Chapter Forty-Five #3
“You’ll have to frame that card and hang it up in here beside Len and Mary,” Macon said. “They’d be proud of you. I’m proud of you. You worked so hard for this.”
“I’m proud of you . Look at us with our new jobs.”
“Look at us,” he said, eyes locking with mine.
My body surged with the renewal of longing from our time apart, and we kissed again until it almost turned into something more.
But we both wanted to get home before the snow.
He helped me close the registers, lock up the money, and turn off the lights.
The grandfather clock ticked its steady reassurance through the darkness.
It’s time , it was telling me. It’s time.
Macon grabbed my suitcase again and wheeled it to the front door. My hands were shaking. He opened the door for me, and the bell rang. “I’m parked a street over,” he said, as I ducked and passed underneath his arm. He laughed at my strange maneuver. “What was that?”
But as I locked the door behind us, his laughter trailed off. And when I turned around, I saw that he was remembering the same night that I was.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I said.
He held my gaze carefully, nervously. “Okay.”
“The thing is,” I said. And then the rest of my words froze.
“The thing is…”
“I want to get married someday,” I said.
His eyes widened.
Terror pulsed through me. Now that I finally had exactly what I wanted, I was teetering on the precipice of losing everything.
But I couldn’t let the view of someone standing before me block my entire future.
Not even when it was the right someone. The best someone.
I had made an irrational, catastrophic decision at the beginning of the year rather than address my real feelings and face my fears head on.
I couldn’t do that again. I had to know where Macon stood. I had no choice but to barrel forward.
“And we’ve never talked about marriage, so I don’t know how you feel about it.
If it’s a thing you ever want to do with anybody .
But I’m scared to unpack my boxes if it means I might have to repack them in eleven years.
And I’m not trying to pressure you or get engaged right now, but I want to have a discussion.
I just need to know if it’s even on the table—”
“I want to marry you,” he said.
My heart stopped. “You do?”
“Desperately.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
“I didn’t know how you felt about it either. And I was afraid I would scare you away if I said something too soon, but I would have married you yesterday. I would have married you a month ago. A year ago. Five years ago.”
“But you’ve had all those long-term relationships. And you’ve never even been engaged.”
“Because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with them.”
“But you want to spend it with me?”
“ Yes ,” he said.
The word snagged inside me, rewriting the code, traveling upward and repeating into infinity.
Yes. Ingrid. Yes.
Something cold and wet hit my cheeks. We looked up at the same time.
Tiny snowflakes were tumbling and swirling down from the sky.
Our eyes met in wonder. But just as I was about to rewrite the second wrong of that night—just as I was about to kiss him and be kissed back—he stopped me with a concern of his own.
“Before this goes any further,” he said, and my eyebrows rose at the implication. He smiled, though unease quickly replaced it. “My mom. I don’t know if you remember, but—”
“She can take Edmond’s room. We’ll make it work.”
It looked like he wanted to believe me but was afraid to. “She’s ill. It won’t be easy.”
“I know. I want to help. I want to live with you forever, and I understand that that probably means living with her, too.”
“It’s a big commitment.”
“So is marriage,” I said, taking his hands again.
“What about children?”
I was thrown. “I thought… we’d sort of talked about that already?”
“Because I’ve never imagined myself with kids, but if you’ve changed your mind, I would reconsider it. But I need to know now. I need to know if that’s something we should discuss. I’m not getting any younger.”
My heart swelled, but I was even more grateful that our opinions remained the same. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
He seemed relieved. “What about the wedding? Big or small or—”
“Small. I don’t want two hundred people watching us. But not at the courthouse either. I don’t want a Beavis and Butt-Head wedding.”
He finally laughed. Tears shimmered in his eyes.
“Maybe a ceremony in the garden with just our closest family and friends,” I said.
“Yes. Good. But what about beaches?”
Now I laughed, completely thrown. “What?”
“If I’m vacationing, I prefer cold beaches. Rocky, gray, unsuitable for swimming. But most people don’t like that, so if you prefer something tropical, I’d be fine with taking turns.”
“I already knew that about you.” I smiled. “And I also prefer a moody beach.”
He tucked a windblown strand of my hair behind my ear and confessed, “I already knew that about you, too.”
“But I would like to visit Kat someday, even though the beach in her town is sunny. I’ve never been outside of the country.”
“Neither have I. And I would love to visit Australia with you someday.”
“So… is that it? Do we know everything about each other now?”
“I think so,” he said. Yet I still didn’t see it coming. I still gasped as he got down on one knee in the mosaicked entryway. “I don’t have a ring.”
“Yes.” My answer bubbled out before he’d even asked.
The way he laughed and beamed up at me made me feel like I was the only sun he needed. “Ingrid Dahl. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I said again, nodding and bobbing my head.
I helped him stand and pulled him into a sweeping kiss.
Our noses were cold, but our mouths were warm.
We kissed for so long that the snowflakes fattened and collected on the ground.
They dusted our hair and powdered our coats.
We kissed until our lips were sore, our bodies were shivering, and our fingers were frozen. We kissed like we had forever.