“Yes?” I replied with a rising tone. “What the hell kind of question is that, Katy? Why wouldn’t she want to marry me?”
Katy didn’t respond but instead let out a deep exhale. She passed by me, taking a seat in a chair to my left. As she did, she swept her skirt under her rear and crossed her legs, turning her upper body towards mine.
“Grey,” she began. “You really can’t be this much of an idiot. Rich, successful, worldly? It’s not possible. You couldn’t have done a much worse job of this if you tried.”
Leaning away from her, I wrinkled my brow in disgust as she continued to chastise me.
“You cannot demand someone marry you based on some feelings of obligation you have.”
I shook my head. “I’m not following, Katy. This is a ‘no lose’ deal for Maddie. And the baby.”
“Grey, Jesus!” she said as she lifted both arms skyward. “Don’t you get it? This is not a ‘deal’. Okay? Can you just, for once in your life, not see everything in terms of winning and losing?”
Scowling, I sunk back into the chair. Katy’s expression conveyed sincerity and while she may have been a lot of things, disingenuous wasn’t one of them. I chewed the inside of my lip for moment or two as we looked at one another in silence. Overhead, the florescent lighting buzzed as I stared at her.
“All right,” I began. “Fine. I’m listening. Explain this to me."
Katy remained silent for several more moments. It was obvious she wasn’t sure how to begin.
“Let’s just get this over with, Katy.” I said, interrupting her self-imposed trance.
Katy nodded and flashed a curt smile of uncertainty to her lips before she started to speak.
“It’s like this, Grey,” she began. “Maddie doesn’t want to be married to you because you feel like it’s ‘the right thing to do’, and she certainly doesn’t want to be a pawn in your family drama. Marriage is about the love two people share. You do understand the difference don’t you?”
I shook my head. “Frankly, Katy, no I don’t. People get married all the goddamned time for ‘love’, and more than half wind up divorced anyway. I never said I didn’t care about her. I do. I care about Maddie in a deep way.”
“Mmm, hmm…” she replied. The tone in her utterance suggested I hadn’t done a good enough job of explaining myself. So, I continued to try and get my point across.
“I mean if she’s willing to be married to me if I tell her I love her, well, then that doesn’t change any of the other things that happen because of it. In other words, I’m still taking care of her and the baby, and she’s still helping me meet the condition of my grandfather’s will. It seems like a game of semantics to me.”
“That’s just it, Grey,” she said, as she reached across and wrapped her hand around my forearm. “It makes all the difference in the world.”
I scoffed. “So, what? So none of the other things matter? The fact that I’m here, willing to do what needs to be done to care for her and my child? That’s all a load of shit?”
Katy shook her head. “No, I never said it was, Grey. You’re doing the honorable thing. No one is disputing that at all. It’s just that, well, the way you’re going about it is wrong.”
We all make mistakes in life, fuck things up. That’s a goddamn part of living. But frankly, I didn’t appreciate being scolded or corrected by Maddie’s mouthpiece. Katy’s accusations were pushing me close to the edge of my tolerance for bullshit. But before I could reply and tell her what I thought of all her nonsense, she continued.
“If you love her, then do this the right way, Grey. Don’t make her feel like you’re doing her a favor for God’s sake. Do you have any idea how utterly unromantic something like that is?”
I thinned my lips as she finished speaking.
“Do you love Maddie, Grey? That’s all she wants to hear from you, if you do. She wants to know you feel the same way about her as she does about you.”
“What am I supposed to say to that, Katy?”
“It’s simple, Grey. Are you in love with Maddie or not?”
“It’s not simple, Katy. But, if you must know, actually I…”
As I started to reply, my phone vibrated inside the pocket of my coat. I reached inside and felt around for it, grabbing it as it buzzed in the palm of my hand. I pulled it out and noticed my mother’s number flash across on the tiny display in backlit bright blue lettering. There was only one reason she would have called. I nodded as I looked at it and then slid it back inside my coat pocket.