Fic: Thinking about all our younger Years (Little Girl I wanna marry You)
Title: Thinking about all our younger Years (Little Girl I wanna marry You)
Character/Pairing: Matt/Julie
Summary: Julie and Matt and the question of belonging. Filler moments for pretty much the whole series. Total schmoop!fest
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Oh - thinkin' about all our younger years
there was only you and me
we were young and wild and free
i.
we've been down that road before
but that's over now
you keep me coming back for more
She sees him at school and at the games and at every single event cause Dillon is stupidly small and it nearly kills her. How could she have been so utterly dumb? Matt was the best thing that ever happened to her, and she blew it.
When she thinks back on what she did, Julie can almost not believe it. When did she turn into such a self-involved brat? What makes it even worse is that Matt is one of the most decent, kind-hearted people that she’s ever met. Someone who really didn’t need more crap piled onto his plate. She tries to go to his house and talk to him but she doesn’t even know his work schedule anymore and there’s this pretty nurse there for his grandma now? And when she finally does get to talk to him - well let’s just say that it’s official, even her apologies suck.
She’s walking across the field one day to get a ride home with her dad, and practice has just let out, so all the players are mingling outside of the field house, getting into cars and catching their rides. She spots Matt standing with Landry and really, it’s only the clean-shaven back of his head that she can see, the stretch between his t-shirt and the hairline where she knows he’s ticklish, but it’s like a punch in the gut, a stupid horrible punch-mixture of regret and longing and it hurts. She hears him laugh at something stupid Landry says and she thinks of all the times they would share a laugh like that.
And then Riggins calls across to them: “Oy, Seven, your girl’s here!”
Julie looks over to see Laura, or Lauren or whatever, tooting the horn of her car and waving excitedly out of her window at Matt. Seriously, and why does she look like a housewife from the 50s?
Matt bumps fists with Landry before he shifts his shoulder bag and casually walks over to his girlfriend’s car, like he’s done it a thousand times before. She wishes she could stop him. She wishes she could go over and talk to him. Tell him to ditch the dumb cheerleader. Tell him that she loves him.
But she can’t just go over like that anymore. She can’t wrap her arms around him and just press her face into the crook between his neck and his shoulder, cause he’s just the perfect height for her to do that.
Cause she’s not his girl anymore.
ii.
baby you're all that I want
when you're lyin' here in my arms
I'm findin' it hard to believe
we're in heaven
He’s the best guy she knows. And she knows good guys, because her dad is one. She wonders how she could have ever even considered doing this with someone else when he’s so good, so brave, carries the world on his shoulders.
“I’m so sorry”, she mumbles against his skin, when his shirt has already come off. He seems different, more grown up now than she remembers, all smooth, solid planes of muscle where she’s soft. There’s something about Matt that’s always brought this out in her, something tender and raw that opens in her chest when she thinks about the kind of boy he is, the kind of man he is turning into.
“For what?” Matt asks distractedly, pressing up against her body. She can feel his hard-on on the inside of her thigh. He makes a sound in the back of his throat when she drags her finger down his back and grabs his butt. His speech is slurring even more than usual now that he’s busy kissing her shoulders, the soft slope down to her breast, her bathing suit top the only thing in his way.
Julie takes his lovely face between her hands, thumbs on his cheekbones. Stares at his swollen lips, his kind and tender eyes.
“For last year, for everything-”
He grows still.
“No, uh- Jules-” he brushes his knuckles against her cheek, so softly. “You don’t have nothing to be sorry for.”
But she does, oh she does.
“But I was such a bitch”, she sighs, tears welling up in her eyes.
She isn’t sure that covers her behavior from last year really, whether it’s enough to make him understand. But she needs to say something, before they do this, she needs him to know.
“Look, I made some mistakes as well, probably shoulda-”
It makes her even more ashamed that he’s trying to take some of the blame for this. “Oh Matty, there was nothing wrong with you, you were perfect-”
“Shh,” he says, stroking her hair. “It doesn’t matter.” He kisses her once, twice. “We’re here now, together.”
