21. Nash
NASH
I waited on the porch with nothing left to do.
The house was finished. The trim gleamed white against siding I'd scrubbed and repainted a soft dove grey.
The windows caught the late afternoon light, clean enough to see through.
Lavender lined the walk where Rae had wanted it years ago.
The porch boards didn't creak anymore. I'd replaced every third one and reinforced the joists beneath.
Inside, the furniture from the storage unit filled the rooms again.
The couch we'd bought together our first year.
The oak table her grandmother had given us.
The lamp shaped like a heron she'd found at a thrift store.
I'd cleaned everything, repaired what needed it.
The living room walls were the soft grey she'd chosen but we'd never gotten around to finishing. I'd finished it.
And the second bedroom. The yellow room. I'd done that too.
My hands were sore. I looked down at the calluses that hadn't been there three months ago, at the cut on my thumb that hadn't healed right. I'd earned every mark. It didn't make me feel better. It just made the work real.
I heard the car before I saw it. My chest tightened. I stood up.
Rae's sedan came down the street and slowed in front of the house. She stopped at the curb, engine still running, and I watched her through the windshield. She was staring at the house. Her hands were on the wheel. She didn't move.
I stayed on the porch. If she was going to leave again, I wasn't going to stop her.
The engine cut off. She sat there another moment, then opened the door and got out. She had something in her hand, a small square of paper, folded. She looked at the house, at the porch, at the lavender, then at me.
"You finished it," she said.
"Yeah."
She walked up the path slowly, checking every detail. The mailbox. The flower beds. The porch rail I'd sanded down. When she reached the steps, she stopped.
"Can I go inside?" she asked.
"It's your house," I said.
She flinched a little at that, but she climbed the steps and I opened the door for her.
She walked in and I followed, keeping my distance.
She stood in the middle of the living room, turning slowly, taking it in.
The grey walls. The refinished floors. The furniture arranged exactly the way it used to be.
"You brought everything back," she said quietly.
"I did."
She walked to the couch and ran her hand along the back of it, tracing the worn spot on the armrest where she used to curl up with a book. She touched the heron lamp. She looked at the table.
"I thought it was all gone," she said.
"I kept it."
She turned to face me, and her eyes were shining. "Nash?—"
"There's more," I said. "The other room. I finished it."
Her throat worked. She knew which room I meant. She looked down the hall, toward the closed door of the second bedroom, and I saw her fingers move to her left hand, to the empty place where her ring used to be.
"I can't," she said.
"You can," I said. "I did it for you."
She stood there a long moment, then walked down the hall. I stayed in the living room and listened to her footsteps stop in front of the door. The hinges creaked. I heard her breath catch.
I gave her a minute, then followed.
She was standing in the doorway, staring into the yellow room.
I'd repainted it the same soft yellow she'd done herself all those years ago, hoping.
I'd refinished the floors, replaced the baseboards, cleaned the windows until the evening light poured through them.
I'd brought in the things from the storage unit.
The white crib we'd bought and never assembled.
The rocking chair her mother had given us.
The folded blankets that had stayed in their packaging for two years.
The stuffed rabbit I'd found buried at the bottom of a box.
Rae stepped into the room slowly. She touched the crib rail. She sat down in the rocking chair and put her hands on the armrests, and the chair creaked as she rocked forward and back, just once.
Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the folded square of paper she'd been carrying. She unfolded it carefully, smoothing out the creases, and set it on the windowsill where the light hit it.
The sonogram.
I hadn't seen it in two years. I stepped closer, and the image was exactly the way I remembered it. The grainy black and white. The tiny curved shape in the center, barely there. The date printed in the corner. Rae had taken it when she left the penthouse. I hadn't known she still had it.
"I couldn't leave it behind," she said quietly.
I stared at the sonogram, and everything I'd been holding back for two years rose up in my chest and lodged in my throat. I couldn't speak.
"We never talked about it," Rae said. Her voice shook. "Not once. Not since Denver."
Denver. The hotel room. The cramping that started in the morning and got worse. My phone on silent in meetings all day while she called and called. Coming back at half past nine to find her on the bathroom floor, pale and shaking, and knowing it was over.
"I didn't know how," I said.
"Neither did I."
She stood up from the rocking chair and turned to face me, and her eyes were wet.
"I lost the baby," she said. The words came out raw.
"I lost our baby, and you weren't there, and I didn't know how to tell you it was happening because you never answered, and when you finally came back it was already over and you asked if I needed a hospital and I said no, and that was it.
We never said it out loud. We just—we acted like it didn't happen. "
"Rae—"
"I needed you," she said, and her voice broke. "I needed you and you were in a meeting."
The guilt hit me like a fist to the chest. "I know," I said. "God, Rae, I know. I'm so sorry."
"You sat on the edge of the tub with your hand on my back and asked if I was okay, and I said yes because I didn't know what else to say, and you believed me." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "You believed me, and we never talked about it again."
"I should have been there," I said. My voice was shaking.
"I should have answered the phone. I should have left the meeting.
I should have stayed with you." I stopped.
My throat was too tight. "I should have been there, and I wasn't, and I can't take that back.
I can't fix it. I can't give you those hours back, or that day, or any of the days after when I let you carry it alone. "
She pressed her hand to her mouth, and her shoulders shook.
I took a step toward her. "I loved that baby," I said.
