The Night We Met Read online

  "How long do you have before you need to be out of your room?"

  "I'm at college on fall scholarship, so I'm free to stay in the dorm until I graduate in June. You don't have to be committed to the convent to live there, you just have to be willing to follow the rules."

  The sky was bluer today than it had been in a while.

  The sun brighter. Yet nothing seemed familiar. Because I'd changed?

  "That gives us a few months."

  "I have to graduate." I clung to that goal as though it was all that was left of me. Certainly it was the only part of myself I recognized at the moment.

  "Of course you do," Nate said, and I think that's when I fell completely, irrevocably in love with him.

  Until then, my heart had ached to be with him, to bless his life in any way I could, but it had felt like a big risk to take. A perilous thing to do.

  Now it felt safe.

  Contrary to what my head might have been telling me, the words I'd written to Nate Grady the week before were not retractable.

  On January 22 of that year, Rowan and Martin's Laugh- In premiered on NBC. And I had a letter from Nate. He wanted to know if July 20 th would be an acceptable date for the wedding. Camp would be between sessions the following week and would be closed, giving us time for a brief honeymoon and to get me settled in.

  I visited my parents that evening. Nate had offered to go with me when he was in town, but I hadn't wanted to share my brief time with him.

  Late that night, I wrote him and said that July 20th would be fine. And that I'd like to get married in Colorado.

  I didn't tell him then that my parents had just disowned me.

  * * *

  On February 8th state police officers killed three black students engaged in an antiwar demonstration at South Carolina State. Nate called me three times that week. We talked about the Orangeburg massacre, as the attack was being called. About his brother. And he had some good news. He'd found a house he wanted to buy for us. I told him that if he liked it, it was fine with me. In truth, anywhere with Nate was going to be heaven as far as I was concerned. Once I got past the initial wifely duty, that is. Nate and I still had not kissed. But I'd been doing some reading about the mating process and while I was trying to keep an open mind, I was pretty wel scared out of my wits.

  Charlotte Bronte had skipped the intimate details with Jane and Mr. Rochester.

  March 1st was the day Johnny Cash married June Carter. I wanted the marriage to work, but I didn't think it would. He was such a rebel, probably even did drugs, and everyone knew June was just a darling.

  Nate called the next day. I wasn't in a good frame of mind, missing him, and feeling so alone, since I no longer had either my family or the sisters to turn to.

  I tried to explain my feelings but knew I'd failed miserably when he asked, "Are you having second thoughts?"

  "No. Not at all." Surprisingly, I wasn't. "The one thing that seems to be a constant in my life these days is my certainty about marrying you."

  "You're sure of that?"

  I couldn't tell if he was feeling insecure, or just trying to make certain I was all right.

  "Absolutely."

  "Because if you're having second thoughts, we need to talk about them, Eliza."

  "I'm not!" I was beginning to get irritated with his unwillingness to believe me. Which was testament to how out of sorts I felt. Generally I was a very patient person.

  "It's to be expected," he said. "You're young and I rushed you."

  I got cold then. "Nate, are you trying to tell me you've changed your mind?"

  "No." It was a good thing his response was so unequivocal, otherwise I might've become completely unraveled. "But I've had a few more years to find out exactly what I want, which enables me to recognize it when I find it."

  "And you think I don't know my own mind?" Did he have as little faith in me as my parents?

  "Oh, Eliza, I'm sorry." His sigh was long and deep.

  "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" I asked.

  "Nothing's wrong. I've been thinking too much and knotted myself up, that's al . I just needed to hear your voice."

  "Wel , I'd like to hear what you were thinking about," I said.

  "It's late and you have class tomorrow. It wasn't important. Can't we leave it at that?" "No." I had an instinct about this.

  "I'd rather not get into it. At least not now, on the phone."

  I'd figured as much. "That's why I'm pretty sure I should hear about it."

  He sighed again. I leaned against the wall, holding the pay phone so tightly my hand was starting to cramp. That phone in the dark hallway of our dorm was the only one on which we could receive calls.

  "It's not a big deal, Eliza."

  "So you keep saying."

  "I don't want you upset or jumping to conclusions."

  My skin was clammy and I was half-afraid I might throw up. "Tel me."

  "I wasn't married just once."

  My only coherent thought was that he'd said his news wasn't important. Whether I was incredulous that he could think that, or hoping I'd misunderstood, I couldn't say.

  "We were young," Nate said a few seconds later. "Too young. It didn't last long. A couple of months.

  Her parents were moving to New Jersey and we figured if we didn't get married, we'd never see each other again."

  "How...young?" I could hardly speak.

  "Eighteen."

  Wow. I had no idea how to react to this.

  "Say something."

  "I'm not...I don't—" Helpless, I just stood there clutching the phone, letting the wall support me.

  "Tel me what you're feeling."

  "Deflated. Like I'm not sure I know you as wel as I thought."

  "I've lived thirty-two years, Eliza," he said, his voice taking on a weary note. "There are many facts about me, things I've experienced, that you don't know yet. But none of them change who I am.

  They're things that happened—"

  "A marriage is more than something that just happened."

