29. Lo #2
He pulls out carefully. I wince, oversensitive, and he mouths an apology against my cheek, and rolls out of bed, pulling on the sweatpants he left on the floor last night.
I watch him go. Watch the breadth of his shoulders, the way he moves, the ring that catches the light when he reaches for the door handle.
He wears it all the time now. Hasn’t taken it off since that first video on our porch, the day after I left.
“I’ll get her,” he says. “You want coffee?”
“Is that a real question?”
“It’s a courtesy question. I already know the answer, but asking makes me seem considerate.”
“You are considerate.”
“I know. But it’s nice to have it acknowledged.”
“Get the baby, Jesse.”
“Getting the baby.”
He disappears down the hall, and I hear Hattie’s shriek of joy when she sees him, hear the baby gate clicking open, hear his voice doing the particular thing it does when he talks to her, soft and silly and full of a love so big it barely fits in his chest.
I lie there for a minute. Just one minute.
Looking at the ceiling, at the bedroom that used to feel empty and now feels full, at the life we almost lost and somehow managed to keep.
I’m still in his shirt. I’m still wet. I can feel him on my thighs, in me, the pleasant ache of being well and thoroughly had before 7 a.m., and I should get up, I should clean up, I should be a person.
I don’t. Not yet.
The nursery is across the hall. It used to be the guest room, then it was storage for tour equipment, guitar cases and merchandise boxes and all the detritus of Jesse’s career.
Now it’s pale yellow walls and a crib and approximately a thousand stuffed animals that Ruth keeps buying despite my protests.
The tour trunks are long gone. Hattie walks now.
Yells at the dog. Stands in the middle of her own life like she paid for it.
The office down the hall has a lock on it now. My lock. My office. The room where I run the hay business I built during the separation, the one that still operates even though I’m back at the ranch full-time. Six farms buying from me. JONES HAY on the sign out front.
Both names on the deed. Both of us making decisions together.
Jesse appears in the doorway with Hattie on his hip. She’s wearing footie pajamas with little horses on them, and her dark hair is sticking up exactly like her father’s, and she reaches for me the moment she sees me.
“MAMA!”
“Good morning, baby girl.”
“Mama mama mama!”
Jesse deposits her on the bed, and she immediately starts climbing on me like I’m a piece of furniture. Which, to her, I probably am.
“She’s very energetic for 7 a.m.,” I observe.
“She’s your daughter.”
“She was your daughter when she was yelling at the dog.”
“She switches based on behavior. It’s a fluid system.”
“It’s a convenient system.”
“Most systems I design are convenient. For me.”
Hattie grabs my nose and laughs. I let her, because what else am I going to do? She’s almost one year old and she thinks noses are the funniest thing in the world.
“I want to ask you something,” Jesse says.
“Okay.”
“It’s kind of a big question.”
“Bigger than ‘can Hattie have cookies for breakfast?’”
“That wasn’t a big question. That was a test of your parenting boundaries.”
“Which you failed.”
“Which I creatively interpreted.”
“That’s one word for it.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, and something in his expression shifts. Still warm, still easy, but with an undertone of seriousness that makes me pay attention.
“Marry me again,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“Marry me. Again. Same ring, same woman, same everything. Just… more of it.”
“We’re already married. We’ve been married for over six years.”
“I know. But the courthouse was eleven minutes. Eleven minutes and your grandmother’s ring and my hands shaking so hard I couldn’t get mine on.
” He takes my hand. “I want to give you a whole day. Not eleven minutes in a government building. A whole day where everyone we know watches us choose each other.”
“Jesse…”
“You can say no. You can say you need to think about it. You can say the courthouse was perfect and you don’t need anything else. I just wanted to ask - before I planned anything, before I talked to anyone else about it. I’m asking you first. That’s the whole point.”
Hattie has given up on my nose and is now trying to eat my hair.
I gently extract it from her grip and look at my husband, this man who broke something between us and has spent every day since trying to rebuild it differently.
Not rebuild me. I did that myself, in Marigold, with Bree and the hay business and the community I found.
He’s rebuilding his place in my life. Earning it back.
“A whole day,” I repeat.
“A whole day. Ceremony, reception, the whole thing. If you say yes, I thought I might ask Rosie to be the flower girl - Bree mentioned she’s been wanting a job at a wedding.”
“You haven’t asked her yet?”
“I haven’t asked anyone yet. I wanted to ask you first.” He meets my eyes. “I learned that. Finally. The part where your opinion comes before the plans, not after.”
I laugh despite myself. Hattie laughs because I’m laughing, and Jesse’s smiling at both of us, and the morning light is warm through the windows.
“When were you thinking?” I ask.
“Her birthday’s in a few weeks. Maybe right after? Fall would be nice. The ranch looks good in fall. But only if that timing works for you.”
“And if I said spring instead?”
“Then it’s spring. Any season you point at. That’s how this works now.”
“Statistically, asking is more reliable than hoping.”
“Statistically, we shouldn’t have made it this far. And yet.”
“And yet.”
Hattie decides she’s done with the bed and starts squirming toward the edge. Jesse catches her automatically, scoops her back, settles her on his knee.
“There’s something else,” he says.
“More than remarrying me?”
“Adjacent to remarrying you.” He takes a breath. “The label called last week. They want me back on the road.”
My stomach tightens. “When?”
“Not now. Next fall. After her second birthday, after we’re settled, after everything’s had time to stabilize.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them I’d talk to you first.”
“You told them you’d talk to me.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Not that you’d decide and tell me after. Not that you’d already committed and were just informing me.”
“No. I told them any decision about my schedule goes through my wife, and if they didn’t like that, they could find another act.”
I study his face, looking for the catch, the caveat, the thing that’s going to turn this conversation into the same conversation we’ve had a hundred times before. I don’t find it.
“What are they proposing?” I ask.
“Eight dates. All in Texas. All within driving distance - Austin’s two hours, San Antonio’s three, Dallas got an afternoon slot so I can drive home after.
Most nights I’m home. The exceptions we plan together.
” He meets my eyes. “No buses, no weeks away. Early evening shows - five o’clock doors, done by eight-thirty most nights.
I drive to the venue, I do the show, I drive home.
The Houston dates run later, so those nights I stay at a hotel we pick together, and my mom keeps Hattie.
But every other show, I’m in our bed by midnight. ”
“Eight dates over how long?”
“A few weeks. Home most nights, with the Houston hotel stay we talked about. They’re working around those limits. If the dates change, we talk before I agree to anything.”
“And you’re okay with that?”