Opening Doors

When he first told his mother he had found the girl he would marry one day, she laughed in his face. “You’re too young to be thinking about that stuff,” she said.

He shrugged her off. “You’re wrong,” he said without a chuckle. “We’re going to be together forever.” Even though he had no idea how long forever was, just learning his times tables and all.

“Well, if that really is the case,” she said, wiping a tear from her face to regain her composure. “You’d better start by getting her some flowers with your allowance. Flowers are a must.”

He saved that note for later, but it marked the beginning of his mother’s many rules of relationships. Without his father around to object, she hurled 98-mile-per-hour fastballs of opinions at him that were stated as objective fact.

Always give her your coat in the cold.

Never let her pay for a meal.

Tell her you like her hair even when you don’t.

There was one rule that he knew was easiest to follow, and he had not even thought about its significance. Always open the door for her. That just seemed like a nice thing to do.

The following Monday at school, he tried to remember all the commandments of relationships. Yet the moment he saw her across the hall with her friends, his brain went to mush. Her dark brown curls bounced in rhythm with each step like an ink-tipped Shirley Temple. The bright yellow dress she wore was a ray of sunshine, only surpassed by her smile. As the trio made their way down the hall to the homeroom they all shared, he knew what he needed to do; though that didn’t mean his heart wasn’t about to pop out onto the floor as they got closer.

He wanted to get the timing right because if it were awkward, he could kiss it all goodbye. A Mississippi was counted in his head for every step they took until his moment arrived. He grabbed the handle with such nervous force that he almost fell out of his loafers, but as she passed by, he managed to smile and croak out, “Your hair looks nice.”

Her head whipped around gently in surprise. He wasn’t sure if he had messed up until she returned a smile and said a simple, “Thanks.”

He was in. He hated to say it, but his mother was right. It actually worked. He would never let her touch a door handle again while he was around.

The door to their homeroom soon led to opening the one to the playground, where he observed her on the monkey bars and slides from a distance. His friend once told him not to be weird, which was probably fair to ask, but he didn’t care. He wanted to be wherever she was smiling. He didn’t know what that meant, but he knew it was not weird.

After weeks of homerooms and hair compliments (Five bobby pins? Wow!), he finally worked up the courage to try a real, full conversation. They were sparse, but every day he opened the door for her, he wanted to learn something new. She adored apple juice but hated applesauce. She liked to dance to Elvis Presley when her parents weren’t watching. School knowledge became secondary. Whatever a fraction was did not matter as much to him now.

Fractions led to algebra, which soon progressed to trigonometry. She moved on to The Beatles and Agatha Christie books. He knew this because they remained within an arm’s length of friendship, though nothing more. She was with the basketball team's small forward, who not only towered over him, but ran up and down the court in the team’s uniforms that would not pass the fingertip-length test. It was not exactly a competition he could win.

He was jealous and hated the feeling, but he would never let it spoil the conversations he cherished. Whether they were at the library, the movie theater, or leading to the passenger side door of his parents’ hand-me-down Buick, every second he could try to stop with her was enough.

They had conversations about college and, of course, her brilliance was pulling her across the country to a school far better than the technical one a short drive away. Graduation was closing in, so he knew he had to do something.

***

She knew what was coming when he called her house on that warm summer day. She wasn’t naïve, after all. She just tried to think of the best way to handle it. She cared deeply for him and wondered whether it could be more than what they had. His body did its best to grow into the spectacularly average frame he had been given, but it was never about looks. She was about to dump the boring team captain anyway because it was time for her to experience her life. Their caps had been tossed in the air, and it was time for a fresh start on another coast, all for her. Neither boy could be a roadblock to that.

When she nestled her Chevy on the curb in front of his house, she had already rehearsed her speech. Her sandals clapped against the sidewalk as she waved back to him on the porch.

“Hey,” he said, out of breath while standing in one spot. “You want to come inside?”

She stared a hole through the cherry-stained deck boards. “Why don’t we just stay out here?”

His reaction was what she expected. He also hung his head, but quickly shook that thought away. “Oh sure,” he smiled, nodding to the sky. “Weather is nice, after all.”

They sat on the rickety porch swing, each fleck of chipped paint a memory they could recall. She waited for him to drum up the nerve to say what she anticipated. She looked over at him, and their eyes met. He was sweating, quite a lot for a spring day, but he still managed a smile.

“Are you ok?” She asked, leading the witness.

“Uh, yeah,” he stammered. “Yeah! I’m good. Really good.” He said, trailing off while picking an already fraught nail. He inhaled a deep breath. She could tell he was gearing up. “Actually, there was something I was meaning to ask you.”

“Yeah, I thought you might.”

“What do you mean?” He was clearly thrown off. Her tone must have given him context clues, as he turned to look at her with sad eyes. “You do?”

“Look, I know what you’re about to say, and I just want to say that I care about you too. Maybe in another world something could happen between us, but I need to go to California and figure things out on my own. I need to explore the world while I have the chance.” She could see his face, her words a boxing glove knocking the wind out of him. “But that doesn’t mean we still can’t talk all the time and be friends,” she said with a hopeful smile.