“I never stopped loving you”, she blurts out on a half-sob, and even though it sounds so pathetic it melts his face into something even gentler and he kisses her with more abandon and more hunger than before. She has wondered how far he went with that other girl, Carlotta, but has been too afraid to ask. Didn’t want him to give her an answer she didn’t want to hear.
“Do you want to- uh-” his voice is a little shaky but his hands on her hip are steady, drawing her closer. “We don’t have to, you know-”
But she wants to. When they were still together they’d fooled around a little and they’d rounded a few bases but she has never felt like this before. Like she needs him like a woman dying of thirst needs water.
“I want you,” she says, hoping that’s enough, reaching behind her to open the clasp of her bikini top. Lets it drop, feels sort of self conscious, resists the urge to cover herself up again with her hands. He swallows heavily. Looks at her like she hung the moon.
“I love you”, he replies and nothing can ever cheapen those words for her ever again, cause he says them just like he did the first time, not expecting anything from her really, just offering. But when he fumbles for the condom in his wallet, she still gets a little panicky, that this is happening now and he doesn’t even know- she grabs his arm which is holding him poised above her, so solid underneath her shaky fingers-
“I- I’ve never-” she stammers and he looks at her, eye brows knotted together in confusion. “I didn’t-, with the Swede-“
“Oh”, he sounds and goes still. “You’re- you are-”
“Yes” she just says and watches his cheeks grow red. And then she knows the terrible truth. Probably knew all along. She wishes she could turn back the clock and not be such an idiot, because she could have shared this all with Matt.
Maybe he sees it in her eyes, because he starts to apologize. “Julie, I’m so sorry. I’m- I was so torn up about everything, about us- I- I didn’t love her like I love you.”
“S’ok.” She breathes in heavily, tries to will herself to stop crying, concentrates on the gorgeous line of his shoulder above her. “It doesn’t matter now”, she lies, wants to make it true. Looks into his eyes. “I just wanna be yours.” And that, at least, is the truth.
“C’mere.” He pulls her closer, sighing, “You’re- you’re the only one now, Jules.”
His voice drops lower and she closes her eyes, gives herself over to the feeling of his lips on her body, his fingers in her hair.
“My girl.”
iii.
and love is all that I need
and I found it there in your heart
it isn't too hard to see
we're in heaven
For their first proper date after they’ve gotten back together, he takes her out to dinner and it feels grown-up and special and just right. When he drops her off at home, he pulls out a mixed CD he made for her, almost like an afterthought.
“This is for you”, he says and smiles lopsidedly. “Would’ve been weird to give you that earlier."
It’s just a CD, but she knows he probably labored over the selection of the songs (there’s Richard Hawley on there and the Heartless Bastards and Wilco and The National and, of course, a Dylan song) and he even made it a sleeve, drew the sign of the Alamo Freeze with their names on it so it’s says “Jules and Matty 2.0” and there’s Landry’s car and she can make out their own two figures standing there together staring into into the distance.
He gets a little self-conscious when she squeals and hugs him. Tells him she loves it and compliments his artwork with a lump in her throat.
“It’s nothing much”, he says: “Just- just think of me when you listen to it.”
They make out for another twenty minutes after that, long, lingering kisses that make him pull her against him with low, needy sounds. Finally they have to break apart so she doesn’t miss her curfew and they don’t both die of sexual frustration. He walks her up to the door, rubs her nose against hers, gives her a brief smooch. She thinks she can never get enough of him.
Back in her room, when her heart has finally calmed down a little, she pulls the CD out to put it in the player, sees that he scrawled something onto the shiny disk.
Her heart does a little flip-flop inside of her as she reads: “Tunes for my girl. Love, Matt.”
iv.
oh - thinkin' about all our younger years
there was only you and me
we were young and wild and free
She goes over to his house, sits with his grandma who chatters on about how Matt called, how he’s doing fine, got an apartment and all-
Julie just sits there, pretending that it doesn’t hurt like hell that he hasn’t even bothered to let her know how he’s doing, himself. She stares into his empty room - the bed and furniture still there but anything truly of Matt’s gone - while Mrs Saracen pats her hand, says “Julie, honey” and she can hardly keep from crying.
