Epilogue #3
“Not for Annabelle. She wants to live the highlight reels every day. She actually cried the other day when she realized she was out of homemade puréed carrots, and I suggested going to the store for Gerber. You’d have thought I suggested feeding Bailey cyanide.
” He’s staring at his hands now. I sense I’m the first person he’s confessed this to. “It’s hard to live with, I can’t lie.”
I’m grateful for the interruption when the bartender brings my drink. “I bet it is. I assume you’ve tried reasoning with her?”
He laughs into the neck of his beer bottle. “Yes, and she wanted to do a video series on DIY marriage counseling. Heaven forbid we go in for some real help.”
“So what are you going to do?” The question is heavy. It’s loaded. And this really isn’t the place for it.
“Go to work, do my best, and try to stay out of frame. It’s all I can do.” It’s a nonanswer, but all I’m entitled to, especially at the moment. “You’d understand if you were married. With someone else it would just be a different set of frustrations.”
I think back on my little adventures with Rosaline six months ago.
There’s rarely a day when the memories don’t make at least a cameo in my consciousness.
Days like today? They’re more like a significant secondary character.
He’s right in a sense. Every person I dated had their own set of foibles that drove me mad.
Even Nikolai has a few minor quirks that get under my skin.
But there’s a difference between annoying behaviors and deal-breakers.
And I get the sense that Annabelle’s Instagram addiction is encroaching on the latter territory.
But Brian will never leave. He’d implode first.
In true Brian fashion, he shifts the conversation back to me. “So what is it you need?”
“Who said I came over for a favor?” My voice feigns innocence.
He gives me a deadpan glare. “I’ve known you your whole life and I can identify the Sabrina-on-a-mission walk from a mile away.”
“I was actually going to ask you to walk me down the aisle when I get married next year. Whaddya say?” I playfully punch his arm like I used to do when we were kids.
He takes a long pull of his beer and stares off into space. “Nope.”
I gasp. “What do you mean, ‘nope’? I’m not asking to borrow your car when you need it for something else. This is a big deal. I was going to hook you up with the plane tickets and everything.”
“It is a big deal. And I’ll be there in the front row. But walking you down the aisle would have been Dad’s job, and I don’t want to pretend I can fill his shoes, because I can’t. And besides, of all the women I’ve ever known, you can stand on your own two feet better than any of them.”
“Thanks for the compliment, but most of my sex are perfectly capable of that, thanks.” I wonder how much of this soft misogyny is because of Annabelle and how much of it is innate, but I try to keep my temper in check.
The simple callout was good enough—for now.
“But I really would love it if you did this for me.”
“Sabrina Fair, you need to read that poem over again. Mom might have painted her as the delicate little water nymph, but she’s the hero. I’ll be there to cheer you on, but you don’t need me there to ‘give you away,’ because you belong to yourself.”
He looks over at Annabelle, who is still fixed to her phone screen. “Better yet, walk down the aisle with Nikolai. Start the marriage as you mean to continue it—as partners.” It’s his turn to punch me in the shoulder.
“That’s a brilliant idea, brother. But be careful and save some of those brilliant ideas for work. I don’t want you using up your yearly quota on me.”
He sticks his tongue out at me, and I return the favor before going to find Nikolai.
I turn serious for a moment. “Just be good to yourself, okay, brother?”
He gives me a mock salute, like a subordinate accepting orders. Unfortunately, I don’t think he will be.
I find Nikolai finishing off a conversation with Tim Espersen, of all people.
Nikolai knows of my adventures at Burbank Airport, but not the vision Rosaline had shown me of the grim fate that would have awaited me if I’d stayed in Solvang.
To his credit he never acted like I was crazy, though he has never fully known what to say about it.
He’s only happy that despite the crazy odds against it, we’ve managed to find each other.
I smile and exchange pleasantries with Tim and try not to think of the future we’d have had together if I’d caved to Robin’s badgering or he to his own mother’s.
Chloe and Chris are dancing to a slow number, and the love on her face is so genuine, my heart strains against my rib cage. Her day is perfect, and I’m glad for my role in it. And glad Robin can be at peace with it too.
I pull Nikolai onto the dance floor, and we sway in time with the music. “Espersen seems nice enough,” Nikolai muses as he pulls me closer.
I give a noncommittal verbal shrug. “I suppose. Robin tried to push us together for ages, but I rebelled.”
“Not your type?” He leans in and tries to be subtle about smelling my hair and fails. He loves my shampoo.
The vision Rosaline showed me, with us unable to mask our contempt for each other, looms large in my brain. “Not in the least.”
He twirls me once on the dance floor before he pulls me back to his chest. “I can’t say I’m disappointed. If you’d settled down here with him, I wouldn’t be dancing with you now.”
I shake my head. “No. If I’d taken that path, the world would be a very different place.”
“Any regrets?” He lifts a brow, fishing for a compliment. It’s endearing, so I indulge.
I lean in and kiss his cheek, leaving a perfect imprint of my lips in crimson on his cheek. “Of course I have some. But never this. Never you.”
He whispers into my ear, “I hope you’ll always think that, min elskede.”
I look deep into his soulful blue eyes and know, with the certainty of the rising sun, that there will be moments of regret in the future. Moments of anger when I question why I chose him. There is no such thing as a meaningful marriage without discord, after all.
But I don’t think I will ever regret him.
Because he, unlike so many others, isn’t fixated on the way things are “supposed” to be.
He loves that I am passionate about my work.
He shares my passion for food and travel.
He never seeks to make me smaller than I am.
Because he has passions of his own, he isn’t threatened by who I am or what I want out of life.
We can create a marriage on our own terms and be true to ourselves instead of the expectations of others.
And in honoring our own expectations and in valuing each other, we will find happiness.
I brush a wayward lock of blond hair from his brow and kiss him, unbothered by who might be looking on. “So do I, darling. So do I.”