”
“But you’re going to be on a bike all weekend, and when you’re not riding, you’ll either be sweaty or sleepy.”
He turned up a corner of his mouth. “You want to stay home, don’t you?”
“Yeah, maybe.” It was the first time my parents had ever let me stay home by myself, and naturally, a little freedom intrigued me. “Plus, I should really hang out with my friends every once in a while.”
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. “Yeah, what are you guys going to do while I’m gone?”
“Just hang out at Courtney’s.”
“I’m sorry I’ll miss it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you are.” We used to sneak out of Courtney’s house in the middle of the night and play “knock-and-run” on his bedroom window. But several years ago, when Josh was spending the night at Rob’s house, they were waiting for us up in the old tree house. And when we tiptoed to his bedroom window, they were moving stealthily behind us. When they tapped our shoulders, we squealed like thirteen-year-old girls are prone to do. Then the two of them doubled over in hysterics as we marched back to Courtney’s house, defeated.
He glanced at his watch. “Listen, I should probably get going.”
“How about one last kiss?”
“Tomorrow.” He slid a finger down the length of my nose and rested it on my lips. “Good things come to those who wait.”
****