Colleen – chapter 03 – part-09

Colleen’s eyes began blinking in rapid succession. I had seen this before when she was processing some new information. I could see the gears turning in her head and she asked, “So all those mornings that you came to have breakfast…”

Harold was still smiling when he said, “Your mother spent the night at my condo.”

Everyone was quiet as we stared at Mom and Harold. Finally Mi Lin asked the question that was hanging out there in the air in front of us but no one was brave enough to ask.

“How long have you guys been…uh…you know…umm…?”

Her question faded off into an embarrassed silence.

Mom and Harold smiled at each other then Mom answered.

“A little over two years.”

None of us were emotionally equipped to handle this bombshell.

At some point each of us opened our mouths to say something, but nothing would come out. Slowly we became aware that Christopher was standing in front of Harold. With the innocent curiosity that only an eight year old can express he asked, “Uncle Harold, do you love my grandmother?”

Harold quietly and seriously answered, “Yes Chris, I love her very much.”

Christopher wrinkled his forehead in thought then asked his next question.

“Does that mean we should call you grandpa from now on?”

Harold slowly smiled and looked at Mom. Mom bent over and kissed Christopher on the top of his head. She gestured to the gang of four to come and join Christopher in front of her.

“Kids, I think that it would be appropriate for you to call him Grandpa, after all we are getting married.”

Please dear God, make the surprises stop.

The kids broke out in grins and began to hug Harold as a group.

Mom spoke again. “Kids, would you mind giving the grown-ups a little time so that we can finish talking?”

One more hug for Harold and Mom then the kids left the room. Everyone was staring at me and waiting. Somehow I had ended up being the designated spokesman for the group.

“Married?”

“Yes Robert…”

That was as far as Harold got before I interrupted him.

“For God’s sake Harold, if you’re going to sleep with my mother, the very least you could do is have the decency to call me Bobby.”

It took a second for Harold to fully comprehend what I had just said. My family was the only ones who called me Bobby. I was beginning to like this new Harold, the one that smiled all the time.

“Yes…Bobby…I asked Margaret to marry me and she said yes. We’re getting married two weeks from tomorrow.”

So that was what Gordon had meant by “see you in two weeks.”

“Harold, if you love my mother, why did you hide it for two years?”

“Oh, I’ve loved Margaret much longer than that. I fell in love with her the day I met her at your wedding.”

Mom turned her head and looked at Harold. Now it was mom’s turn to look surprised.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me sooner?”

Harold’s natural bluster was gone and in its place was a different Harold. Someone who was shy and uncertain when he said, “I didn’t think you would be interested in someone like me.”

Mom hugged Harold and kissed him gently on his cheek. She softly told him, barely loud enough for the rest of us hear, “Well, you were wrong.”

Harold and Mom stood holding hands looking at each other for a minute before Harold turned to face the rest of us and continue his story.

“Two years ago I was in Santa Teresa one Saturday. I finished what I was there for and didn’t feel like eating lunch alone so I took a chance and called your mother. I can’t tell you how surprised …and happy I was when she said yes.”

“But why did you hide it from us for so long?” Sharon asked.

“We had to. Six months after Bobby came here from Chicago it was obvious to everyone that he would be my replacement; it was only a question of when. If word had gotten around in the company that I was in love with his mother, it would have had the odor of nepotism and probably pulled the plug on any chance of his promotion. We did it to protect Bobby’s career. John Gordon was the only person who knew.”

Harold paused for a second and his eyes were moist when he spoke again.

“We want you to remember that your mother still deeply loves your father and I will always love and miss Caroline. But today, I can’t imagine my life without Margaret.”

Mom smiled and kissed Harold’s cheek again and said to us, “Harold is the only person I know who can measure up to the standard that your father set. I love this man very much, but no matter how much I love him…”

Mom’s smile moved into a full blown grin.

“…I will never, ever play golf so don’t even ask.”

This last statement was directed to Mike and Jimmy.

