21. Wilson
— ? —
Wilson
The rooftop looks the way it did seven years ago, and I have never been this scared in my life.
I’ve been up here since four o’clock, stringing lights from the water tower to the fire escape, spreading blankets over the tar paper. The champagne is grocery store cheap, sitting in the same ice bucket we used the first time because I couldn’t find the original and this one was close enough.
The building super took three hundred in cash and asked no questions. He pocketed the bills, handed me the roof key and the loan of a patio heater, and gave me a knowing look that made me want to explain everything and nothing at once.
The water tower lights have been dead for seven years because nobody on the block would pay to fix them. I paid to fix them yesterday. The electrician thought I was crazy, some guy in a suit writing a check for lights that aren’t even his, but he cashed it anyway.
It’s been a month since we tore the divorce papers down the middle in her mother’s kitchen. A month of conversations that hollowed us both out and rebuilt us, and Izzy stayed for every one of them. Tonight I find out if staying was mercy or a decision she’s ready to make permanent.
The elevator dings behind me and my heart slams against my ribs so hard I have to press my palm flat against my chest to keep it from escaping.
Izzy steps out onto the rooftop and stops dead in her tracks, one hand gripping the door frame, holding herself upright with it.
Her coat is open over the blue dress I’ve always loved, the one that turns her eyes storm-dark, and her hair is down around her shoulders the way she only wears it when she isn’t performing for anyone.
“Wilson, what is all this?”
She’s breathless, and I watch her eyes travel across the string lights, the blankets, the champagne sweating in its bucket. Then she looks past me, over the edge of the roof, and her whole face changes.
“The water tower.” She takes a step toward the ledge, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Wilson, the water tower is lit up. The whole block is lit up. That thing has been dark since we got married.”
I don’t say anything. I just watch her take it in.
“Come here and I’ll explain everything, I promise.” I hold out my hand and wait, giving her the choice.
She doesn’t move from the doorway, her knuckles going white on the metal frame. “You told me we were having dinner at the Italian place on Court Street, the one with the good bread and the waitress who always flirts with you.”
“I lied about dinner, and I’m sorry for that, but I needed you to come here without bracing yourself for whatever you thought might happen.” I step closer and offer my hand again, palm up. “Please, Izzy. Give me a chance to explain.”
She stares at my hand for a long moment, her jaw working, her chest rising and falling with breaths that seem too fast. “This is the roof where we had our reception. Eleven people and a case of the cheapest champagne in all of Brooklyn.”
“I know exactly where we are.”
“We came straight here from City Hall because a venue wasn’t in the budget.” Her eyes are already shining, tears gathering at the corners. “You gave your toast right about where you’re standing now, and you were shaking so hard you spilled half your glass on my hem.”
“The stain’s still on the hem.” I take another step closer. “You saw it yourself last month when we found the dress in the box.”
“Wilson, what are you doing?” The tears are falling now, cutting silver tracks down her cheeks.
“Give me ten minutes to say what I need to say, Izzy.” It comes out rougher than I intended, scraped raw. “If you want to leave after that, I’ll take you to Court Street and order the bread and we’ll never speak of tonight again. I promise.”
She takes my hand.
Her fingers are ice cold, and the December air only accounts for some of it.
I close mine around them and lead her carefully to the blankets spread out under the string lights.
The sun is dropping behind the Manhattan skyline, painting everything gold and rose, and I remember standing in this exact spot seven years ago in a borrowed suit, no idea what I was actually promising when I gave that toast, meaning every word of it anyway.
“Sit with me, please.” I settle beside her on the blankets, our knees touching through the fabric of her dress, the contact sending electricity up my spine.
“I don’t understand what’s happening here.” She looks at the lights, the ice bucket, the skyline, her free hand pressed flat against her stomach. “Wilson, you’re scaring me.”
“Do you remember what you said the first time I brought you up here, after the ceremony?” I reach for the champagne and pour two plastic cups, the bottle unsteady in my grip, liquid sloshing over the edges.
“I said a lot of embarrassing things that night because I was drunk on cheap champagne and happiness.”