Before she leaves, after Mrs Saracen has insisted to fix her a sandwich for the road and is rummaging round the kitchen, she gets up and looks at the wall above his desk for the photograph he kept of her there. It was a stupid shot of her smiling like a loon that Matt had taken one day. She had told him she'd give him a better one, didn’t want her red blobby face like that hanging up in his room.
“Ugh, I hate it!” she’d whined.
“Nu-uh, it’s a pretty picture” he’d insisted and stuck it on his wall anyway, next to the drawings of her hands and lips he’d done the week before.
The picture is gone.
For a minute she just stands there, recalling the way his arms had felt when he sneaked them around her waist from behind, resting his cheek against her hair. His warm breath had tickled her ear when he’d said “I like it. That’s my girl.”
v.
I've been waitin' for so long
for somethin' to arrive
for love to come along
He’s so nervous about what she’s going to say, that she might say no, that he has to talk to someone about it. He can’t tell Landry, because maybe Landry would try to talk him out of it, and he’s made his decision, thought about it for months now. He’s worked it all out in his head. He is sure.
So he waits for one of Grandma’s better moments to tell her about his plans, squats down in front of her chair, says:
“Grandma? You- you know I love Julie, right?”
She nods her head, as if he’s being silly to tell her something so obvious. “Of course I do, Matthew. You’ve been moonin’ over that Julie Taylor since you were sixteen years old.” She pats his cheek in her grandma way. “You hold on to that one! Such a sweet girl.”
“Well,” Matt says, thinking here it comes, “I think I’m gonna ask Julie to marry me.”
Grandma’s been rocking back and forth in her chair lazily, but stops.
“Oh! Oh Matthew! Oh my lord!” her voice goes all high and excited and she nearly jumps out of her seat, as much as a 74 year old lady can do that, and then she’s pulling him towards her, her hands fluttering across his back. “Julie Taylor! Oh you sweet, sweet boy. Oh look at you,” she pulls away, sniffling and holding up her finger, “You know what? I knew from the first time. First time you brought her home, I said to myself, that’s the one, that’s his girl!”
“Oh, did you now?” Matt laughs.
She chuckles in that way as if he’s being a bit slow. “I sure did! Oh my sweetheart, all grown up, and now he’s about to propose!”
He smiles as she draws him towards her again, and he lets her kiss his cheek wetly keeps chattering on my boy and Julie Taylor, getting married, Lord have mercy, oh I didn’t think I’d still live to see the day! and he just breathes in her happiness, hugs her close, the first woman that ever loved him. When she finally lets go, she walks over to her bedroom, to her dresser, starts rummaging around the boxes on its top.
“My boy, gonna be a husband, oh my-”
Matt smiles at her antics, his own stomach bubbly with excitement. “You know, she has to say yes first, Grandma.”
“Oh hush, of course she’ll say yes!” She waves her arm as if she’s swatting the idea like a fly. “Now where’s-” she is still digging through an old box.
“I’ve-I’ve been saving up my money from the art gallery for a ring- it’s not much but I thought maybe you would like to come with me to pick one out before Julie comes home from college-”
Grandma shakes her head “Oh, nonsense!”
“Nonsense?” Matt asks, confused.
She is continuing her frantic digging until she exclaims “There it is!” triumphantly, grabs what looks to Matt like a ball of bunched up newspaper and turns towards him, eyes swimming with pride and emotion.
“Matthew Henry Saracen.” She grabs his hand. “You’re going to propose to your girl, and you’re going to save your money for your new family. You’re going to give her this.” She unwraps the old newspaper, drops them on the floor, forgotten. Then opens a little black box and puts a ring in his hand. The center stone is small but flanked by a band studded with tiny diamonds and it looks a little old-fashioned in a way that Julie will probably like, or so he hopes. “Your grandfather put this on my finger, when he asked me to be his wife,” Grandma looks at him imploringly, and Matt feels himself choking up. “Do you like it?”
He thinks of his girl and envisions the small band on her hand. “It’s perfect”, he says.
vi.
now our dreams are comin' true
through the good times and the bad
ya - I'll be standin' there by you
“That’s my daughter”, Coach says. Almost menacingly. “That’s my girl.”
And Matt can only say “Yes, Sir” and nod as they stand outside by the grill, just as he did when Eric Taylor had found out that he was sleeping with Julie. Coach slaps the burgers with the flat side of his spatula and the grease hisses down into the flames.