Harold insisted that the only thing that could complete the day for Mom and him would be to take all of us out to dinner. By this time Meghan and Molly were old enough to baby-sit so we ordered a combination of pizza and Chinese food to be delivered for the kid’s dinner. While at the restaurant we were able to see with our own eyes the love and affection that Mom and Harold had for each other. It was a good thing that Mom is left handed because she and Harold held hands all the way through dinner.

Later, after Mike and Sharon, and Jimmy and Mi Lin had left to return to Santa Teresa, Harold and Mom stayed at our house for a cup of coffee before going to Harold’s condo for the night. Colleen and Mom were having a deep discussion about the details to have a wedding two weeks from now when Harold and I wandered out on to the back deck. We spent several minutes sitting just enjoying the quiet and stillness of the night.

“Bobby, I wanted to let you know that I know about you and Colleen’s…shall we say unique situation. I can’t say that I completely understand it, but I look at you and Colleen and I can see how much you love each other so it’s very easy for me to accept. The look that I see in your eyes every time Colleen walks into the room is exactly the same way I feel about your mother. You and Colleen are special to me and I will never say anything to anyone about it.”

“Did Mom tell you?”

“Oh no, she’s never said anything about that, only how much she loves her children. I don’t think she is even aware of the fact that I know. I figured it out not too long after Brigid was born. It was the little things, a few comments Mike and Jimmy made to each other on the golf course and I finally put it all together. I don’t know if you fully understand just how much your brothers love you and Colleen. I feel very lucky to be marring into a family that actually likes each other.”

The next morning Mike and Jimmy were back with one of the large trucks from Mike’s company and with Ray Lopez’s help, we moved Harold out of his condo and into Mom’s house in Santa Teresa. At first I was afraid that it would be strange to have Harold living in the house where we all grew up, but when we saw Mom’s beaming face, we knew it was the right thing.

Mom and Harold asked Colleen and I if they could have the wedding in our back yard. We were happy to do that for them but we had to ask why here and not in Santa Teresa? Harold simply said, “Because that’s where I met Margaret.”

Several months after the wedding, Colleen announced that she had a major project she had to complete. For the first time ever she would not allow any of us to see what it was. When she was working she kept the door to her studio closed and when she finished for the day she locked the door behind her. When I asked her about what she was doing she would only say, “You can see when it’s done.”

What ever the project was it must have been large because it seemed like she worked on it forever.

Mom and Harold were going to celebrate their first wedding anniversary with a family barbecue in their backyard. As we were getting ready to go to Santa Teresa, Colleen said. “I have a present for Mom and Harold, could you put it in the car please?”

There was large package wrapped in brown paper on the floor leaning against the wall in the hallway. When I picked it up I found that it was not heavy at all, just bulky.

It was one of those perfect afternoons. The weather was perfect. The food was perfect. The company was perfect. The kids were perfect. The family stories everyone was retelling for the hundredth time were perfect. Perfect, Perfect, perfect. One of those magical days that a family will remember forever.

We were sitting around the dining table finishing dessert and coffee when Colleen leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Go get the present out of the car and put it in the livingroom.”

Colleen was waiting for me in the livingroom when I brought the package in. She pointed to where I should set it down and said, “Go back in the dinning room and don’t let anyone come in here.”

As I walked back into the dinning room, everyone was laughing and talking over each other and Mom looked at me with a questioning expression. All I could do was shrug my shoulders. I could hear Colleen tearing off the brown paper and then the sounds of her moving things around.

After a few moments of this Colleen was standing in the doorway. She looked a little nervous as she said, “I’m sorry to interrupt but Mom, Harold, would you mind stepping into the livingroom for a minute?”

We all stood to follow Mom and Harold but Colleen raised her hands to stop us and said, “Just them for a minute.”

Colleen’s nervousness seemed to grow as Mom and Harold walked past her and into the other room. Seconds after they entered the room we could hear Mom gasp. Moments later Mom came out of the room followed by Harold. Mom was crying when she threw her arms around Colleen and said, “Thank you so much dear. It’s so …” Her voice just faded off into nothing.

Harold had a tear running down the side of his face and he was struggling to control his voice when he said, “I don’t know what to say. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He looked over at me and asked, “Did you know about this?”

“No. What is it?”

