20-04-2021, 11:31 PM
1
What do you propose?
As they turned into the pub car park the young woman looked at the man in the driver’s seat. Her boyfriend of fourteen months, the man she wanted to marry and spend the rest of her life with … except that she had just messed things up. She gave him a sheepish smile but he didn’t see because he was concentrating on finding a parking space. Although he gave no outward indication, she knew he was upset, and it was all her fault. If only she had kept her mouth shut, he wouldn’t just be her boyfriend now, he would be her fiancé.He hadn’t said much on the short drive to this pub, but that was nothing unusual. In some respects, they were opposites. She was gregarious and chatty with everyone she met, whereas despite his rough exterior, jeans, T-shirt, and leather biker jacket being his normal attire, he was actually a shy and quiet person.
Her mother had told her something a few days before about this man but she hadn’t believed it. If she hadn’t mentioned to him earlier what her mum had said, he would have proposed, she was sure of it. She didn’t know if he had the ring on him, but everything else was falling in to place. He was a romantic, and today was the seventh anniversary of the day they had first met.
Her parents and sister had gone to a different pub for a meal, and when he had told her a week earlier of his plans to take her somewhere else, she had at first resisted.
“We should all go together as a group,” she had said, but it wasn’t what he wanted. She didn’t have a clue why he would want to take her somewhere different, and she hadn’t realised the significance of the date, but her mother had. “He’s going to propose to you,” her mother had whispered when they were alone.
“No, that can’t be true. I know he will one day, but he’ll do it somewhere quiet and private, not in the middle of a pub surrounded by strangers.”
He had taken her to a nice pub with a nice restaurant just a short walk from his house. He had eventually persuaded her to go there instead of going with the rest of her family because, as he put it, “You see them every day and we always go out for a meal with them as a group, but I want to spend time with just the two of us for a change.”
She knew a proposal was coming even without her mother’s direction, but not today. Not in a public place. He was far too shy and private for that.
She had actually asked him but a few weeks previously if he was planning to ask her to marry him at some point in the near future. He had reminded her that she had originally told him she wanted a long courtship, so that’s what he had been doing. She replied that she had actually meant that she wanted a long engagement. As a result, he had begun to prepare for this day in the sure knowledge that she would say yes.
They had known each or for several years and had been friends for most of that time, but everything had changed the year before when she had asked him if he wanted to go out with her. “Going serious” was how she described it.
He had been hesitant at first, not because he was unsure, not because he didn’t want to go out with her, but because she was only seventeen and he wanted her to be certain that she was sure.
Yes, she was sure. Her parents approved of her choice. They liked him. Even her older sister liked him, so they had started dating and then began to plan their future together.
He bought a house near where she lived; a house that they had chosen together which made courting her considerably easier, where he could walk her home after spending the evening together instead of him having to drive half an hour to get back to his home. They talked about marriage and starting a family, about getting a dog, about wanting a decent sized kitchen, a double garage, and a big garden. They even talked about adoption if they found they couldn’t have children of their own. Twin boys and a girl was what she wanted. He didn’t mind as long as they could have a family together.
They spent weekends and evenings together except Tuesdays when she attended evening college, and he diligently took her home afterwards without exception. She wouldn’t move in until they were wed, and she wouldn’t allow him to take her to his bed until they were man and wife. She had made that quite clear even before they began courting, and he was happy to comply. He was in love with her and was happy to wait for her in the true and old-fashioned meaning of the expression.
Getting out of the car, he took her hand and escorted her in to the pub to find her family. Upon seeing them her mother became excited, expecting news, but none was forthcoming. When her boyfriend went to the bar to get them both a drink, she began to tell her sorry tale to her parents and sister.
She didn’t know at the time that he had planned to get down on one knee in the restaurant after the meal was over and ask her to marry him. That was one of the reasons she was sure he wasn’t going to propose. It was so unexpected, so out of character. She was convinced that he was far too shy to do something so intimate in public that she just didn’t believe he would even contemplate it.
After the couple had finished the main course, she smiled and began to chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing” she responded.
“No, something made you laugh. What is it? We agreed when we started dating that we would have no secrets from each other, so come on, tell me what’s going on”
“Oh well, when mother knew you were bringing me here on this day, she told me that you were going to propose, but I told her it wasn’t true.”
His face dropped and his whole demeaner changed.
Clasping her hands to her mouth she gasped.
“Oh no,” she thought. “It was true. He had been going to propose, but now she had spoiled his plans”.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up the menu and asked, “What do you fancy for pudding then?” and that was it. He never said a thing about her comments but instead just carried on as if nothing had happened. Well to be fair, nothing had happened … except she had just ruined his plans for a romantic marriage proposal.
When she relayed the story to her family, her father was aghast. Turning to his wife he said, “What did you go and tell her that for? She had no idea what he was going to do, and if you had kept your gert wicket shut our daughter would be engaged by now.”
“Well, I didn’t know she would tell him now did I?” her mother tried to explain.
Recriminations flowed back and forth until the man returned with a brace of drinks. Soft drinks. He would never drink and drive. He had done in his youth but not now. Not when he carried such a precious passenger.
There were no celebrations tonight. No congratulations. No mention of an engagement. No plans for the future. All because the young woman’s mother couldn’t keep her excitement under control.
Partly out of annoyance and partly as punishment, he made his girlfriend and her mother both wait another ten days before popping the question when they least expected it. He didn’t want to wait another year to propose on their eighth anniversary, but hadn’t as yet decided exactly when he would do it. He knew that he would, and she knew that he would, but neither knew when that would be.
He was saying goodnight to his sweetheart one Friday night, standing on the path outside her house whilst she stood in her parent’s doorway, and decided on the spur of the moment that now was the right time.
In the end, she had been right. He didn’t propose in public in front of a load of strangers. Instead, there were just the two of them.
He didn’t get down on one knee because she was already two steps higher than he, and it wouldn’t feel right proposing to her knee caps.
He just looked up at her and said the magic words she had been longing to hear. “Will you marry me?”
Her parents were confused and a little concerned when they both walked back into the front room where they were watching TV.
Moments later there were smiles and sherry glasses in everyone’s hands, followed by a ‘phone call to his parents.
In the end it all worked out well. They married a year to the day after their engagement, and their first son was born a year later, on the ninth anniversary of the day they had first met.
There were problems and post birth complications to the point where he nearly lost his wife and son, but thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, they both survived. They were however warned that it would not be safe for them to have another child.
She never did have the twin boys and a girl she had dreamed about, but they did have another son. It took two years and eleven months from the day they first applied, but eventually the judge signed the adoption order, and their family was complete.
21-04-2021, 12:18 AM
3
Re: What do you propose?
Originally Posted by Surfermom
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A very nice story and such pleasure to read!If the woman wants to scratch her itch with twins, I have a set of twenty-somethings I can put on loan.
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Whilst my Lovely Cousin may have once wanted twin boys and a girl, she has long been content with our two sons.
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