It’s the end of the summer, two weeks before the Taylors’ move. Their house has been sold and Matt has come down to help them pack up and get the rest of Julie’s stuff before they’ll drive back to Chicago. Now most of the Taylors’ belongings are in storage and the house feels big and empty. Matt has kinda given up on hoping for Coach’s blessing to marry Julie, but he’ll take the truce that Coach seems to be offering him. He wants to reassure him that even though he may be young, his intentions with Julie have never been anything but honorable. Tries to say what Julie means to him, and fails. Instead just stutters:
“I’ll- I’ll love her always.”
He doesn’t say he won’t hurt her, because he might not know much about marriage, but this much he knows, from the years he’s grown together with Julie, from the screw up that was his own parents’ marriage and the example of Mr and Mrs Taylor: that you can’t share your life with someone, love them honestly and completely, without hurting them and they hurting you, at some point. But he’ll never leave Julie. He’ll be with her, always.
Coach nods, in that stern way of his and his brow unfurrows a little. He hands Matt a beer. They stand there, two men staring out into the Texas sun and then suddenly Coach says, gruffly:
“If I had a son-” stops and then clears his throat. The sound of the grill and the cicadas is loud in Matt’s ears as he waits it out. “You better call me Eric now.”
Then he takes a swig from his bottle and gets to work on the grill again while Matt just keeps him company. And later that night, when they’re all sitting on the deck, Matt with his hand cradled in Julie’s, who’s talking about Strauss University and the classes she intends to take there in the fall, he catches Coach’s eyes across the table where Mrs Taylor leans against his shoulder. He nods slightly, lines around his eyes softening.
When the Taylors are sending them off from their driveway, two days later, Coach, no- Eric, grips Matt’s shoulder, draws him into a brief hug and tells him to look after Julie. “You look after my girl now, Son”, he says.
vii.
ya - nothin' could change what you mean to me
oh there's lots that I could say
but just hold me now
cause our love will light the way
She cries a little, when all their stuff is packed up and they sit on the empty floor of their Chicago apartment. The rental truck outside is filled up to the brim with their life they had here, Matt’s paintings and prints and his diploma, Julie’s bachelor’s and master’s degree. Tomorrow they’ll start the drive back to Texas.
He cradles her head in his hands, pulls her against his shoulder. Sweet soft smell of her hair in his nose. Julie sinks against him, the silence stretching between them into something comfortable and trusted, where they don’t have to say anything really. Instead, he kisses her on the crown of her head, watches her hand on his heart, the low lights streaming through the windows catching on the stones of her wedding bands and he’s so thankful to have her with him. Always.
“Don’t you know that you’re my girl?” he asks when she draws a shaky breath, strokes her back soothingly. “My girl.”
viii.
and love is all that I need
and I found it there in your heart
it isn't too hard to see
we're in heaven
The first time he holds his daughter in his arms, he’s blindsided by the love he feels for her. It’s similar to the way he loves Julie in that he thinks it’s as likely he’ll stop as he’ll stop breathing. But it’s different, instantaneous and gut-punching in its intensity, not something grown and slow-kindled and tended to. The way he loves Julie is a work of years and shared things they’ve gone through and the effort they have both put in it. But he loves his daughter so effortlessly, the moment they hand her to him. He turns over to his wife, who suddenly looks like she’s a teenager again, with her flushed cheeks and fanned out hair, tired, but the smile stretching her pretty mouth is full of bliss. And he knows she feels the same.
“She’s so beautiful” Julie says, as if she’s a little surprised.
“Yeah,” he croaks and she reaches out for him as he sits down on the bed beside her.
“Matty”, she says. Only then does he realize he’s crying. Their baby looks up at him from where she’s nestled into the crook of his arm, wide eyed, brow a little furrowed and he puts his finger against her hand. She grips it, touch so soft, but there and just like that, she has him for all eternity. And then he hates his Dad a little again, and Shelby, even though the feeling is something he buried deep, tried to let go of it years ago. Looking at their baby, he can’t even fathom ever leaving her.
“Hey” he whispers and his throat feels tight as he looks into his daughter’s perfect face. “Look at you.” Swallows down the massive lump.