  "This one wasn't. We never had a life together, never even set up house. We- lived with my mother for the couple of months it lasted."

  I was tired. Needed a good night's rest. "You said you got twisted up in thought." I returned to our earlier conversation. "Were you afraid you were making the same mistake twice? Getting married before you were ready?"

  "No." He actual y chuckled. "I was afraid you were."

  Considering what he'd told me, I supposed I could understand that. Maybe. "I'm not a child living at home with my parents." Quite the opposite, in fact.

  "I know that."

  "Then please don't treat me like one."

  "I love you, Eliza Crowley."

  "I love you, too."

  I just wished love didn't have to be so hard.

  As timing would have it, my oldest sister, Alice, had me paged in the dorm one evening the next week. She'd been sent by my parents to talk me out of my madness and spent a full hour tel ing me everything wrong with a man she'd never even met.

  "He's divorced, Liza!"

  I certainly couldn't argue with that.

  "You'll have to leave the Church!"

  I couldn't argue with that, either.

  And when she told me that if I went through with the wedding she and my other two sisters, like my parents, would be unable to participate in my life, I didn't debate the issue.

  I cried myself to sleep instead."

  Two weeks later, Robert Kennedy announced his campaign for president of the United States and Rome indicated that while it deplored the concept of rock and rol Masses, it wouldn't prohibit them. I read the news with an almost clinical detachment. Once I married Nate, I would no longer be attending Mass of any kind. I'd be married to a divorced man—a union the Church refused to recognize. And like Nate, I saw no point in worshipping within a society to which I could not belong.

  I would miss attending mass.

  But my God I'd take wit
h me.

  Putting down the newspaper, I went out to the hall, dropped a dime into the phone and dialed my brother, William, at his apartment in Los Angeles. I asked if he'd give me away at my wedding.

  He agreed!

  * * *

  North Vietnam agreed to meet with the United States for preliminary peace talks during the first days of April—something I paid careful attention to now that I loved Nate and knew about Keith. And on the fourth day of that month, Martin Luther King was shot in the neck with a single bullet while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Crying, not understanding the injustice of a good man's life ending in such a senseless way, I called Nate. He couldn't make sense of the tragedy any more than I could, but talking to him helped just the same. I mentioned that my brother would be giving me away at our wedding and final y told him that my parents and sister would not be attending. It seemed like such a small thing at that point. On April 18th Great Britain sold the London Bridge to a United States oil company that would be erecting it in Arizona. I wasn't sure why Arizonans wanted a British bridge, but I liked the idea of bridges being raised far from their homes. I hoped that symbolism would apply to me, too.

  The next day, walking back from class, I turned onto the block of the convent gate and saw Nate standing there, his face at once welcoming and somewhat grim.

  I flew to him, almost dropping my books, and my whole being felt as though it was soaring as he grabbed me up, books and al , into a full-bodied hug. Glancing up, tears in my eyes and a smile on my lips, I meant to ask him why he was there, how long he could stay, why he hadn't told me he was coming. I kissed him instead.

  Just like that. With no thought. No worries about how to do it. My mouth went straight to his. In that moment, it no longer mattered that I'd lost most of my family, my church, al sense of security. I'd found the home I wanted for the rest of my life.

  "I only have tonight," Nate was saying several minutes later as we walked toward the pub where we'd first met. I'd brought my books inside, told my roommates not to expect me until curfew and hurried back to him without even changing out of my plaid jumper and white blouse. At least I'd grabbed my navy sweater for when the sun went down.

  He was holding my hand—hadn't let go once I'd come back out from the convent—and now he squeezed it. "I want to meet your folks."

  Oh. My spirits plummeted. "If we've only got a few hours, Nate," I said, keeping my voice light, "I want to spend them with you—alone."

  "You love your parents," he argued. "I'm not going to be the cause of a rift between you. I'd like to meet them, talk to them, assure them that I'm honorable and want only what's best for you."

  "They won't listen."

  "By your own admission, all they want is for you to be happy."

  That used to be true—when I was still a member of their church. When they thought I was in my right mind. In their view, they weren't cutting off their support to punish me; they were doing what they thought was best, refusing to go along with my harebrained idea because they believed that their rejection would bring me to my senses. And the hardest part was that I understood—which made it impossible to hate them.

  Only to grieve their loss.

  "We can take a cab out to their house," Nate said, "and if all goes well, have a late dinner before I catch my plane back."

  "We can't."

  "Of course we can."

  "They won't see you, Nate."

  "What do you mean, they won't see me? They don't even know me."

  "I know them."

  He stopped by a pay phone outside the pub. Pulled change from his pocket. "Call them."

  "It won't do any good."

  "Humor me."

  Because I loved him so much, I complied. I knew the effort was wasted.

  And stil , I had to take an extra second in the glass- enclosed booth after the call, collecting myself before I could face Nate. I'd had no idea my father had so much coldness in him.

  "Wel ?" Nate asked, standing with both hands on his hips, facing me.

  I shook my head. Hoped that would be the end of it.

