Sister Monica Ch. 06

"Sssh," she said, stroking his hair. "I do love you, sweetheart. I do. I'm sorry. You just surprised me so much with all of this."

He pulled away, looked at her. From across the beach, he heard the little girl laughing, the sound of it riding the ocean breeze, frolicking with the waves, rising on the air like a taunt.

"Then you'll marry me?" He choked the words out more than he said them. He hated the way he had lost control of himself. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd cried.

She swallowed, kissed his cheek. "Josh. I love you. And trust me, I want to say yes, right now. But I don't think we should make this decision yet." He was about to protest, but she raised a hand. "Everything has happened so fast, Josh. And there are a lot of things to consider. Your family lives in California. You're seventeen years younger than me. Do you want to have a lot of children? I couldn't give that to you. Maybe one or two—but, Josh, I mean, I'm almost forty years old! What will you think of me when you're thirty five and I'm in my fifties? Or when you're fifty and I'm nearly seventy?"

"I'll think you're the most beautiful woman in the world," he said. "Monica, damnit, don't you understand? I love you! I love you. Don't you get it?"

"I know," she said, but he still wondered. If she knew just how much he loved her, she wouldn't even be raising these concerns. "But love, just by itself, isn't enough, Josh. There are so many things to think through, to talk about still. Are you really willing to spend your life here, in the Northeast? And I know I haven't talked about it much, but I'm still a person of faith, Josh. I may not be a nun anymore, but I will never walk away from what I believe. If we were to have children . . ."

He raised a hand now himself. "I don't care," he said. "I just know I can't live without you, that I want to spend my life with you. Nothing else matters."

She smiled, her expression softened. "Will you do something for me?"

"Anything, you know that."

"Go home over the summer, think about it more. Think of what I've just said, okay? Try to wrestle with all the practical things that are so easy to overlook in the beginning. Think about the future, our future, what it would be like. Not just the sex, either." She giggled. "But everything. The things you're giving up. The sacrifices you'd have to make. And whether you're sure, really sure, that you want to get married at such a young age. Can you do that for me?"

"But . . ."

"And . . . when you come back in August, if you still feel the same way you do now, ask me then. Okay?"

"And what would your answer be?"

"I think you know," she said, and kissed him.

"Nothing's gonna change between now and then," he said. "Nothing."

She just smiled, mysteriously. What did that mean? And how could she doubt him? Why would he not want to ask her in August? Did she really think he'd go home, hook up with a few teenagers in California, and forget all about her, coming to the realization that he wasn't ready for marriage? Never. Never in ten trillion years.

It pissed him off, because she was treating him like a little kid, as if he weren't sure of his own feelings. If he had been thirty instead of twenty, he doubted she'd have responded this way.

Another thought nagged him. Did she need the time to be alone, too, this summer? Did she need to find out if she, herself, was ready to get married? Worse, did she want to play the field with him gone? After all, he'd been her only lover. No longer a nun, aware for the first time of her raging sexuality and her effect on men, maybe she wanted to experience a few other guys before settling down.

But what was the use? All of this speculation would just drive him to the nut-bin. She had all but told him she would accept his proposal if he still wanted to go through with things when he came back. He had hoped she would say yes today, but at least she hadn't said no. And when he returned at summer's end, he would prove to her what he already knew. If this was a test, he would pass it, and put to rest any lingering doubts she might have had.

"Let's go inside," he said then. "Thank you for understanding," she said once they were back in their room. "And for everything you've done for me. You've spoiled me, Josh. You really have."

He laughed. "This is nothing, Monica. Just you wait. This is nothing."

"Nothing?" She put her arms around him, kissed him. "You make me feel like a princess when we're together, Josh." They kissed again. Her lips were so eager for his. He told himself he had nothing to worry about. She would be his fiancée by the time he started his senior year. "And thank you for agreeing to go back to California, and wait a little while . . ."

He kissed her again. "If you asked me to go to hell for you," he said, "I'd go."

She squeezed him so tight, it almost hurt, and she put her head on his shoulder. "I'm going to miss you this summer, Josh."

"It'll be the last time we're ever apart," he said.

And, in a whisper, almost inaudible, she said, "I hope."