Chapter 13
A Few Months Later…
Vox
Drops of sweat gather on my chest as I sit shirtless in the old wooden chair, leaning back with a book open across my lap.
The sun hits my shoulders in just the right way.
Summer is being good to us and the garden.
Rose is a few feet in front of me, kneeling in her dress, planting flowers.
I'm reading to her, just like when we met, and Harley is desperately trying to catch a butterfly.
“…and then they no longer went to the city. Winter had simply slipped away. Later that day…” My voice fades.
The sentence slips out of my hands because something else grabbed my attention.
She notices the pause before I realize I’ve even stopped.
Lifting her head from the flowerbed and meeting my eyes with that familiar raised brow.
“And?” she signs, her expression a mix of confusion and playfulness.
“Sorry, Mrs. Oxen. Got distracted. You’re too beautiful.
Made me forget the story.” She laughs a silent melody.
Then shakes her head and goes right back to pressing soil around the small pots she has lined up.
Kneeling in the grass in her long light-blue dress, the fabric spills around her legs, hiding treasures beneath it.
A gray apron ties at her waist and her hair rests over one shoulder, loose and lightened by the sun.
She dusts off her hands and walks toward me.
I put the book down ‘cause I've got a more pressing matter to take care of.
My wife settles onto my lap, leaning close to me, stopping time with her aura.
I sign the gesture I made for her months ago.
It blends the signs of wife and angel, something only we understand.
I love how it never fails to make her blush.
“What were you planting?” I ask.
She signs, “Little rose plants. They won’t last long, but the flowers will come back next year. I just need to make sure they’re in the right spot.” I brush dried soil from her arm.
“Still want me to read? I don’t want to bore you.
” She loops her arms around my neck and kisses me.
Her breath brushes my cheek as she pulls back and signs, “You know…
this is exactly what I used to dream about.
When I was stuck in that awful house, it's what kept me going. That someday I would be in a garden, planting flowers while you read to me. A simple, beautiful life.” I hold her a little tighter and kiss her cheek, then her jaw, then the corner of her mouth.
“You have it now, angel. All of it.” She shakes her head once.
“Not all.”
I smile. “Not all?” She traces a fingertip down the center of my chest.
“Well…maybe soon we could…” She trails off.
“We could?” I tease.
“You know…” She bites her lip. “I was thinking about…babies. About how they could run around here. Through the flowers.” I brush her hair back behind her ear and tilt her face toward mine.
“I…I’d like that very much, sweetheart. I got no objection to that.
Whenever you’re ready.” She kisses me again, whispering.
“Soon.” Then she rests her head on my chest and I run my fingers down her back, drawing circles.
Her breath evens out as she relaxes against me.
I lift the book again with one hand and keep the other on her back.
She closes her eyes as I start to read. My voice moves through the space, blending with the rustle of leaves and the buzzing of bees.
Every few paragraphs, I pause to kiss the top of her head.
My girl smells like vanilla and sunlight.
After an hour, I close the book and put it down, breathing in her hair.
“Thank you,” she signs.
“For what?” I ask.
“For reading to me.”
“I’ll always read to you, Angel. Always.
” She closes her eyes again and listens as I return to the story.
The wind brushes her skin, making a strand of blond hair blow across her face.
Stunning. I stop breathing for a second, drinking in the miracle God decided to bless me with.
Then she squirms in my arms, and I return to my husbandly duties, reading to my wife in our garden exactly the way she once wished for, building the life she deserves one day at a time.
THE END