Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [80]
We were married on July 22, 1989, in the Catholic church she’d grown up attending, and as she was led to the aisle by her father, I couldn’t look away. Her eyes were luminous beneath her veil, and her hands were shaking slightly when I took them in my own. I barely remember the ceremony. The only moment that stands out in my mind was when I slipped the ring on her finger. The reception was also a blur, and we were both exhausted by the time we arrived in Hawaii for our honeymoon. The honeymoon had been a gift from Billy and Pat Mills, who had come to love Cathy as much as I did. Lisa, who’d long since found someone new in her life, jokingly began referring to me as “the ex-boyfriend that never went away.”
Because the ceremony and reception had been held on the other side of the country, only a few of my friends had been able to make it. My mom, however, decided to throw a party in Sacramento in our honor. She decorated the backyard, made a cake, set out beer and food, and everyone I knew from childhood stopped by to congratulate us. The party went on for hours, and in some ways was more fun than the original reception. I had returned from honeymooning in Maui, owned two rental properties with Micah, had finished my second—albeit unpublished—novel. I was excited about a new business I was starting, and was deeply in love with my new wife. It was, I still think, one of the best evenings, and summers, I’d ever spent.
If possible, my mom was even more excited than we were. In the course of the evening, she’d mentioned that she was thinking about quitting her job in the near future. Now that we were out of college—and with my dad earning more than he ever had—there was no reason for her to keep heading into the office every day. She’d worked long enough, she said, and she wanted to spend her time enjoying the family and riding horses with my dad.
“In fact,” she said, her eyes shining with excitement, “we’re going riding again next weekend.”
On the following Friday night—only six weeks after we’d been married—Cathy and I went to a barbecue at my parents’ house. We were the only kids there. Micah was in Cancun—he’d be arriving back home on Saturday—and Dana was in Los Angeles with her boyfriend. It was a quiet evening. We cooked and ate dinner; afterward, we settled in the living room to watch a movie. When the hour grew late, I mentioned that Cathy and I should head on home, and kissed my mom on the cheek as she sat in her chair.
“Maybe we’ll drop by tomorrow night,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “We’d love to have you. Drive safe, you two.”
“’Bye, Mom,” I waved.
By noon, my mom and dad were riding horses on the trails that run alongside the American River. Like most August days in the Sacramento Valley, the temperature hovered in the nineties and the dry air was still. Only a few clouds dotted the horizon, and my mom and dad shared a picnic lunch in one of the many shady areas that line the parkway. A little while later, they were riding again; because of the heat, however, the horses neither trotted nor galloped. Instead, my parents rode them at a slow walk, taking in the scenery between bits of conversation.
As the river rounded a bend, the trail narrowed and my father led Napoleon into the front, Chinook and my mom close behind. According to my dad, nothing extraordinary happened next; there were no sudden noises, no snakes, nothing to startle either horse at all. The gravel pathway was strewn with rocks, he noted; at times, there was a slight angle to it, but again, nothing that either horse should have had trouble navigating at all. Indeed, both horses—and thousands of other horses over the years—had passed over that same stretch of trail dozens of times.
Yet that day for whatever reason, Chinook stumbled.
I was in the kitchen of my apartment as the phone rang. When I answered, my father sounded breathless, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Your mom’s been in an accident . . .” he started. “She fell off the horse . . . They took her to UC Davis Medical Center . .