26. Fran #2
“Come visit us in Marigold,” Bree says, hugging me carefully around the belly. “After the baby comes. The grandmas are dying to meet her.”
“I will. I promise.”
“And call me. When you go into labor. I want to know immediately.”
“You’ll be the third call. After the hospital and Logan.”
“Third is acceptable.” She pulls back, studying my face. “You’re going to be a great mom, you know. I can tell.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because you’re already worrying about it. The ones who worry are always the ones who do okay.”
She hugs Logan too, whispers something in his ear that makes him blush, and then they’re gone, the car disappearing down the long driveway, leaving the farm quiet except for Gertrude’s evening honking.
Theo stays a while longer, sprawled on the porch swing with a beer he found somewhere.
“So,” he says. “When are you actually going to propose? The real answer.”
Logan, who’s been cleaning up the picnic remnants, pauses. “Soon. Before the baby comes.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.” Logan carries the last of the dishes inside, leaving me and Theo on the porch.
“He’s nervous,” Theo says once his brother is out of earshot. “I’ve never seen him this nervous about anything. Not even the showcase.”
“He shouldn’t be nervous. I’m going to say yes.”
“He knows that. But it’s different, isn’t it? Actually asking. Actually putting yourself out there with no guarantee.” Theo takes a sip of his beer. “The first time, your fathers did all the work. This time, he has to do it himself.”
I think about that. About the courthouse wedding, the dress my mother picked, the bouquet my father paid for. About the two years of marriage that followed, the cold days, the warm nights, the devastating loneliness of loving someone who didn’t seem to see you.
“It should be different,” I say. “This time should feel different. We should feel different.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” The word comes out certain, solid. “We’re not the same people who got married in that courthouse. We’re better. Stronger. More honest with each other.”
“Then tell him that.” Theo finishes his beer and stands. “When he asks. Tell him exactly why you’re saying yes. Give him the words he needs to hear.”
“Since when are you a relationship expert?”
“I’m not. I just know my brother.” He leans down to kiss my cheek. “Take care of yourself, Fran. And take care of him. He’s an idiot, but he’s my favorite idiot.”
“He’s my favorite idiot too.”
Theo leaves, and I’m alone on the porch, watching the stars come out. Logan emerges a few minutes later, dropping onto the swing beside me with a satisfied sigh.
“Everyone’s gone?”
“Everyone’s gone.”
“Good.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I like them. But I also like quiet.”
“You like me.”
“I like you most of all.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “Are you tired? We could go to bed.”
“Not yet.” I lean into him. “Tell me about the nursery again.”
“Again?”
“I like hearing about it.”
He smiles, that soft private smile that used to only appear in the dark.
“The crib is maple. Quilted maple, like the floors in the cottage. I built it with fixed sides - solid and safe - but the mattress platform adjusts. We can lower it as she grows, keep her from climbing out when she gets mobile.”
“Very practical.”
“I’m a practical man.” His hand moves to my belly, feeling the baby shift and roll.
“The changing table has built-in storage - drawers for diapers and things, a shelf for the creams and wipes. And the rocking chair is designed to support your lower back, because I read that’s important for nursing. ”
“You read that?”
“I read a lot of things.” He sounds almost defensive. “I want to be prepared.”
“You’re the most prepared father-to-be in the history of father-to-bes.”
“I’m the most anxious father-to-be in the history of father-to-bes. Preparation is how I cope.”
I turn my head to look at him. “You’re going to be a good dad, you know.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” I reach up to touch his face. “You’re already so careful with her. So thoughtful. Building her furniture, reading all those books, practicing diaper changes on that creepy doll Theo bought.”
“The doll is not creepy.”
“The doll is extremely creepy. It blinks.”
“It’s supposed to blink. It’s a training tool.”
“It’s a haunted training tool.” I kiss him, cutting off his defense of the terrifying doll. “But you practiced anyway. Because you wanted to be ready.”
“I want to be good at this,” he says quietly. “At being a father. At being a husband. I spent so long being bad at the things that matter - I want to get it right this time.”
“You will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.” I take his hand and press it to my belly, where the baby is doing something that feels like hiccups. “I know because you’re here. You’re present. You’re trying. That’s more than a lot of people manage.”
He’s quiet for a moment, feeling the baby move under his palm. Then: “I want to renew our vows.”
“I know. The vow renewal is happening.” I say it lightly, but his hand has gone still on my belly.
“I want it to be just us,” he says. “And the people who matter. No parents, no industry people, no one who watched us fail the first time.”
“That’s what I want too,” I say softly.
He ticks them off. “Just you and me and Theo and Bree and maybe Junie and definitely the goose.”
“The goose is non-negotiable,” I agree.
“I want to promise you things, Fran. Real promises, not the ones we made in that courthouse because we had to.” His voice roughens. “I want to tell you exactly what I’m committing to, and I want to mean every word.”
“Okay.” It’s all I can manage around the knot in my throat.
“And next week, when we move into the cottage, I want it to feel like the start of that. The nursery’s ready, the space is ready. It’s what I built it for.” He meets my eyes. “If you still want that.”
“I still want that.” I smile at him. “When you’re ready to propose. However you want to do it. I’m in.”
He pulls me closer, as close as the belly will allow, and we sit there on the porch swing while our breath fogs in the cold air and Gertrude does her evening patrol and the farm settles into the soft quiet of a winter night.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.” I turn my face into his shoulder.
“I’m going to be a good husband this time,” he says, like a vow he’s making to the dark.
“You already are one,” I tell him. “You have been for months.”
“A better one, then.” I feel him smile against my hair.
“Always room for improvement.” I poke his ribs. “You still leave your socks on the bathroom floor.”
“The socks are a work in progress.”
“They’ve been a work in progress for two years.”
“Some things take time.”
I laugh, and he laughs, and the baby does something that feels like agreement, or possibly gas, it’s hard to tell, and everything feels exactly right.
Imperfect, unfinished, and right anyway. In a way that two years ago, standing in that courthouse with a stranger, I never could have imagined.
***
The following week, we move into the cottage.
It takes two trips with the truck and one argument about where the couch should go, but by nightfall we’re standing in the nursery together, the one Logan built with his own hands, watching the last of the winter light fade through windows that face the farm. Our home now. Ready for her.