45. Delia
forty-five
Delia
I was six months pregnant, and somehow, Robert had managed to convince me to fly in his private plane across the world to Venice. As far as early graduation presents go, a trip to Italy was hard to beat.
After eating my weight in cheese, we strolled along the river, my hand in Robert’s. I watched as gondoliers strode across the water, their oars as tall as them as they stewarded from the ends.
Robert jerked his head toward the river and rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. “What do you think?”
I laughed and buried my face into his chest. His other hand sprang up to pet my hair. He looked down at me with a childlike playfulness and kissed my forehead.
“I’m six months pregnant,” I reminded him, looking down at my significant baby bump to emphasize my point.
Robert smiled and caressed my stomach with both hands, cupping the top and whispering, “That you are.” Then he looked at me and asked, “What, you think there’s a weight limit?”
“If there is, I don’t want to find out the hard way,” I teased, getting up on my tiptoes to kiss his lips. He kissed me back intensely, and I couldn’t help but smile against his mouth.
Robert suddenly turned away in the middle of the kiss, and my lips smacked against his stubbled cheek as he pointed out over the water. “Look, that one has six grown adults on it. Do you think you weigh as much as five adults right now?”
I shrugged. “I feel like it some days.”
Chuckling, he took my hand in his and pulled me toward a nearby dock, waving broadly at a man already waiting for his next rider. They nodded at each other as Robert pushed folded money into the man’s hand.
Robert got in first and turned to offer me his hand. I hesitated, and he looked at me with such sincerity as he said, “I won’t let you fall,” that I couldn’t deny him.
I slipped my fingers against his palm and set my other hand on his shoulder. I tried to lower myself in, and Robert abandoned holding my hand and grabbed me by the waist, effortlessly pulling me in next to him.
“Are you ready, lovebirds?” the man asked us, in a thick Italian accent. I nestled into Robert’s arm and nodded. Robert said, “Ready,” in a soft voice.
The soft lap of water against the gondola’s hull filled the air as we glided through the narrow canals of Venice. The gondolier hummed a faint tune, his oar slicing through the water with steady strokes, while the glow of twinkling lights and flower petals scattered from nearby balconies created a magical atmosphere. I soaked in the beauty around us, but Robert seemed distracted.
We approached a narrow but tall, arched bridge adorned with string lights that shimmered in the rippling water below. The gondola slowed, the gondolier maneuvering us gently to a stop beneath the bridge. I stared in awe at the picturesque scene, sitting up as best I could to reach up and try to touch them. The gondolier took my hand and helped me stand so I could reach higher, informing me, “The Bridge of Sighs.”
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured, a smile tugging at my lips.
“Sì, your lover ask for lights, so we…give lights. They look…” he seemed to struggle for words, shrugging and landing on “bellissima.”
“Did you plan this?” I asked, turning back to Robert to find him kneeling next to me in the narrow space.
My eyebrows knit together as he took my hands from below, a small velvet box with a gold clasp appearing in his other hand. My heart stumbled in my chest as the realization hit. “Delia,” Robert said, his voice a little unsteady.
My free hand flew to cover my mouth. I could feel my grin pulling at the edges of my lips. “You mean this trip wasn’t a graduation present?” I asked with a shaky voice, a laugh bubbling inside me.
He looked up at me, his green eyes steady but filled with a vulnerability I’d only seen a few times before. One salt-and-pepper curl hung over his eyes, and he knocked it out of the way with the back of his wrist. His smile was thin, but his green eyes blazed with affection as he said, “The gondolas in Seattle were where I realized you and I could really…we could really do this. And I thought maybe that the gondolas in Italy could be where you realize it, too.”
I didn’t know what to say. I focused on not losing my footing as the gondola bounced lightly on the water. “Delia,” he said again, his voice low but strong, “I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment you crashed into my life and turned everything upside down.”
Tears threatened to spill over my cheeks. “Stop, are you serious?”
He grinned, but his Adam’s apple wobbled as he tried to tamp down his emotion. “I’m serious. Before you came along, my family was incomplete, but I couldn’t see it yet. I thought Corinne and I were fine on our own, but man, there was a Delia-sized hole. I didn’t have any idea what I was about to go through with you to get here, and I’m glad I didn’t because experiencing it only made this connection all the more special. Those were some of the worst times of my life, but I still felt like I was on a cloud the whole time because I was with you. You’ve given me hope again, you’ve given me purpose, and you’re giving me a family. And—"
I couldn’t stop the tears that spilled down my cheeks as he continued. I hugged him tightly, my knees coming down to the wooden floor and my arms circling around his shoulders, my bulging stomach pressing against him. He rubbed my back before getting back into position, leaning away from me. I bent down slightly to kiss him, whispering, “Yes.”
With his thumbs, Robert wiped away my tears, saying, “Aw, baby, I love that you’re ready. But you’re getting a proposal. You’re not getting out of this one.”
I laughed, a bubbly laugh that gurgled out of me through tears. I wiped my nose and looked up at the underside of the bridge, the lights casting a golden glow. “Okay, get on with it then.”
“Once, I looked at you and told you that I knew you were young and you might not want the same things as me. When I said it, it crushed me to think of a life in which that was true, in which you didn’t want to marry me or be a bonus mom to Corinne and do life with me. I wanted so badly to do your laundry. That’s when I knew it was over for me, that you had me around your finger, when I was literally dreaming—dreaming, Delia—of washing and folding your jeans.”
I laughed out loud, and he gave me that patented smirk, the dimples in his cheeks deepening before disappearing again behind a serious expression. “I know I’m not perfect, and I’ll never claim to be. But I promise you that I will love you, protect you, and stand by you for the rest of my life. Now, will you marry me?”
He opened the box to reveal a white gold ring with a huge oval diamond in the middle, set with smaller diamonds around it and along the band. It was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen in my life, glinting in the faint Venetian light.
I clapped my hand over my mouth, nodding furiously as I tried to find my voice. “Yes,” I choked out. “Yes, of course I will!”
Robert smiled, a smile so genuine and full of relief that it made my chest ache, and then he slid the ring onto my finger.
I pulled him up to me, and he wrapped me in his arms, kissing me like it was just us in the whole world, even as the gondolier cheered and people gathered on the bridge above erupted into applause.