“My girl.” he says.
Character/Pairing: Matt/Julie
Summary: Julie and Matt and the question of belonging. Filler moments for pretty much the whole series. Total schmoop!fest
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Oh - thinkin' about all our younger years
there was only you and me
we were young and wild and free
i.
we've been down that road before
but that's over now
you keep me coming back for more
She sees him at school and at the games and at every single event cause Dillon is stupidly small and it nearly kills her. How could she have been so utterly dumb? Matt was the best thing that ever happened to her, and she blew it.
When she thinks back on what she did, Julie can almost not believe it. When did she turn into such a self-involved brat? What makes it even worse is that Matt is one of the most decent, kind-hearted people that she’s ever met. Someone who really didn’t need more crap piled onto his plate. She tries to go to his house and talk to him but she doesn’t even know his work schedule anymore and there’s this pretty nurse there for his grandma now? And when she finally does get to talk to him - well let’s just say that it’s official, even her apologies suck.
She’s walking across the field one day to get a ride home with her dad, and practice has just let out, so all the players are mingling outside of the field house, getting into cars and catching their rides. She spots Matt standing with Landry and really, it’s only the clean-shaven back of his head that she can see, the stretch between his t-shirt and the hairline where she knows he’s ticklish, but it’s like a punch in the gut, a stupid horrible punch-mixture of regret and longing and it hurts. She hears him laugh at something stupid Landry says and she thinks of all the times they would share a laugh like that.
And then Riggins calls across to them: “Oy, Seven, your girl’s here!”
Julie looks over to see Laura, or Lauren or whatever, tooting the horn of her car and waving excitedly out of her window at Matt. Seriously, and why does she look like a housewife from the 50s?
Matt bumps fists with Landry before he shifts his shoulder bag and casually walks over to his girlfriend’s car, like he’s done it a thousand times before. She wishes she could stop him. She wishes she could go over and talk to him. Tell him to ditch the dumb cheerleader. Tell him that she loves him.
But she can’t just go over like that anymore. She can’t wrap her arms around him and just press her face into the crook between his neck and his shoulder, cause he’s just the perfect height for her to do that.
Cause she’s not his girl anymore.
ii.
baby you're all that I want
when you're lyin' here in my arms
I'm findin' it hard to believe
we're in heaven
He’s the best guy she knows. And she knows good guys, because her dad is one. She wonders how she could have ever even considered doing this with someone else when he’s so good, so brave, carries the world on his shoulders.
“I’m so sorry”, she mumbles against his skin, when his shirt has already come off. He seems different, more grown up now than she remembers, all smooth, solid planes of muscle where she’s soft. There’s something about Matt that’s always brought this out in her, something tender and raw that opens in her chest when she thinks about the kind of boy he is, the kind of man he is turning into.
“For what?” Matt asks distractedly, pressing up against her body. She can feel his hard-on on the inside of her thigh. He makes a sound in the back of his throat when she drags her finger down his back and grabs his butt. His speech is slurring even more than usual now that he’s busy kissing her shoulders, the soft slope down to her breast, her bathing suit top the only thing in his way.
Julie takes his lovely face between her hands, thumbs on his cheekbones. Stares at his swollen lips, his kind and tender eyes.
“For last year, for everything-”
He grows still.
“No, uh- Jules-” he brushes his knuckles against her cheek, so softly. “You don’t have nothing to be sorry for.”
But she does, oh she does.
“But I was such a bitch”, she sighs, tears welling up in her eyes.
She isn’t sure that covers her behavior from last year really, whether it’s enough to make him understand. But she needs to say something, before they do this, she needs him to know.
“Look, I made some mistakes as well, probably shoulda-”
It makes her even more ashamed that he’s trying to take some of the blame for this. “Oh Matty, there was nothing wrong with you, you were perfect-”
“Shh,” he says, stroking her hair. “It doesn’t matter.” He kisses her once, twice. “We’re here now, together.”
“I never stopped loving you”, she blurts out on a half-sob, and even though it sounds so pathetic it melts his face into something even gentler and he kisses her with more abandon and more hunger than before. She has wondered how far he went with that other girl, Carlotta, but has been too afraid to ask. Didn’t want him to give her an answer she didn’t want to hear.
