Epilogue
Three Months Later
Chase
“She on her way?”
“Lilly is about to drop her off.” I cut off my phone call with Greg and stuffed the phone in my pocket. My hands smoothed down the front of my dress shirt and I fought back nerves of how tonight was going to go. It was the first night Erica and I were both going to be away from Charlotte, but Max and Alexa were watching her, while we celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary.
I had prepared myself for tonight and the surprise I had for Erica.
One year was the paper anniversary, so I took it to the next step, giving her something a little more than just a sheet of paper or a book. With Charlotte coming along and being here, the plan of publishing my poetry book had been put on hold, until now.
It wasn’t quite a book, but the next best thing.
I had taken everything I had told Erica I wanted out of the journey I had created with words. My words, her photos, and that’s what I had to show her tonight.
I stepped outside of the gallery that I had the exhibit set up in and waited on the curb where I saw Lilly’s car headed toward me. She pulled up to the curb and I opened the door to Erica, getting out of the car in a little black dress and black kitten heels. It was simple enough but still took my breath away. After having Charlotte, a lot of her curves settled in and I found myself craving them with every hip squeeze. It reminded me every time of what Erica had given me in life and what we had created together.
“You look gorgeous, peaches.” I grabbed her hand, helping her step over the curb. I waved to Lilly as I walked Erica up to the front doors of the gallery.
“Where are we?”
“One of the galleries downtown.”
I led her inside, where the lights were dimmed and the overheads above the photos that lined the walls were turned off.
I turned Erica around and looked down at her, taking her face in my hands.
“I wanted to show you something no one else has seen. Something I’ll only show anyone else if you want to, but for now, it’s just ours. Every single moment of tonight and our lives is just ours.”
I pulled out the small remote I had in my pocket and turned the lights on. I placed my hand on Erica’s back and guided her to the first photo. It was of the park we had gone to when we were younger and printed on it was a poem about our childhood.
I said nothing as I guided her to each photo of our lives, showing her the high school I went to, her school, both of our colleges. I heard her gasp when she saw not only the photo she had taken of me at the airport when we were eighteen, but a photo I had forgotten I had taken of her. Then we came to a photo of what The Ink Well used to look like to a photo of the current office building we worked in.
We rounded off to a side wall where I watched as a tear slipped down Erica’s face and she took a deep breath, reading the poem that was on a photo of Old Mills and then one that was on a quick snapshot of the tree house I took her up to.
“These are beautiful, Chase.”
“There’s one more.”
I pulled her toward the pillar in the middle of the room. It was a panoramic photo at the top of Stone Mountain. It had been from the first time we had climbed it together. I remembered thinking of how big of an accompaniment it was, but our life together was an even bigger one.
On this photo was the poem I had read Erica in Savannah.
Keeping You.
The name of the poem and the photo were next to it and a sob broke free from Erica this time.
“Chase. This is all too much.”
She turned around and buried her face in my chest and I held her close to me.
“This is so much better than the gift I had for you.” Erica pulled away and looked up at me. She reached into the purse she had slung over her shoulder, taking out a small book and handing it to me. It was a simple bound book with no title on the front.
“I had no idea what you would have wanted it called, but I figured you seeing it in book print would be enough to push you to finally publish it. Excuse or not with having a daughter. This was your dream, Chase.”
I flipped open the book to see the poems that lined the walls adorned cream pages. My words were printed onto pages and bound into a book that I could pick up at any time and read.