"I loved the idea of being a father. I loved watching you get excited about this room and the little clothes you kept bringing home.
When we lost it, I didn't know how to grieve with you because I didn't think I had the right.
You were the one who went through it. You were the one in pain.
I thought if I brought it up, I'd be making it about me when it was your loss. "
"It was ours," she said, her voice fierce. "It was ours, Nash."
"I know that now." I stepped closer. I wanted to reach for her but I didn't know if I was allowed. "I know I got that wrong. I got everything wrong."
She wiped at her face, and we stood there in the yellow room with the sonogram on the windowsill between us, and I felt the weight of two years of silence pressing down on both of us.
"I love you," I said. The words came out hoarse.
"I've loved you since the day I met you on this porch seven years ago, and I never stopped, not for a single second, even when I was screwing everything up.
Even when I was choosing work over you and telling myself it was temporary.
Even when you left and I deserved it. I love you, Rae.
I love you so much it's the only thing I'm sure of anymore. "
She was crying harder now, and I kept going.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry for every day I wasn't there.
I'm sorry for every time I picked up my phone instead of listening to you.
I'm sorry for the meetings and the trips and the late nights and the years I spent building something I thought mattered more than us.
I'm sorry for Denver. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me most, and I'm sorry I let you carry the grief alone. "
"Nash—"
"And I know words aren't enough," I said.
"I know saying I'm sorry doesn't fix what I broke.
I know it doesn't give you back the marriage we should have had or the baby we lost or the years I wasted.
But I'm not going to stop at words. I'm going to keep doing the work.
I'm going to keep showing up. I'm going to prove to you every single day that I've changed, because saying it once isn't enough. It'll never be enough."
She stared at me, her chest rising and falling with uneven breaths.
"What do you need from me?" I asked. "Tell me what it'll take, Rae. Tell me what you need, and I'll do it."
She shook her head slowly, and for a second I thought she was going to say nothing. But then she took a breath and steadied herself.
"I need a husband who stops moving long enough to stay," she said. Her voice was quiet but clear. "I need us to live here, in this house, on this street, in Cibolo Heights. Not in the penthouse. Not in whatever city your next deal takes you to. Here."
"Okay," I said.
"I need you to choose me when your work asks for you instead," she said. "Every time. Not just once. Not just when it's convenient. Every time."
"Okay."
"And I need you to see my work," she said. "I need you to credit it. I've been at Ruben's shop for months, and I'm good at what I do, and I need you to respect that it matters. Not as a hobby. Not as something I'm doing to pass the time. It matters."
"I know it does," I said.
She blinked, surprised, but she kept going. "And I need a marriage. A real one. Not a piece of paper. Not something we do when we have time left over. I need a partner who's actually present."
"Yes," I said. "All of it. Yes."
She searched my face, looking for doubt, looking for hesitation. She wouldn't find any.
"I'm not negotiating," I said. "I'm not going to justify anything or tell you I've already started. You want me here, I'm here. You want me to choose you, I'll choose you. You want credit for your work, you've got it. You want a marriage, we'll build one. Together. The right way this time."
Her breath hitched, and I saw something shift in her expression. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But belief.
I closed the space between us and took her face in my hands, carefully, like I was afraid she'd break. Her skin was wet with tears and warm under my palms.
"I love you," I said again, quieter this time.
"I love you too," she whispered.
I kissed her. Soft at first, tentative, then deeper when she kissed me back and her hands came up to grip my shirt. She tasted like salt and hope, and I felt something in my chest unlock that had been clenched tight for months. When we broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
"Rae," I said, and I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ring.
She went still. Her eyes dropped to my hand, to the small gold band with the diamond I'd saved three months to buy seven years ago. The ring I'd proposed with on the porch outside. The ring I'd found on the kitchen counter the morning she left and had been carrying ever since.
"You kept it," she said.
"Every day," I said. "I've had it in my pocket every single day since you left it behind."
Her hand came up to cover her mouth, and fresh tears spilled over.
I knelt down. Right there in the yellow room, on the floor I'd refinished, surrounded by the furniture we'd bought for a future we'd lost, I looked up at her and held out the ring.
"Marry me," I said. "Marry me again, Rae. Let me be the husband I should have been the first time. Let me prove to you I can be the man you deserve. Marry me and let me spend the rest of my life making up for the years I got wrong."
She was crying openly now, but she was smiling too, and she nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I'll marry you."
I held out the ring, and she took it from my hand. She didn't wait for me to put it on her. She slid it onto her left ring finger herself, and it fit exactly the way it always had, and the bare place she'd been touching for months wasn't bare anymore.
I stood up and pulled her into my arms, and she buried her face in my chest and held on tight.
We stood there in the yellow room as the evening light poured through the windows, and I thought about the baby we'd lost and the marriage we'd broken and the years it had taken to get here.
It didn't feel triumphant. It didn't feel tidy.
It felt like the beginning of something fragile and hard-won, something we'd have to protect and build every single day.
But it felt like ours.
She pulled back just enough to look up at me, and I saw the ring on her hand, and I felt the weight of her trust settling over me like a vow.
We had a long way to go. But we'd start here, together, in the house I'd finished for her, in the yellow room we'd painted for a future we'd lost and might someday, carefully, try for again.
She was wearing the ring. That was enough for now.