“Do you want to- uh-” his voice is a little shaky but his hands on her hip are steady, drawing her closer. “We don’t have to, you know-”
But she wants to. When they were still together they’d fooled around a little and they’d rounded a few bases but she has never felt like this before. Like she needs him like a woman dying of thirst needs water.
“I want you,” she says, hoping that’s enough, reaching behind her to open the clasp of her bikini top. Lets it drop, feels sort of self conscious, resists the urge to cover herself up again with her hands. He swallows heavily. Looks at her like she hung the moon.
“I love you”, he replies and nothing can ever cheapen those words for her ever again, cause he says them just like he did the first time, not expecting anything from her really, just offering. But when he fumbles for the condom in his wallet, she still gets a little panicky, that this is happening now and he doesn’t even know- she grabs his arm which is holding him poised above her, so solid underneath her shaky fingers-
“I- I’ve never-” she stammers and he looks at her, eye brows knotted together in confusion. “I didn’t-, with the Swede-“
“Oh”, he sounds and goes still. “You’re- you are-”
“Yes” she just says and watches his cheeks grow red. And then she knows the terrible truth. Probably knew all along. She wishes she could turn back the clock and not be such an idiot, because she could have shared this all with Matt.
Maybe he sees it in her eyes, because he starts to apologize. “Julie, I’m so sorry. I’m- I was so torn up about everything, about us- I- I didn’t love her like I love you.”
“S’ok.” She breathes in heavily, tries to will herself to stop crying, concentrates on the gorgeous line of his shoulder above her. “It doesn’t matter now”, she lies, wants to make it true. Looks into his eyes. “I just wanna be yours.” And that, at least, is the truth.
“C’mere.” He pulls her closer, sighing, “You’re- you’re the only one now, Jules.”
His voice drops lower and she closes her eyes, gives herself over to the feeling of his lips on her body, his fingers in her hair.
“My girl.”
iii.
and love is all that I need
and I found it there in your heart
it isn't too hard to see
we're in heaven
For their first proper date after they’ve gotten back together, he takes her out to dinner and it feels grown-up and special and just right. When he drops her off at home, he pulls out a mixed CD he made for her, almost like an afterthought.
“This is for you”, he says and smiles lopsidedly. “Would’ve been weird to give you that earlier."
It’s just a CD, but she knows he probably labored over the selection of the songs (there’s Richard Hawley on there and the Heartless Bastards and Wilco and The National and, of course, a Dylan song) and he even made it a sleeve, drew the sign of the Alamo Freeze with their names on it so it’s says “Jules and Matty 2.0” and there’s Landry’s car and she can make out their own two figures standing there together staring into into the distance.
He gets a little self-conscious when she squeals and hugs him. Tells him she loves it and compliments his artwork with a lump in her throat.
“It’s nothing much”, he says: “Just- just think of me when you listen to it.”
They make out for another twenty minutes after that, long, lingering kisses that make him pull her against him with low, needy sounds. Finally they have to break apart so she doesn’t miss her curfew and they don’t both die of sexual frustration. He walks her up to the door, rubs her nose against hers, gives her a brief smooch. She thinks she can never get enough of him.
Back in her room, when her heart has finally calmed down a little, she pulls the CD out to put it in the player, sees that he scrawled something onto the shiny disk.
Her heart does a little flip-flop inside of her as she reads: “Tunes for my girl. Love, Matt.”
iv.
oh - thinkin' about all our younger years
there was only you and me
we were young and wild and free
She goes over to his house, sits with his grandma who chatters on about how Matt called, how he’s doing fine, got an apartment and all-
Julie just sits there, pretending that it doesn’t hurt like hell that he hasn’t even bothered to let her know how he’s doing, himself. She stares into his empty room - the bed and furniture still there but anything truly of Matt’s gone - while Mrs Saracen pats her hand, says “Julie, honey” and she can hardly keep from crying.
Before she leaves, after Mrs Saracen has insisted to fix her a sandwich for the road and is rummaging round the kitchen, she gets up and looks at the wall above his desk for the photograph he kept of her there. It was a stupid shot of her smiling like a loon that Matt had taken one day. She had told him she'd give him a better one, didn’t want her red blobby face like that hanging up in his room.