With the tear tack still visible on his face, Harold was smiling broadly when he gestured for us to follow him into the other room. He and Mom went to stand together beside the fireplace and we could see why they were both so emotional.

We were stunned.

Placed on the mantle, leaning against the wall were three canvases about 18 inches by 24 inches that Colleen had painted. Two of the paintings I recognized immediately. The one on the left was a copy of a photograph, a studio portrait that Mom and Dad had taken a couple of years before Dad passed away. The twins and Colleen and I had a copy of the same photograph in a rosewood frame resting on each of our own mantles.

The painting on the right was a copy of a photograph that I had seen a thousand times. It was the portrait of Harold and his wife Caroline taken over thirty years before and had sat on the corner of Harold’s desk for as long as I had known him.

The painting in the middle was the surprise. It was of Mom and Harold. They had not yet had any portraits taken of them so Colleen had painted them out of her own imagination and memory. Instead of looking out at the viewer, Colleen had painted Mom and Harold looking at each other. Mom had that contented O’Conner half smile. It was the same smile that I was now starting to see every day on each of my daughters. Harold’s face had that ear to ear grin that he had worn ever since the day he married Mom.

Each portrait had been painted in excruciating, realistic detail but that was not what was so breathtaking.

In each portrait Colleen had captured in the eyes, the evidence of the deep love that each person felt for each other. We had obviously never meet Caroline, but the expression that Colleen had captured in her face and Harold’s face left no doubt about their love. To once again see our father and mother looking at each other with so much love, to one more time feel the happiness they gave to each other was a moment of joy.

But it was the portrait of Mom and Harold that was overwhelming. What Colleen had done was to tell the story of the love between these two wonderful people.

I was never more proud or in awe of my sister as I was at that moment.

One by one the kids began to grow up and go away to college. Colleen, the twins and I had all graduated from the University of California, Santa Teresa so it was only natural that all twelve of Mom’s grandkids attend there themselves. None of them were forced to go there, or even encouraged. They chose the school on their own because it is one of the best in the nation and it is an O’Conner family tradition.

The summer between Christopher’s junior and senior year of high school, Mike got a contract to build a small office building in San Miguel. So Chris went to work for his Uncle Mike in hopes of saving enough money to buy a car when he went off to college himself. This was the summer that Christopher found his calling.

Mike made sure the crew knew that Christopher was his nephew. He also made sure they understood that they were not to go easy on him and I suspect that the crew worked him twice as hard as everyone else. The foreman took him under his wing and even as he had Chris doing the dirtiest jobs, he and the other members of the crew were patient and began teaching Chris everything they knew about construction. By the end of the summer, Christopher had matured both physically and emotionally to the point that we hardly recognized him.

At the end of the summer when Christopher started his senior year of high school he knew what he had to do to get into the engineering department at UCST. He approached everything he did at school with a focus that we had never seen in him before. He had always been a good student; in fact all of his sisters had been too, each one of them the valedictorian of their graduating class, but now the intensity of his studying was going to push him past the mark that his sisters had set.

It was the spring of Christopher’s senior year and he was the only one of the kids left in the house full time. Frank and Linda and their son Keith, Chris’s buddy, were all over for a Saturday afternoon barbeque. We were sitting on the back deck relaxing when Linda asked the boys if everything was set for the senior prom the next week. They were quiet for a moment then Keith said, “We decided not to go to the prom.”

“Why not?”

Chris shrugged his shoulders and answered, “Can’t find anybody to go with.”

Frank laughed, “You two can’t find anyone? You guys have girls following you around all day long. What gives?”

Keith smiled, “It’s not a question of getting someone to go with us. We want to go with someone special.”

“This is a pretty big deal and if we went, we want it to be with someone we’ll actually want to talk to the day after it’s over. It’s just not worth the effort if we can’t find someone like that and right now we don’t see anyone out there that fits the bill,” Chris added.

Colleen spoke up. “You should go; these are the kind of things you’ll remember for the rest of your lives.”

Both boys just shrugged their shoulders and were quiet for a moment then Christopher spoke.

