28. Fran #3
“You don’t have to use it. It’s just - I wanted to make something. For this. For you.”
“I’m going to use it.” My voice comes out rough. Damn hormones. “I’m going to keep seeds in it. And notes. And probably a ridiculous number of things you’ll find sentimental and I’ll pretend are practical.”
“Notes?”
“Notes.” I set the box carefully on my belly, where the baby promptly kicks it. “For you. For her. Little things I think of and forget to say out loud.”
“You could just say them out loud.”
“I could.” I consider it. “But then you wouldn’t have the fun of finding them. And I wouldn’t have the fun of watching you find them.”
“You’re going to hide notes for me to find.”
“I’m going to hide notes and you’re going to act surprised when you find them. It’s a system.”
He laughs, bright and startled, and kisses my forehead. “I’ll work on my surprised face.”
“You do that.” I hand him back the box. “Put this somewhere safe. Then bring me the danish and whatever’s left of the tea. I’m starving.”
“The tea’s cold.”
“The tea’s fine. Go.”
He goes. He comes back with the pastries and my tea, which has gone fully lukewarm, which I drink anyway because he remembered to bring it.
We eat on the couch like people with no manners, the morning sun climbing higher, making everything glow through the glass.
The jewelry box sits between us, waiting to be filled.
“So,” I say. “We’re getting re-married.”
“We’re renewing our vows.”
“Same thing.”
“Slightly different legal implications.”
“You would know about the legal implications.” I poke his ribs. “Where do you want to do it? The cottage is small for a ceremony, even a tiny one.”
“The greenhouse.” He says it like he’s been thinking about it. “An arbor would fit right at the far end. I can build it next week. We can bring chairs from the cottage and the farmhouse.”
“January in a greenhouse.” I consider it. “We’ll need the heaters running the whole time.”
“Already planned for it. And the string lights are still up from this morning.”
“You’ve been thinking about this. And you think we can get all that ready before this baby makes an entrance?”
“I can try.” He kisses my forehead. “Small wedding. Just the people who matter. No parents.”
“No parents,” I agree. “Theo for you?”
“Theo for me. Bree for you?”
“Bree and maybe Junie. And Gertrude, obviously.”
“Obviously. The goose is essential.”
I smile, snuggling closer despite the awkward angle of my belly. “What are you going to say? In your vows?”
“I haven’t written them yet.”
“You have two weeks.”
“I have ideas.” He’s quiet for a moment. “You’re in all of them, if that helps.”
“That’s not a preview.”
“You don’t get a preview. You get ambushed in front of witnesses like everyone else.” He traces a finger along my jaw. “I’ll tell you this much. It starts with your brain, and it does not go easy on me.”
“Flatterer.”
“Truth-teller.” He kisses me softly. “There’s a section on your stubbornness. It’s long.”
“I’m very stubborn.”
“You’re magnificently stubborn. It’s one of your best qualities.”
I feel tears pricking at my eyes again. “Keep talking like that and I’m going to be a mess at the ceremony.”
“You’re supposed to be a mess at the ceremony. It’s traditional.”
“I hate crying in public.”
“Then we’ll make sure you have tissues. Lots of tissues.”
We lie there in the warm gold light, surrounded by flowers I grew and a future I never expected to choose, and I find myself looking at the box again. The dahlia inlaid in purpleheart. The ranunculus in figured maple. The zinnia.
“The joints are invisible,” I say, tracing the edge where the woods meet. “I can’t even feel a seam.”
“Took me three tries to get that right.” He sounds quietly proud. “The purpleheart kept wanting to split.”
“It’s beautiful.” I turn it in my hands, watching the light catch the grain. “The kind of thing you keep forever.”
“That’s the idea.”
I think about what I want to put in it. Small things. Important things.
“The hospital bracelet,” I say. “When she comes. I’m going to keep it in here. And whatever she hands me first, even if it’s a rock or a leaf or something ridiculous.”
“First flower she picks.”
“First flower she picks.” I trace the carved dahlia petals. “This is going to be full of ridiculous things within a year.”
“Good.” He pulls me closer. “That’s what it’s for.”
“Thank you.” I tilt my head up to kiss him. “For making something that’s going to hold all of it.”
We stay until hunger of a more ordinary kind drives us toward the rest of the pastries. I sit wrapped in the less ruined part of the blanket, eating a croissant and watching Logan clean up the evidence of his elaborate setup with the same hands that just held me through choosing.
“You’re going to have to tell me how you managed all this,” I say. “The lights, the heaters, the timing. I didn’t hear anything.”
“I came out here last night after you fell asleep. Set up most of it then.”
“And the flowers? The ones on the table?”
“Cut those this morning, before I woke you.” He coils a string of lights with careful hands. “Junie showed me which ones were ready. I didn’t want to mess up your inventory.”
“My inventory is very important.”
“I know. That’s why I asked.” He grins at me over his shoulder. “I’m learning.”
“You’re learning,” I agree. “Slowly, but you’re learning.”
“Hey.”
“What? It’s true.”
“It’s also rude.”
“I am thirty-eight weeks pregnant. I am allowed to be rude. I am also allowed to have been thoroughly proposed to among my own paperwhites.” I polish off the croissant and reach for a danish. “What’s still on the list? Officiant, chairs, what else?”
“Someone to officiate. Food. Music, maybe?” He counts the list off on his fingers.
“Junie’s cousin is a licensed officiant,” I say. “She did a wedding last summer.”
“That works,” he says, filing it away.
“And we could do the food ourselves,” I add. “Potluck style. Everyone brings something.”
“That works too.” He’s watching me plan our wedding like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen.
I watch him work, this man I am choosing to marry again, and I feel a surge of something that might be contentment or might just be love.
“I want to write my own vows too,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“I have things I want to say. About you.” I pause. “About us.”
“I’d like that.” He comes to sit beside me, stealing a bite of my danish. “Write whatever you want. Say whatever feels true.”
“What if it’s embarrassing?”
“Then we’ll be embarrassed together.” He kisses my cheek. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Facing things together?”
“I guess it is.”
We finish breakfast as the sun climbs higher, the tea gone, the last crumbs scattered between us. Then we walk back to the cottage hand in hand, the ring catching light with every step, the frozen field crunching under our boots.
“I need a dress,” I say. “A real one. Not what I wore to the courthouse.”
“Bree’s going to have opinions.”
“Bree’s going to have a spreadsheet.” I squeeze his hand. “I should probably call her before she finds out from someone else and shows up with fabric swatches.”
“She’s going to cry.”
“She’s absolutely going to cry. And then she’s going to take over, and I’m going to let her, because I don’t have the energy to fight a woman who cares that much.”
The cottage comes into view, small and solid and ours. The baby rolls under my hand.
“We should make a list,” I say. “Everything that still needs doing. I’ll forget otherwise.”
“I’ll write it down.” He pulls me closer, arm around my shoulders, careful of the belly. “You dictate. I’ll panic quietly.”
“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve said all morning.”
“I proposed at dawn in a greenhouse. I’m allowed a few practical moments.”
I laugh, leaning into him as we walk, the cottage getting closer with every step. There’s a list to make and a dress to find and a baby who could arrive any day now, and none of it feels like too much. It just feels like what comes next.