“Ugh, I hate it!” she’d whined.
“Nu-uh, it’s a pretty picture” he’d insisted and stuck it on his wall anyway, next to the drawings of her hands and lips he’d done the week before.
The picture is gone.
For a minute she just stands there, recalling the way his arms had felt when he sneaked them around her waist from behind, resting his cheek against her hair. His warm breath had tickled her ear when he’d said “I like it. That’s my girl.”
v.
I've been waitin' for so long
for somethin' to arrive
for love to come along
He’s so nervous about what she’s going to say, that she might say no, that he has to talk to someone about it. He can’t tell Landry, because maybe Landry would try to talk him out of it, and he’s made his decision, thought about it for months now. He’s worked it all out in his head. He is sure.
So he waits for one of Grandma’s better moments to tell her about his plans, squats down in front of her chair, says:
“Grandma? You- you know I love Julie, right?”
She nods her head, as if he’s being silly to tell her something so obvious. “Of course I do, Matthew. You’ve been moonin’ over that Julie Taylor since you were sixteen years old.” She pats his cheek in her grandma way. “You hold on to that one! Such a sweet girl.”
“Well,” Matt says, thinking here it comes, “I think I’m gonna ask Julie to marry me.”
Grandma’s been rocking back and forth in her chair lazily, but stops.
“Oh! Oh Matthew! Oh my lord!” her voice goes all high and excited and she nearly jumps out of her seat, as much as a 74 year old lady can do that, and then she’s pulling him towards her, her hands fluttering across his back. “Julie Taylor! Oh you sweet, sweet boy. Oh look at you,” she pulls away, sniffling and holding up her finger, “You know what? I knew from the first time. First time you brought her home, I said to myself, that’s the one, that’s his girl!”
“Oh, did you now?” Matt laughs.
She chuckles in that way as if he’s being a bit slow. “I sure did! Oh my sweetheart, all grown up, and now he’s about to propose!”
He smiles as she draws him towards her again, and he lets her kiss his cheek wetly keeps chattering on my boy and Julie Taylor, getting married, Lord have mercy, oh I didn’t think I’d still live to see the day! and he just breathes in her happiness, hugs her close, the first woman that ever loved him. When she finally lets go, she walks over to her bedroom, to her dresser, starts rummaging around the boxes on its top.
“My boy, gonna be a husband, oh my-”
Matt smiles at her antics, his own stomach bubbly with excitement. “You know, she has to say yes first, Grandma.”
“Oh hush, of course she’ll say yes!” She waves her arm as if she’s swatting the idea like a fly. “Now where’s-” she is still digging through an old box.
“I’ve-I’ve been saving up my money from the art gallery for a ring- it’s not much but I thought maybe you would like to come with me to pick one out before Julie comes home from college-”
Grandma shakes her head “Oh, nonsense!”
“Nonsense?” Matt asks, confused.
She is continuing her frantic digging until she exclaims “There it is!” triumphantly, grabs what looks to Matt like a ball of bunched up newspaper and turns towards him, eyes swimming with pride and emotion.
“Matthew Henry Saracen.” She grabs his hand. “You’re going to propose to your girl, and you’re going to save your money for your new family. You’re going to give her this.” She unwraps the old newspaper, drops them on the floor, forgotten. Then opens a little black box and puts a ring in his hand. The center stone is small but flanked by a band studded with tiny diamonds and it looks a little old-fashioned in a way that Julie will probably like, or so he hopes. “Your grandfather put this on my finger, when he asked me to be his wife,” Grandma looks at him imploringly, and Matt feels himself choking up. “Do you like it?”
He thinks of his girl and envisions the small band on her hand. “It’s perfect”, he says.
vi.
now our dreams are comin' true
through the good times and the bad
ya - I'll be standin' there by you
“That’s my daughter”, Coach says. Almost menacingly. “That’s my girl.”
And Matt can only say “Yes, Sir” and nod as they stand outside by the grill, just as he did when Eric Taylor had found out that he was sleeping with Julie. Coach slaps the burgers with the flat side of his spatula and the grease hisses down into the flames.