“You said this view was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen in your entire life.” I hand her a cup and watch her fingers wrap around it, trembling. “And I told you that you were wrong, because I was looking at you instead of the skyline, and nothing in this city could ever compare to that.”
“That was cheesy as hell and you know it.” But her voice wobbles on the words, cracking at the edges.
“It was completely cheesy and I meant all of it.” I set my own cup aside and turn to face her fully, taking both of her hands in mine. “Izzy, this is where it started for us. This is where I stood in front of eleven people and a fake plant and swore to put you first.”
“Wilson, please stop.” She tries to pull her hands back but I hold on, gentle but firm, refusing to let her run from this.
“I promised to love you above everything else in this world, and then I let work and my own stupid ego convince me that I could have it all without giving you anything back.” My voice breaks but I keep pushing through.
“I told everyone on this roof you’d always come first, and then I put you last, over and over again, until leaving me was the only sane thing you had left to do. ”
“We don’t have to do this tonight, Wilson.” She’s stopped fighting the tears now. They run and she lets them. “We can talk about this tomorrow, or next week, or…”
“We do have to do this tonight, because I’ve been a coward for too long and I’m done hiding from the truth.”
I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the small velvet box that’s been burning against my ribs all day, pressed over my heart. Izzy goes rigid when she sees it, her whole body freezing.
“Don’t you dare do what I think you’re about to do, Wilson Carter.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive everything I’ve done.
” I open the box and show her the plain band with a sapphire the exact blue of her eyes, because diamonds never suited her and I finally learned to pay attention to what she actually wants instead of what I think she should want.
“I looked at rings for three weeks, Izzy. Drove the salespeople crazy asking about settings, cuts, colors. The green one deserved a worthy successor.”
“I can’t do this again.” Her voice drops to a whisper and her hands shake so badly that champagne slides over the rim of her cup, dripping onto the blanket. “I won’t survive it if this falls apart a second time, Wilson. I barely survived it the first time.”
I take the cup from her trembling grip and set it aside before she spills more. “I’m not asking you to come back to who we were before, Izzy. Those people are gone, and I don’t want them back. Those people nearly killed everything we built together.”
“Then what exactly are you asking me?”
“To let me build new with you, from the ground up.” I lift the ring from the box and the last rays of sunset catch the sapphire, scattering blue light across her wet face. “Stronger than what we had before. Honest this time, built on truth instead of the lies I told myself about what mattered.”
“Wilson, you need to stand up right now before I lose it completely.”
“I’m not done yet.” I shift off the blanket and onto my knees, feeling the rough tar paper bite through my good pants, not caring at all. “Let me finish what I need to say. Please, Izzy.”
“I can’t hear this without falling apart.”
“Then fall apart.” I reach for her hand and she lets me take it, her fingers still cold against my palm. “Fall apart right here, and I’ll catch you. That’s what I should have done all along.”
She presses her free hand over her mouth to muffle the sob that escapes her.
“I want every year I have left spent loving you the way I should have loved you from the very start.” My voice cracks halfway through, but I don’t cry.
I’ve cried at this woman in three different states this year, and I decided on the drive over that she was going to hear this one with my voice steady for once.
It’s steady. Just barely, but it’s steady. “The way you deserved all along, before I got so lost in work and ambition that I forgot what actually mattered.”
“Wilson, please…”
“I failed you in every way a husband can fail his wife, Izzy. I broke every promise I made on this rooftop seven years ago, and I know I have no right to ask you for anything after what I put you through.” I squeeze her fingers hard.
“I’m asking anyway, because I’m selfish and desperate, and I can’t imagine spending another day of my life without you in it. ”
“Then why are you on your knees right now?” The words come out muffled behind her palm, barely audible.
“Because I’m begging you.” I look up at her with everything I have, everything I am, laid bare. “I’m begging for the man I’m trying to become, since the man I was doesn’t deserve the chance. Isadora Carter, will you stay married to me?”
A sob wracks her entire body and she bends forward until her forehead nearly touches mine.
“Will you let me be your husband again, the way I promised to be when I stood right here with nothing to my name except a ring I’d saved four months for and how much I loved you?”
“Wilson, please, I…”