“Yeah, I know, but most of the people are going to be spending a gazillion dollars just to get drunk afterwards and then try to have sex in the back a rented limo. That’s not what we’re interested in.”

I could see Colleen’s eyes blinking as she began to think. Chris and Keith stood up and Chris said, “We’ve got to get going, we need to pickup Jerry pretty soon if we’re going to get to the movie before it starts.”

As they took a step towards the door Colleen held up her hand in a signal for them to stop.

“You boys stay right there. Linda, can I talk to you inside for a minuet?”

“Mom, we really need to get going, we’re going to be late.”

Colleen got that look in here eyes and pointed at the chairs they had just vacated.

“Sit.”

Colleen and Linda walked into the kitchen and we watched them through the window. We couldn’t hear what Colleen was saying but we could see the expression on Linda’s face. At first it was one of surprised interest and then she broke out into a huge smile. Colleen picked up the phone and began dialing as Linda came back outside.

“Can we go now?” Keith asked.

“No, just wait. We’ll tell you when it’s time to go.”

“But Mom, we’re late already. Dad…”

Frank held up his hands in defense.

“Son, it’s time you learned that when the women in your life tell you to do something, life is a lot simpler if you just do it in the first place.”

Linda leaned over and kissed Frank on the cheek. “I was so proud of you when you finally figured that out dear.”

Frank kissed Linda back then looked at the boys. “And it’s a lot less painful too.”

Ten minutes later Colleen came back outside and looked towards Linda. “Everything is all set. Bobby, tomorrow you and Frank take these two out and get some tuxedos; they are going to the prom.”

“But Mom, we don’t have dates. Keith is a nice guy and all but I’m not going to hold his hand and get a prom photo taken with him.”

We laughed at this then Colleen said, “Don’t worry about it, your dates have already agreed to go with you.”

“Who is it?”

“That, dear son, will be your prom surprise.”

Keith was grinning. “Cool, mystery dates…this might turn out ok.”

The next day after church, Frank and I took the boys to the mall to rent tuxedos. Christopher and Keith were both very mature for their age but when they get together they turn into a couple of ten year old goofballs. Frank and I both said an emphatic “NO” when they tried to rent powder blue tuxes with the peach color ruffled shirt and white patented leather shoes.

The prom was that Friday night. Christopher and I were sent next door where Frank and I were under very detailed instructions to make sure the boys were dressed and presentable, and bring them back at our house by 6:30 to meet their mystery dates. Linda had already gone over to help Colleen get the girls ready.

We were standing in the living room making small talk with Chris and Keith getting more nervous by the second when I heard Linda’s voice say. “Keith, it’s time to meet your date.” At that same moment I saw Keith’s face explode with happiness and a smile. I turned to look and there standing next to Linda was my daughter Brigid.

Keith had a grin on his face as he walked over and his hands were shaking as he presented her with a corsage. His smile was getting bigger by the second as he looked first at Chris and then me. He only spoke two words, “Someone special.”

Christopher had the palm of his hand pressed against his forehead and was moaning, “Please dear God, tell me I’m not taking Noelle to the prom.”

I heard footsteps in the hallway then saw Christopher’s eyes widen and a tiny smile creep into the corner of his lips. I looked over my shoulder and standing next to Colleen was Christopher’s date for the prom, his best friend.

Patricia.

I looked back to Christopher to see that he had changed. Instead of the goofy fidgeting teenage boy here was a calm, confident adult who was prepared to take on the world. There was a light in Chris’ eyes that I can’t begin to describe, this was a man who knew that his dream was about to become reality. There was a serenity that seemed to flow out of him and enveloped all of us in the room. I turned around to look at Patricia again only this time I saw her through Christopher’s eyes.

She was a Viking goddess.

Patricia had inherited almost all of her mother Sharon’s Norwegian genes. She was six feet tall and wearing her low heels put her eye to eye level with Christopher. Her hair is the color of honey and falls to the middle of her back. Tonight it was loose instead of her usual pony tail. Her eyes are almost violet in color and were now sparkling as she looked at Chris. Patricia is not a slender woman but no one would ever consider of her fat. Her curves make you think of the pinup girls of World War II.

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