It’s the end of the summer, two weeks before the Taylors’ move. Their house has been sold and Matt has come down to help them pack up and get the rest of Julie’s stuff before they’ll drive back to Chicago. Now most of the Taylors’ belongings are in storage and the house feels big and empty. Matt has kinda given up on hoping for Coach’s blessing to marry Julie, but he’ll take the truce that Coach seems to be offering him. He wants to reassure him that even though he may be young, his intentions with Julie have never been anything but honorable. Tries to say what Julie means to him, and fails. Instead just stutters:
“I’ll- I’ll love her always.”
He doesn’t say he won’t hurt her, because he might not know much about marriage, but this much he knows, from the years he’s grown together with Julie, from the screw up that was his own parents’ marriage and the example of Mr and Mrs Taylor: that you can’t share your life with someone, love them honestly and completely, without hurting them and they hurting you, at some point. But he’ll never leave Julie. He’ll be with her, always.
Coach nods, in that stern way of his and his brow unfurrows a little. He hands Matt a beer. They stand there, two men staring out into the Texas sun and then suddenly Coach says, gruffly:
“If I had a son-” stops and then clears his throat. The sound of the grill and the cicadas is loud in Matt’s ears as he waits it out. “You better call me Eric now.”
Then he takes a swig from his bottle and gets to work on the grill again while Matt just keeps him company. And later that night, when they’re all sitting on the deck, Matt with his hand cradled in Julie’s, who’s talking about Strauss University and the classes she intends to take there in the fall, he catches Coach’s eyes across the table where Mrs Taylor leans against his shoulder. He nods slightly, lines around his eyes softening.
When the Taylors are sending them off from their driveway, two days later, Coach, no- Eric, grips Matt’s shoulder, draws him into a brief hug and tells him to look after Julie. “You look after my girl now, Son”, he says.
vii.
ya - nothin' could change what you mean to me
oh there's lots that I could say
but just hold me now
cause our love will light the way
She cries a little, when all their stuff is packed up and they sit on the empty floor of their Chicago apartment. The rental truck outside is filled up to the brim with their life they had here, Matt’s paintings and prints and his diploma, Julie’s bachelor’s and master’s degree. Tomorrow they’ll start the drive back to Texas.
He cradles her head in his hands, pulls her against his shoulder. Sweet soft smell of her hair in his nose. Julie sinks against him, the silence stretching between them into something comfortable and trusted, where they don’t have to say anything really. Instead, he kisses her on the crown of her head, watches her hand on his heart, the low lights streaming through the windows catching on the stones of her wedding bands and he’s so thankful to have her with him. Always.
“Don’t you know that you’re my girl?” he asks when she draws a shaky breath, strokes her back soothingly. “My girl.”
viii.
and love is all that I need
and I found it there in your heart
it isn't too hard to see
we're in heaven
The first time he holds his daughter in his arms, he’s blindsided by the love he feels for her. It’s similar to the way he loves Julie in that he thinks it’s as likely he’ll stop as he’ll stop breathing. But it’s different, instantaneous and gut-punching in its intensity, not something grown and slow-kindled and tended to. The way he loves Julie is a work of years and shared things they’ve gone through and the effort they have both put in it. But he loves his daughter so effortlessly, the moment they hand her to him. He turns over to his wife, who suddenly looks like she’s a teenager again, with her flushed cheeks and fanned out hair, tired, but the smile stretching her pretty mouth is full of bliss. And he knows she feels the same.
“She’s so beautiful” Julie says, as if she’s a little surprised.
“Yeah,” he croaks and she reaches out for him as he sits down on the bed beside her.
“Matty”, she says. Only then does he realize he’s crying. Their baby looks up at him from where she’s nestled into the crook of his arm, wide eyed, brow a little furrowed and he puts his finger against her hand. She grips it, touch so soft, but there and just like that, she has him for all eternity. And then he hates his Dad a little again, and Shelby, even though the feeling is something he buried deep, tried to let go of it years ago. Looking at their baby, he can’t even fathom ever leaving her.
“Hey” he whispers and his throat feels tight as he looks into his daughter’s perfect face. “Look at you.” Swallows down the massive lump.
“My girl.” he says.