Epilogue
Mark
Christmas Eve at Trish's house looks like a holiday card that someone let Cora art-direct all by herself.
There is tinsel on everything. The banister, the mantle, hell it’s even on the walls.
The tree takes up more square footage than is technically reasonable for the size of the living room, and every ornament on it is either handmade, brightly colored, or both.
Cora has informed me three times tonight that she and Trish make a new one every year, and that someday there will be so many ornaments they will need two trees, possibly three.
I told her that sounded exactly right.
It's been eight months since the fire. Eight months since I knelt in the grass outside a burning building with the two of them in my arms and understood, what the two of them mean to me.
Eight months of dinners and school pickups and dance performances and two weeks ago Cora lost her first tooth and called me before she called anyone else, and I drove over at eight-thirty on a Tuesday night just to see it.
I have the rings in my jacket pocket. I have had them there since this morning, which means they’ve been burning a hole there.
Through the drive to Gunner and Amy’s house for the afternoon, through dinner, through Cora's extended and dramatic reading of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" in which she gave every character a different voice and took her time with it.
Trish is in the kitchen finishing the dishes.
I can hear the water running, can hear her humming something low under her breath the way she does when she thinks no one is listening.
Cora is next to me on the living room floor in her Christmas pajamas, arranging the cookies she made this afternoon on the plate for Santa with the focus of someone doing precision work.
"That one is crooked," she tells me, pointing to a reindeer-shaped sugar cookie I have been assigned to supervise.
"He's running," I say. "He's mid-stride."
She considers this. "Okay." She adjusts the plate slightly. "Do you think Santa will like them?"
"I think Santa is going to be very happy."
She sits back on her heels and surveys the full spread. We’ve got cookies, a glass of milk, and a small carrot for the reindeer that she insisted on. She nods once, satisfied with the answer.
The water in the kitchen stops running.
My pulse picks up. I reach into my jacket pocket and close my hand around the two boxes.
"Hey, Cora." I keep my voice easy. "I need to ask you something before your mom comes in."
She turns to look at me with her full attention, the way she does everything. "What?"
"You know how much I love you and your mom, right?"
She nods immediately. There is absolutely no hesitation in that nod. "You made your picture of us your phone background. You must love us a whole lot.”
"I did."
"And you came over when I lost my tooth even though it was a school night."
"I did that too,” I chuckle, reaching out to push her hair back from her forehead.
She tilts her head. "What do you need to ask me?"
I pull both boxes out of my pocket and hold them in my open palm. Her eyes go straight to them, and her mouth drops open.
"I want to ask your mom to marry me tonight," I tell her. "But I'm asking you first. Because this is your family too, and I'm not going to do anything that changes it without making sure you're okay with it."
She stares at the boxes. Then she looks up at me. "What's in both of them?"
"One is for your mom. The other one is for you.
" I open the smaller of the two boxes first. Inside is a ring I had made. It’s a thin gold band with a small orange stone at the center, because of course it is, because this is Cora, and there was never going to be any other color.
"I'm not just asking to be your mom's husband.
I'm asking to be part of your life. If you'll have me. "
Her chin wobbles. I have seen Cora face a burning building with nothing but my coat collar in her fist, and her chin is wobbling right now over a ring with an orange stone.
"That's orange," she whispers.
"It's orange,” I confirm.
She looks at me for a long moment with those eyes that have always seen more than most adults give her credit for. She knows how much I care for her, if I made sure it was orange. "You're going to stay?" She questions.
"I'm going to stay."
She reaches out and takes the ring from the box carefully, holding it in both hands. Then she looks up at me and nods, one firm, decided nod.
"Yes," she says. "You can ask her."
I hear a cabinet door close, and we both look up.
Trish comes into the living room drying her hands on a dish towel, and she stops when she sees us on the floor. Her eyes move from my face to Cora's face to the open ring box in my hand, and the dish towel goes still.
I stand up.
"Mark?"
"I had to ask Cora first," I tell her. "She said yes."
Trish makes a sound that is not quite a gasp and presses her fingers over her mouth.
I cross the space between us and go down on one knee on her living room floor, next to the ridiculous tinsel-covered tree and the carefully arranged Santa cookies and the obscene amount of presents under the tree. I open the second box.
"I love you," I say. "I love your daughter. I love this house and this chaos and the tutu and the orange Converse and the dancing and every single thing that comes with the two of you. I don't want any version of my life that doesn't have you both in it." I look up at her. "Marry me, Trish."
She is crying. Her body shaking as they flow unchecked down her face.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, absolutely yes."
I slide the ring on her finger and stand up, and she comes into my arms and I hold on.
Cora wraps herself around both of us from the side, her arms as far around us as they'll reach, and I get one arm around her and keep the other around Trish, and the three of us stand in the Christmas lights.
"Can I put my ring on?" Cora asks.
"It's yours, you can wear it however you want to.”I tell her.
She pulls back and slides it onto her finger and holds her hand out to examine it, turning it in the light. The orange stone catches the glow from the tree.
"It's perfect," she announces.
Yeah, I think, looking at the two of them. It really is.