“Is it? The outcome that you want?”
My chest tightened. We hadn’t talked any real specifics about the future. The conversation after field day was too much of an Emme fuck-around to count as tangible plans. All I knew at this moment was that we weren’t running up to a deadline anymore. It shouldn’t have blindsided me but her question took me to the ground. I was desperate to hold on to her as long as I could. Any little piece I could get, I’d keep.
“If you do, yeah,” I said. Giving her the answer she wanted was the only goal. “But I need some time with you first. A few years just for us.”
She nodded slowly. “I think about it a lot because I know getting pregnant probably won’t be easy for me, but I also know I’m nowhere near ready. I’m barely a functional adult.” She pointed toward me with an orange segment. “I like what you said about a few years for us. Tell Gramma CeCe we’re not in a hurry. The stable is locked and the horses are secure.”
Pressure gathered behind my breastbone. I had to work hard at swallowing down a rock of emotion. “Okay,” I said, almost to myself. I had to replay her words a few times because there was no way she’d just decided to wait a couple of years to have kids with me. Withme. That we’d be together in a couple of years. Me and Emme. No way. “Okay.”
“You should call them,” she said. “Tell them the news.”
“They’re obsessed with you. They can’t wait for me to bring you home.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“Because I don’t get enough of you as it is. As I’ve previously stated, I don’t want to share.”
“That’s not the reason.” She gave me a knowing glance before going back to her tangerine.
“It is the reason. My schedule has been packed all fucking spring and I’m lucky if I get three consecutive nights with you a week. Even when I do, we have to go to Nantucket and bridal showers and whatever the fuck else.”
“Okay. I’ll give you that. But you don’t like going home and it has nothing to do with me.”
“I don’t,” I admitted. Emme motioned for me to expand on that. I heaved out a sigh. “Nothing in that house has changed in fifteen years. It’s like going back in time and I hate it.”
She nodded as if she understood, and I knew she did. She’d been there for me through the worst of it.
“I think—no, I know my mother likes it that way,” I said. “There’s a comfort in keeping things the same. Her memories are baked into it—but that’s the problem. Those memories kill me. They’re suffocating.” I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “Everyone else loves it there. They love stepping inside the memories.” I shook my head as the sounds of breathing and heart rate monitors rang through my mind. All these years later, the first thing I still noticed when I went home was the silence. The machines weren’t beeping and the oxygen compressor wasn’t whirring and I was hit with the truth all over again that he was gone. “I’m the only one who suffocates.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. There’s no right way to experience grief.” Emme set aside her tangerines and crossed the aisle to climb into my lap. “Would it help if I was there with you?”
“Maybe. Yeah.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and let myself relax. “You really think we should tell them today?”
“Let me put it this way,” she said. “If you don’t come around to the idea on your own, I’m going back to my seat and staying there for the rest of the flight.”
I kissed her forehead. “You’re vicious.”
After some debate, we settled on dropping one of the photos Ines took during the ceremony in the family chat with our announcement, a note about a big wedding to come next spring or early summer, and a promise to visit soon. I didn’t specify a location for that visit.
“Prepare yourself,” I murmured as I sent the message.
Emme curled into me, her eyes on the screen. The responses started pouring in immediately.
Claudia: IT’S HAPPENING
Claudia: and it didn’t even require some light breaking and entering
Chloe: holy shit what
Mom:
Amber: tell her we feel like she’s already part of our family and we love her so much!
Gramma CeCe: Congratulations, my boy. We’re so happy for you both. Give that sweet girl our love.
Claudia: is it too soon to ask if I’m going to be a bridesmaid?
Ruthie: yes
