“Riley tells me you’re working on your entrance essay to Lincoln.” My father handed Isaac the glass, and he took it, standing when my mother entered the room to sit next to Dad on the sofa.
Isaac lowered himself into the chair next to me with his back straight and his grip on the sweating glass vice tight. “Yes, sir. Riley’s helped me sound like I might not be so thick-headed.” He smiled when Dad laughed and I felt something warm heat my chest.
But that calm didn’t last long. It was an awkward mess, this whole meeting. But Isaac had insisted as soon as he’d heard about the confrontation at the Matheson dinner, it just was a question of when and under what circumstances. We had spent weeks arguing over how to handle that first meeting, and my father had been frustrated with constantly asking to meet Isaac. But now, after a single conversation, we had decided that the 'where' and the 'how' were not nearly as important as the 'now'.
So there we were, facing my parents as they sipped on their drinks, with Ryan smirking behind his glass as he watched the whole ridiculous event unfold while I questioned the wisdom in the entire thing and Isaac tried his best not to fidget.
We should have disappeared to New York, sending a “See you” postcard to my folks on the way out of D.C. but Isaac wouldn’t hear of it. Despite how nervous he’d been to meet them, how worried he was that my parents wouldn’t approve, he still was insistent on showing up on time.
“Well,” Dad said, nodding as he moved the ice around in his glass. “There are programs available at Columbia and Georgetown too, in case you were interested in other universities aside from Lincoln. It’s not the only good school in D.C.”
“Eric, dear, there is time, yes? Don’t force him into a thing he may not wish, not so quickly.” Mom was being a diplomat, smooth and calm as she spoke, but I knew behind her polite words, she was worried. She was a Polish Jew whose family had seen the worst in the war, including how quickly the boys from gentile families had dropped their Jewish girlfriends once the pogroms started. D.C. wasn’t Poland and the war was long over, but the tension would never fully leave her. No doubt my mother fretted over what Isaac and I would have to face for staying together.
Dad relented, nodding to Isaac in way of an apology for making assumptions about his plans and I absently pulled my bottom lip between my teeth as yet another when a wave of nerves hit me. They didn’t know. None of them, not even Ryan. Any plans they might think Isaac might aspire to wouldn’t matter to my folks much, not by the end of the evening.
For his part, Isaac could not stay still. He’d already gone through his panicked and pacing phase when I told him. Even then he’d insisted, and insisted yet again despite my protests, that no matter how hard it might be, we needed to face this openly. So here we were, staring at my family, wondering when the tension in the room would break.
It wasn’t that my parents were unfriendly. They were always generous, always kind, but since my admission that Trent had slapped me, I’d noticed their worry for me had grown. I’d kept something monumental from them, and that was hard for them to take. This dinner tonight wouldn't make it any easier.
The conversation lulled, and Isaac looked down at the drink in his hand. In one graceful movement, he downed it, then turned to me, and my breath caught with the look I saw in his eyes—his worry, his excitement, his deep and unassailable love. He raised his eyebrows the tiniest bit, and I responded with an infinitesimal nod.
He set down his empty glass then stood, his fists balled nervously at his side. “Mr. O’Bryant, ma’am?” My parents looked up at him, calm, expectant, while Ryan continued to lean on the windowsill, a willing observer “I’ll ask your pardon for the way all this…” he waved a hand between us, at a loss for more of an explanation. “This… what’s happened, as I say, I’m sorry for it all to come out like it did, surprising you all in front of your people in public like that.”
Mom relaxed her face, laying a hand on my father’s leg. “No, dear. It’s not necessary…” Dad took her fingers, linking them with his own, stoically watching his melting ice cubes as Isaac continued.
“We wanted to tell you in our own way, in our own time, but sometimes life just doesn't play out as you expect.”
I could see my family out of the corner of my eye, but all my focus was on Isaac, willing him strength and encouragement as he stood up there, making what was surely the hardest speech of his life.
Still, my father watched the ice in his glass, my mother smiled, my brother slouched offhandedly. They waited, as Isaac stood with his eyes downcast. As time seemed to stretch on, my mother, always the one in charge of making everyone else feel comfortable, broke the silence.
“Riley?” she said, pulling my attention to her.
“Ma’am, please.” Isaac wanted this. He’d wanted to be held accountable. “Please,” he said again, “I feel it’s… it’s my place.”
He waited for my father’s slow, reluctant nod before he spoke again. “I want you to know that I would never disrespect you all and not Riley. Not ever. But I feel…” When I grabbed Isaac’s hand, he moved his head, a small gesture that told me he knew I was there, at his side. “We feel for each other… deeply, things that are… I believe are real. And it wouldn’t be right, me coming here, saying what I have to say and not asking your pardon first.”
Ryan moved to lean on the back of the sofa, his gaze flashing to me before he cleared his throat. “Tell us.”
“As I say, Riley and me, we care… we love each other. So, I reckon it’s a good thing, just not the best of timing…” He glanced at me, then looked my father straight in the eyes. “Sir, I’ve gotten your daughter pregnant. And I want to marry her. Not because of the baby but… well, because I love her. I love her a lot. She’s… she’s the only family I’ve got.”
That hadn’t been a lie. Isaac had taken me to Charlotte the week before, where his sister, Clara, had been visiting for the weekend, but when we knocked on the door, smiles bright, hands shaking with nerves, she’d refused to let me in. She’d made him choose. Me and the baby, or her.
He hadn’t even taken a breath before he answered her.
“No contest.” And then he led me off the front stoop and back to the Bel Aire.
Now, in my parent's living room, I caught my father’s gaze, something flashing behind them as he watched Isaac. I couldn’t read it, but it seemed to keep him from being able to react to our news.
My mother, however, instantly started to cry. “Is not you,” she told Isaac, wiping her eyes. “She’s my baby.”
“I’ve got some money saved up,” Isaac told her, his words came out in a rush. “I’m not very religious myself, but whatever Riley wants the baby to be is fine with me.”
“Riley… what of your studies?” Mom said, as my father walked over to the window, staring out across the yard and into the street beyond, the muscle along his jaw tight and working.
“She can always finish later, Mom.” Ryan’s smile was wide as he walked toward us, unworried as he shook Isaac’s hand and kissed my forehead. “I think it’s great news. Really. Congrats, sis.”