Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [74]
She just laughed in disbelief and said, “I think you need another beer.”
How could I tell so quickly that she was the one for me? It was an odd intuitive moment, but I can honestly say that I knew.
We had a lot in common. Like me, she was a senior who was earning a degree in business. Like me, she was Catholic and went to church every Sunday. She was also a middle child, though one of four. Like me, she had an older brother and a younger sister. Her parents, like mine, were poor before attaining middle-class status, had never been divorced, and—how’s this for coincidence—shared the same anniversary as my parents (August 31). She was an athlete (a state champion in gymnastics). She wanted children, as did I, and she wanted to stay home to raise them, as I hoped my wife would.
But most of all, what really attracted me to her was her manner. She laughed a lot, and it’s easy to fall for someone who can find humor in any situation. She was also intelligent, well read, and well spoken, willing to listen and confident in her beliefs. And most of all, she was warm. She treated my friends as if they’d been her friends for years, would wave and smile at both children and the elderly. She seemed genuinely interested in everyone.
I had noticed all of these things about her, and as we were dancing, it struck me that she was everything I wanted in a lifelong companion.
When I got back to Notre Dame, I called my brother.
“Micah,” I said, “I met the girl I’m going to marry.”
“Where? When? Weren’t you just on spring break?”
“Yeah. That’s where I met her.”
“Dude,” he said, “you were on spring break. What the hell are you thinking about marriage for?”
“Just wait until you meet her.”
“But it was spring break!”
“I know,” I said gleefully. “Isn’t it great?”
In the two months leading up to graduation, I wrote Cathy a hundred letters. She came out to visit me at Notre Dame twice, and on the day of my graduation, my parents came to visit Notre Dame for the first time. While I showed them around the place that had been my home for the previous four years, I talked mainly about Cathy and how much she’d come to mean to me in the previous two months. After graduation, while my parents flew back home, I traveled to New Hampshire to see Cat graduate. I was introduced to her parents, and ten days later I brought her to Sacramento to meet my parents.
My mom and dad greeted her with immediate hugs, and Cathy remained in the kitchen talking to my mom for an hour. That night, after Cathy had gone to bed, my mom declared, “Cathy’s wonderful. She’s even better than you described.”
I thought my heart would burst. “I’m glad you like her, Mom,” was all I said.
After graduation in May 1988, my first thought was, what now?
For years, I’d been a student and an athlete and had pursued those goals with an unwavering intensity. I had done as I was told, I had followed the rules. Yet, all of a sudden, both worlds were behind me, and I found myself adrift. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted to do, or where my future would lead. I’d always believed that because I’d followed the rules the world would beat a path to my doorstep. But the world didn’t seem to care at all.
Despite graduating with high honors, I wasn’t accepted to any of the law schools to which I’d applied, and so that door was closed even before it opened. All my friends had taken corporate jobs in New York or Chicago, but those jobs also tended to be close to the places they’d grown up. I, too, wanted to go home, and with my head filled with foggy notions of the future, I found myself on a plane back to Sacramento. My first job was waiting tables. Even with a degree, I found myself earning minimum wage.
In the meantime, I began exploring careers, trying to find