Page 75 of Must Love Flowers
Joan found this highly amusing. “Some of us go out for coffeeafter each session. Phil was there, and so was I. Trust me, there’s nothing happening. I only recently learned he’s divorced.”
“So you’re saying he’s just a friend.”
“Steve,” she said slowly to make her point, “I know what you’re doing quizzing me about my landscaper. You’re diverting the subject away from you and Zoe.”
Her son’s response was weighed down with a heavy sigh. “If you insist on knowing, Zoe and I have parted ways.”
“I’m sorry.” This was what Joan had long suspected.
Another sigh, this one clearly painfilled. “Yeah, me, too.”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what it’s about, but I hope you will.” Joan didn’t want to pry too deep. Her wish was that her son would want to explain what’d happened to a promising relationship.
He didn’t hesitate as she assumed he would. “Zoe wants to get married.”
Joan didn’t understand why that would be a problem if they were in love.
“We’ve been dating two years exclusively,” Steve continued, “and all of a sudden she put pressure on me to make a commitment.”
“Do you love her?” Joan asked, although she felt she knew the answer.
“Yeah…I do.”
As she suspected. “Would you be comfortable spending the rest of your life with her?”
“I would,” he said, a bit more convincingly this time.
“Then what’s the problem?” It had to be something more than Steve’s unwillingness to make a commitment.
His voice mellowed as if he had lowered his guard. “Zoe wants a family.”
“And you don’t?”
“I do, just not anytime soon. Maybe in the next seven to ten years. I mean, the time has to be right. You don’t bring a baby into the world unless you have a home with a fenced yard, and a substantial income, and a secure future. It’s the same with getting married.”
“You want a house before you marry?” Joan had a hard time computing the list of what Steve felt was necessary.
“Yes.”
“My goodness, Steve, if your father and I had all those stipulations in place, you and Nick might never have been born.”
“Times were different back then,” he flared.
“Really?”
“Yes, Mom, really,” he insisted.
“And you feel Zoe is being unreasonable to not want to wait until the solar system is aligned with your list of what’s necessary.” She didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but if anyone was being unreasonable, Joan felt it was her son.
“Yes,” he snapped. “I didn’t want to lose her, so I asked her to marry me. I even got her a ring, which was what she wanted. But when I refused to set a date for the wedding, she had a coronary.”
“You mean she got upset?”
“She said she wasn’t willing to wait for five years, which is when I feel I’ll have everything in place to be the husband I want to be. Condemn me for that if you want. It’s the way I think. I’m goal-driven, and having a wife now, or anytime in the near future, doesn’t fit into my plans. I’ll have the right income by then,perhaps sooner, but even that’s no guarantee. I might be named the warehouse manager next year, but that’s only the first step in my five-year career plan.”
Joan didn’t fault Zoe for not wanting to wait that long. If Steve was truly committed, he would marry her.
“She said she didn’t believe I’d be ready in five years,” he mumbled. “She made it seem like I was leading her on, and that my list of reasons to wait was only an excuse to keep her hanging.”
