“Where are they now?”
“I have no idea. They all disappeared after leaving prison.”
“Oh!”
“So you see, I can’t help but protect you, especially here. I know how it feels to be away from home for the first time, that feeling of freedom. Maybe if your father and I had gotten married that first year instead of waiting, things might’ve turned out different.”
“Is that why you’re not fighting against Cody and I being together?”
“You’ll have to ask your grandparents about that. Since you’re the only grandchild, they fought like cats and dogs to choose your future spouse. That happened when you were about two years old. Your father and I had to sign something. And though we have some say in it, they get the last word. Joke’s on them, though, because we adore your Cody.”
Uh-huh! What you just described isn’t archaic or anything. If I didn’t know better and hadn’t met him on my own, I’d start wondering if they hadn’t picked him out of a box for me. She went on to talk more about her friend, and I listened this time with an understanding ear.
“She named me? But I thought you said she was gone before you got married?”
“It’s something we used to do on lazy days when we were bored; we’d name our children, how many we’d have, stuff like that. She always loved the name, Annalisa.” She started tearing up again, and I wrapped my arms around her, and she let me.
That all happened the first day after they decided to stay. They stayed another three days, and it must be the best time I’ve ever had with my whole family around.
Cody deserves thanks for that. He just made the time spent with them seem less stressful, and watching them with him made me feel proud that he was my guy. He didn’t seem bothered that they were already talking wedding plans, so I didn’t let it bother me either.
When they invited all of his friends and my sorority sisters out to dinner, I tried not to balk, and as it turns out, everyone had a blast. There was no mention of Susie beyond Melissa mentioning to me earlier in the evening that she was no longer a resident of the house.
Apparently, the senator and his team had gone to great lengths to keep the news from spreading, so everyone was misled into believing that the windshield thing was an accident and they had no grounds to kick her out.
But not long after, news that she wasn’t going to be allowed to graduate and would, in fact, be losing the degree she hadn’t even received as yet soon spread, and the rest of it came to light. That, along with complaints from the families of some of the other pledges.
No one knows how word got out, and apparently, they weren’t too pleased, and well, Susie was asked to vacate and was essentially banned from the sorority altogether. I smell Grandma Astor all over this one.
I wondered as I looked around the room at the smiling sisters if they knew they were all but signing a blood oath each time one of my family members reminded them to take care of me. It was after that night that word started to spread too about Cody’s and my engagement.
I had to keep fielding questions because I didn’t have my ring yet, so some people wondered if the rumors were even true. I didn’t mind, though, because I was very proud of my guy. Even though he’d graciously accepted the ring from Grandpa Astor, he’d insisted on making it ours and swore he wouldn’t put it on my finger unless he could have a stone added paid for by him.
That had started off a firestorm when he revealed that we’d have to wait until he got his first paycheck from the NFL. When the elders offered to loan him the money, he refused until mom made him realize that would mean no wedding and no shared apartment.
They let it be known that they knew we were shacking up at his place and were ready to move me back to the dorms before they headed back east. I’m not sure how much the loan was, but the ring is being reset as we speak by one of the best, so it must cost a pretty penny. Poor Cody, he hasn’t even made a dime yet, and my family already has him spending it.
By the time they left last night, I was mentally and physically drained, but this time in a good way, I guess. We’d spent our last night together talking about the wedding and all the planning needed. When poor Cody heard the amount of money being spent to make it happen, he almost passed out.
Grandma Davenport explained to him that since we were, in essence, rushing things, and nothing could be spared, it would cost more. In other words, she tried to guilt him into believing it was his fault that we were having a rushed wedding. I guess she was still seeing the fairytale wedding she’d dreamt of giving her only granddaughter and was paying out the nose to make it happen.