Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Arden
"We need champagne." My voice catches, and I see him register it. I watch him register it, the way his shoulders tense slightly, the careful way his expression doesn't change tells me everything about how well he knows me after all these years together. I drop my keys in the ceramic bowl by the door, the one Banks made in art class that looks more like an anatomically correct heart than the bowl it was meant to be.
"Champagne?" he asks softly, already moving toward the cabinet where we keep the special bottles.
"Yep. Because today we need to find something to celebrate." My voice breaks on 'celebrate' and I watch Will's face do that thing, that terrible, beautiful thing, where he's trying to prepare himself for whatever's coming while pretending he's not terrified. "Will you grab it? The good bottle we've been saving?"
We've been saving that bottle since an anniversary, tucked away behind the everyday wines. We'd agreed to open it for 'something special.' Now I'm going to make my husband open it to toast to the fact that... well , I haven't exactly decided what to toast yet.
Will works the cork free with steady hands as it makes a soft pop instead of the celebratory bang we usually aim for. Another metaphor I don't need right now. He takes down two mugs, slides one across the counter to me, and I take a sip, letting the bubbles burn my tongue, hoping they'll somehow burn away the words stuck in my throat.
"So," he says, settling into the seat beside me, his knee brushing mine in that way that our limbs have always tangled without our consent. "Tell me, what are we celebrating?"
I take another sip of champagne from my ‘Freak in the Excel Sheets’ mug.
"Well, for starters, Banks didn't burn down the kitchen making toast this morning."
Will's lips twitch. He knows this game intimately, and has played it with me a thousand times before. In those first weeks of us testing our waters, even though we dove straight in, we played this game. I went running to him after every bad day, and he listed every small celebration sipping right from the bottle until we were more drunk off every bit of each other than the alcohol. When we lost jobs, when we lost pregnancies, when we lost parents, when we lost friends, even in moments we lost ourselves, we always did this. Silly in some ways, but in others, it became the way to preserve the joy in the gratitude of grief and pain. No matter how big or small that pain might be.
He takes a long sip from his own mug with the words ‘Decent Docent’ and his old museum id printed on it. I got him for his birthday a few years ago.
"I finally fixed that squeaky floorboard in the hallway," he offers, his eyes never leaving my face.
"You mean you threw a rug over it." A laugh joins the bubbles in the carbonation despite everything.
"I solved the problem," he counters, and for a moment, we're just us again, not a couple facing whatever's coming next.
"We're celebrating that the garden didn't die when I forgot to water it for two weeks." I say, my fingers tracing the rim of my mug, focusing on the smooth ceramic.
"We’re celebrating that after all this time, you still don’t realize I’ve been the one watering it." His voice is as stabilizing as the hand rubbing slow circles around my back.
“Of course you are” I try to keep my voice light, but something must slip through because his thumb starts twisting his wedding ring.
I take another sip of champagne, wondering how many more small moments we'll have like this. How many more chances to catalogue our ordinary celebrations.
"We're celebrating that I finally learned to make my Rosalie’s gluten-free banana bread recipe."
"After only seventeen attempts,” he adds.
"And only three minor fires." I admit. This rhythm between us that has been there since the beginning.
“We really shouldn’t be so hard on Banks about the whole ‘can barely make toast’ thing.” He lifts our joined hands, presses a kiss to my knuckles. His lips linger there, warm against my skin, and I know he can feel my pulse.
"We're celebrating," he says carefully, "that you went to the doctor's appointment today..."
And there it is. The thing we've been dancing around, the reason we're drinking champagne from mugs in the afternoon. I look at our joined hands, at the way his thumb is still tracing those steady circles, and try to find the right words. The same way I practiced them in the car, in every moment since leaving the doctor's office.
"Will..." Something in my voice must give me away again because his grip tightens.
His hand stills in mine but doesn't let go.
"We're celebrating that we know what we're fighting." The words feel like glass in my mouth, sharp and dangerous and impossibly fragile.
Will's breath catches, just for a moment, but I hear it. All these years of loving someone teaches you all their sounds, all their silences.
"Okay," he says finally. "Okay. Then we're celebrating that you're the strongest person I know."
"Will— "
"No, let me finish." His voice is steady but his eyes are shining. "We're celebrating that we have the best doctors in the state. We’re celebrating that we can go anywhere. Get any opinion. We're celebrating that you're stubborn as hell and…"
"Will."
"Arden," Somehow, of all the voices I hear in him, he sounds exactly like he did the day he proposed. Full of promise surging from somewhere. We were young then, not so much now. "We're celebrating that we have options, that you're here drinking champagne, that you're actually fucking extraordinary. And I will go get another bottle right now for us to keep going… but we will be okay, you will be okay."
I have to close my eyes against that, against the fierce love in his voice. "We need a plan."
"We'll figure it out," he says with that unwavering certainty he has always had.
"We have to tell Banks." Just saying her name makes my chest ache.
"We will. But first, tell me everything. Every detail."
I squeeze his hand so hard it must hurt, but he just holds on tighter. I start talking, laying out every detail shared. Options, statistics, things I’ve googled myself. Will listens like he's studying for the most important test of his life, which I suppose he is. Though regardless of his landing in academia, preparedness and studying were not his usual way.
Will pulls me into his arms, and he presses his lips to my hair. "I love you. Beyond any sense of science."
When Banks walks in, she's humming like he does. She looks so much like Will when she's lost in thought, that same little furrow between her eyebrows, that same slight tilt to her head.
"You're both home early," she says, dropping her bag to survey the scene, and her face changes. "What's wrong?"
She's always been too perceptive for her own good. Will's hand finds mine again, his wedding ring cool against my fingers. Our daughter's eyes dart between us, taking in the champagne mugs, the way we're seated, and how her father's shoulders are tense and set in a stance she's seen so rarely.
"Sweetheart,” he says, we need to talk."
And just like that, our story shifts into a new chapter, one I never thought we’d write.