Chapter 22

She waited until they were out of the hospital parking lot, but no longer.

"How could you do that?" she asked.

"I told you I had some money saved up," he reminded her.

"Yes, but you didn't have to spend it all on me!"

"Why not?" he asked. "I love you, and it's my money. I can spend it any way I want to, right?"

"Well, of course, but I feel terrible that you blew your life's savings because I got sick! Bob, that's not right. I can never repay you!"

"I think you can," he said. "Besides, it wasn't my whole life's savings. I still have enough for a new roof."

"No way, Bob," she said. "I can't let you spend any more money on me."

"What if it were your money?" he asked. "Would you pop for a roof then?"

"It's not my money, Bob, and don't you dare try to give it to me."

"Oh, I'm going to give it to you," he said. "Trust me on that. But you didn't answer the question. If you had the money, would you get a new roof?"

"I guess so," she said. "As long as I didn't need it for something else that was more important."

"So if you had a lot of money you wouldn't go out and spend it on cars and jewelry and all that?"

"Of course not," she said. "What are you talking about, Bob? You're not spending any more of your money on me, Bob."

"What about the baby?" he asked. "Can I spend any of my money on that?"

"Well..." She frowned. "That's different."

"And I'm going to live with you, right? I have to contribute to the common expenses."

"Not any more," she argued. "You just wrote a check for twenty-five thousand dollars, Bob!"

"No it wasn't," he said. "It was at least three hundred dollars less than that."

"Oh!" she said, waving her hands around. "Well that's different then. That's just chump change. Are you crazy?"

"Crazy about you," he said, smiling.

She drew in breath and he expected her to yell at him, but all she did was sigh.

"You're impossible," she said.

"I have to ask you a question," he said.

"What?" she responded, her voice dull.

"This is the wrong time," he said.

"What?" she said, insistently.

"And the wrong setting," he went on.

She turned to look at him. "Ask me the fucking question, Bob!"

"Okay, but remember, you made me do it at the wrong time and in the wrong setting."

She slumped.

"Bob, just ask the question. I'm tired. I want to go home. I want to see my baby. Okay?"

"Will you marry me?" he asked, softly.

He thought he'd made a terrible mistake at first. That's because she didn't answer his question.

Instead, she looked over at him and stared at him for a good sixty seconds before she uttered a word. And when she finally spoke, her voice was flat, and emotionless.

"I need some time to think about that, Bob."

"Of course," he said.

He was relatively amazed he was able to say even that. He had no experience with this kind of thing. He'd never been in love before, and never felt like a woman loved him before either. He had, of course, never proposed. He'd asked girls what they thought about getting married, but that was it. It was those questions, in fact that had led to the girls breaking up with him.

Nor had he ever hoped for anything so intensely since he was a kid, and wanted a Porter Chemcraft chemistry set for Christmas. But he took some tiny measure of comfort from the fact that she hadn't yelled at him, or demanded to be let out of the car. It was the wrong time and setting, and he shouldn't have caved in to her demand for him to "ask the fucking question."

His thoughts swung, in the extended and heavy silence, as if attached to some psychic pendulum. One second he was sure he'd blown the best thing in his life, and then the pendulum would rock to the other side, to the irrational hope that, some day, they would look back on this moment in time and laugh about it. It finally became too much for him.

"Riley..." he said.

"Shhhh," she replied. "I'm thinking."

Had he known what she was thinking, he might not have been so anxious. Her thoughts were complicated and tumultuous, of course. And everything got all jumbled up in the same pile. It was as if she was walking around a huge pile of things that were intended to become a bonfire, and she was peering into the mess, trying to identify the various objects. In this case, though, the objects were really just facts and emotions.

For instance, there was the fact that, while she had been sure she loved Chuck, she was also sure it had been an immature kind of love. It had felt real. Her spirit had, in fact soared, until his actions illuminated his true feelings. He hadn't loved her. He'd lusted after her. But when she looked at how she felt about Bob, it was entirely different. Of course Bob was entirely different than Chuck. But her experience with the one, affected how she looked at the other.

Then there was the whole train wreck of the timing of the proposal itself. She was still weak from the disease that had thoroughly ripped away any vestige of the idea that she was attractive. She needed a shower. She was tired. There were dark circles under her eyes. She'd seen them in the mirror at the hospital. She was dressed in jeans and a T shirt. Her hair was a mess. She didn't wear a lot of makeup, but what she did use was sitting in tiny containers at home, rather than on her face. The only way she could feel less attractive was if she had rolled around on the ground, in the mud.

He had warned her it was the wrong time and setting. She had to admit that.

And that, in itself, was something to think about. That he had proposed at all didn't shock her. Her own mind had flitted in the past, like a butterfly, to the flower that was the thought of marrying this man. But the butterfly hadn't stayed at that flower for long. She'd set her heart on something vaguely like that before, and her heart had been crushed.

But for him to ask that question at that time, and in that setting, said something about him. It wasn't that he was foolish, or didn't plan well. His thought processes were always pristinely clear and logical.

Well ... almost always. There was the fact that he had just shown up on her doorstep, with no plan at all, just hoping she wouldn't call the police and report him as a stalker. And there was what had to be the irrational and impulsive desire to pay her medical bill.

The bonfire contained a thought that the reason he'd spent almost twenty-five thousand dollars on her was to make her beholden to him ... to manipulate her into saying yes ... to force her into acceding to his proposal. But that thought was branded as ridiculous instantly. All that thought proved was that she was almost in panic mode.

She saw the panic in the pile, and took some time to examine that. That she felt some panic was obvious. But it wasn't the fight or flight kind of panic. Rather, it was the take each step carefully because you might be in a minefield kind of panic. Why she felt that panic was what grabbed her attention. She wasn't worried that Bob would abandon her, as Chuck had. She knew he wanted to stay. And it wasn't the thought of formalizing their "contract" that bothered her. The thought of being with Bob for the rest of her life wasn't scary. Rather it was the glimmer of something shining and beautiful, just out of reach.