He sighed and raised his head. He seemed to be taking stock of every freckle on her face while waiting for a different answer that she knew would not come. After a few beats, he said, “Ok, I understand.” He patted the hand that rested on top of her left leg and stood up. “I’d better go inside, my mom asked me to put a new lightbulb in the kitchen.”

“Oh, sure, yeah,” she said, looking into the well-lit kitchen. “You better write to me, ok?”

He stood at the threshold of the house, his arms gripping the doorframe. He turned to face her, his eyes glazed, “Definitely.” And he closed the door.

The first few weeks of college were a whirlwind. More people knew her name in one month than in her entire lifetime back home. It took a while, but she began to find her groove, though not without a few pangs of homesickness. She had yet to hear from him. No letter, no call, nothing.

It was only a few days before her trip home for the holiday break when her RA said she had mail. Her parents had sent her some notes before, but they knew she would be home soon. When she saw the handwriting on the envelope, that’s when she smiled. She quickly opened it, tearing the corners ragged.

I had been waiting to write, but I didn’t know what to say. Then I realized you never even gave me the chance to say anything. Which, of course you wouldn’t. I imagine you’ll be coming home soon, so I wanted to write to you in case we run into each other. This will make things either more or less weird, but I’m saying it anyway. I want to be with you. Plain and simple.

I remember the first day I ever saw you. I was told girls had cooties, but somehow, I knew you didn’t. I wasn’t even sure you knew my name for years until I got the courage to hold the door open for you. I never would have guessed we would have so many amazing memories after that moment.

I know you need to do things on your own, and I respect that. Just know that whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here. If you’re never ready, just know I’ll always care. I want to hold every door open for you, open every jar of pickles for you, and make you feel like everything I ever do is to make another memory together.

She wiped the tear from her eye and laughed. The trip home just got more interesting.

***

The get-together wasn’t big, just him, his mother, and his grandparents, but he was setting the table anyway at his mother’s request. It was a holiday tradition. The doorbell chimed, and his mother, halfway in the oven pulling out the ham, yelled, “Can you get that?”

He groaned but trudged toward the front door. He grabbed the knob and yelled back, “Got it!” When he spun to face forward, he thought it was a dream.

“Hey there,” she said.

“So,” his smile felt tattooed onto his face. “You got my letter?” He was very bad at playing it cool.

She let out a laugh that lived in her for weeks. “Yeah, I did.” She said. “Not bad for technical school.”

He couldn’t help but laugh as well. He shrugged as if to say I tried my best and then exhaled. The two stood in silence for an eternity of seconds, waiting for the other to dig deeper into the already broken ice.

“I just wanted you to know I feel the same way,” she said. He was stunned—and not hiding it well. They both grinned, but he watched her face turn sour. “But college is where I need to be. I’ve made great friends. I’m also pretty sure I want to be a dentist, and I’m on the right path for that. I can’t come back yet. I hope you understand.”

He was also not hiding his disappointment well, but he breathed a small sigh of relief. “You feel the same way?” He said. “As in, you want to be together? At some point?”

A small laugh escaped from her. She leaned forward and kissed him. It was gentle, but strong enough for him to get the message, so that he kissed her back. When their lips parted, years of tension washed away into joy. “I’m not going to ask you to wait for me. It’s not fair to you,” she stared down at the porch. The same as it ever was, just with a new, fresh coat of slate gray paint that he applied while she was away. She looked up, “But I wouldn’t be upset if you sent me more of those beautiful letters. Maybe I’ll even send a few back.”

“I can do that,” he said, grinning out of the right side of his mouth. A two-ton weight seemed to have lifted off his chest. “And I’ll wait for you until I can’t anymore.”

She gave him one more quick peck, let go of his hand, and stepped off the porch they both knew so well. She waved, but he was pretty sure you could not say goodbye to forever.

***

She remembered it all as vividly as if it were in front of her today. Though in front of her today was a small flat-screen television with burned-in images of people cooking, a table that held a puzzle she picked at like a bad meal, and her cell phone, just in case she was surprised by a call from anyone.

He wrote her letters every month while she was in college, and still left her small notes when they began living together before he left for work. She noticed that he got every door for her everywhere they went. He called it chivalry and always said it in jest. She knew it was more than that.

Their family grew, and time sprinted by at Olympic speed. After they had the house to themselves again, she noticed the letters in his notes became more uneven. The precision with which he dotted his I’s was replaced by free-flowing worms that blended together on the page. He would never admit it, but she knew something was wrong. When he lost the strength to open the car door for her, and she had to get it herself, the conversations began to be more serious.

While he was lying in the bed of the cold, sterile room, she told him everything he meant to her. Their lives well-lived, together. She grabbed his hand with firm acceptance and said, “Forever won’t end today, you know.” As tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

He didn’t have much strength left, but the tube under his nose fueled a smile and one more notion she carried with her when he said, “I told you I’ll wait, and I’ll hold the door when you’re ready.”