  "They aren't home?" I couldn't start our life together with lies. "They said that if we go there, they'l cal the cops." I would never forget the look on Nate's face.

  Chapter 5

  In May, vietnamese peace talks began in Paris, Mission: Impossible won an Emmy Award and I graduated from college. Nate came to the ceremony. And so did my brother, William. The two men—

  eight years apart in age—were as wary of each other as prowling tigers. But that night Nate played piano at the pub again and during the second set Wil iam asked me to dance.

  "He's talented," my older brother said to me as we moved slowly around the crowded floor.

  "Yeah."

  "He's not shallow."

  "I know."

  "He loves you."

  I got choked up at that.

  "And you love him, don't you?"

  "Very much."

  William didn't say any more about Nate and me after that, but when the break came, he bought a round of drinks. And by the time I had to be back at the convent dormitory, where I'd be staying until July as a summer student, taking a first-session graduate class, the two men were discussing basebal homerun records and an outfielder who'd played 695 games straight.

  I'd never been a fan of the sport, but I was going to love it from then on.

  Robert F. Kennedy was killed in early June. People everywhere were shocked, horrified that the assassination of prominent people was now part of our reality. We'd suffered two of them in two months.

  At a time when I was taking a blind leap away from everything familiar and safe, my country was in turmoil. I wondered what God thought of how we were treating His world. I wondered if I'd ever feel safe again.

  Consumed by fear—more menacing in itself than anything else—I squared my shoulders and requested counsel from Sister Michael Damien, the Mistress of Postulants. Had I entered the convent she would have been my mentor, training me in proper decorum, regulations and spiritual matters.

  I hadn't spoken with her since I'd told her I would not be entering the convent, the day after I'd answered Nate's first letter.

  I was in awe of her and intimidated beyond measure.

  "Thank you for seeing me," I said quietly, eyes downcast as I sat with her on a warm cement bench during the postulant recreation rime after lunch.

  Her gown rustled beside me and I felt her soft palm cover the knot my hands had become in my lap.

  "We've known each other a long time, my dear. You're always welcome."

  I wished so badly that would continue to be true. Despite my excitement over the future, a future I'd sacrificed everything to have, my heart ached for what I was leaving behind.

  The postulants were playing a rousing game of basketball not too far away. I could hear them. And, in that moment, envied them. Two of my dormitory sisters were there, too.

  "I'm getting married."

  "I guessed as much."

  My eyes darted up at that, meeting the serene blue of hers. "You did?"

  "There are only two reasons a young woman as committed as you were decides against taking her vows," she said. "Either she finds that her heart's direction was not true, or she finds a man whose pull is stronger than the Church. I have no doubt your heart is true."

  "That makes me sound weak. Disloyal."

  "Not at al , my dear. It makes you alive."

  "Do you think less of me?"

  "For following your heart? I do not."

  "Then why do I feel like I'm turning traitor to my calling? I love him—so much—but I feel as though I haven't been true to my purpose for being on earth."

  "Let me ask you this, Eliza. Do you think you're being untrue to yourself? Or do you know you are?"

  "I'm so confused at the moment, I'm not even sure I could tel the difference."

  "Tel me why you're doing this. Leaving the life you'd chosen in or
der to marry this man."

  "Because I have to." I answered without analyzing. And then heard what I'd said. "Not...have to," I quickly explained. "He asked me and even though I tried, I couldn't say no. I listen to my parents, to my sister, and my head knows that much of what they say is correct. I understand their fears for me. I cry myself to sleep at night because I miss them. And still, I can't tell Nate that I won't marry him."

  "Why not?"

  "I feel I have to do this." I gave that worthless answer because it was al I had. "Ahhh."

  Sister Michael Damien's smile was kind—and knowing.

  "What?"

  "You feel," she said. "That, my dear child, is your heart speaking. Your head is confusing you, but you're being guided by the inner knowing that will always

  direct you. It brought you here to us for a time, for a purpose, and now your heart will lead you elsewhere, for the next stage of your journey."

  I wasn't sure I understood.

  "But how can marrying Nate be my cal ing if it takes me away from service to the God who made me?"

  And this was the crux of my dilemma. I was going to marry Nate. But did that mean I'd be less than I was born to be? Less righteous? Less loving and spiritual? Less Godly?

  Was I a spineless creature? Giving in to earthly pleasure because I wasn't strong enough to sacrifice for a greater purpose?

  "When a girl is deciding between the life of a nun or a life of marriage and family, Eliza, there is no better or worse. No choice more righteous than the other. God needs dedicated wives and mothers just as badly as He needs Sisters. Mothers are the core of family life, and family is the core of God's work. Both callings serve Him equally—a mother in a more intimate setting and a Sister in a broader way."

  It was as though the sun had come out from behind a cloud.

  "My cal ing is to serve God, but to do it in a different capacity than I first envisioned?"

  "I believe so. Yes."

  I was elated, relieved—and then stopped short.

  "What if he's been married before?"

  "He's a widower?"

  "Divorced."

  Sister Michael Damien didn't say a word. And a few minutes later, when I stood to go, her concerned gaze fol owed me down the walk.