“Well, maybe not all of them.”
She pours me a glass of water and then fills one for Jake. “Here, take it to him.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
She smiles. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”
“I know.”
She takes my face in her hands. Her fingers are cold from the water. “I like what I see,” she says.
“Me?”
“You’re doing good. Happy. And if you’re happy, that’s everything in the world to me.”
“He’s a good guy,” I say.
My mother motions me out of the kitchen; Jake is back at the door, struggling with a nightstand.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she says.
I move into Wilshire Corridor the last week of March. Mrs. Madden drops off cookies and brisket to celebrate my arrival.
“Your own Brisket Brigade,” Jake tells me. “And you didn’t even have to die first.”
He looks at me, wide-eyed, and then we both start laughing—rolling, belly-hearty sobs. Jake grabs on to the wall to steady himself.
It’s easy to tell Kendra then, too. Or, it’s easier. My voice still shakes, and I still don’t make direct eye contact, but it’s not as hard as I thought it would be. People want to be there.
I unpack my mismatched dishware into Jake’s kitchen, and my oversize towels into the bathroom. Murphy claims the spot by the window that gets the most sun.
Jake watches me set my trinkets—an ashtray from a trip to Portland, a Chinese famille rose porcelain box I bought on 1stDibs—on the coffee table, the mantel, any surface I can cover.
“You weren’t kidding,” Jake notes, handing me a glass of water. “You have a lot of stuff.”
“Online shopping is easy to do from anywhere.”
Jake nods. “Well, in that case,” he says, “bring on the tchotchke!”
Three weeks after we get settled into what is now our apartment—after I cram what I can into the office den and fill the living room with way too many lamps, Jake and I leave the dogs at home and drive out to Malibu to have dinner at Moonshadows on the water. We’re well into spring now, and the sun is setting later and later. As we drive out to the beach, the ocean on the left-hand side, I’m met with a revealing gratitude for this place, this city I call home.
When we arrive for dinner at 6:00 p.m., the sun is still high in the sky. Moonshadows hangs over the water—a glass-encased restaurant with a deck along the ocean. We get a table outside, right at the edge, so close that when the waves come in, we can feel the sea spray. I slip an old cashmere cardigan around my shoulders.
We order oysters and champagne and watch as the sky fades from brilliant blue to hazy shades of pink and lavender and tangerine. The beauty of the water, the proximity to this much nature, is so peaceful.
“Hey,” Jake says. “I wanted to ask you something.”
I know as soon as he says it. I have known for weeks, now. From when he told me he wanted to go to dinner in Malibu—the advance of the plan, the odd formality of deciding what and where we were eating, the fact that he confirmed I was still up for it on three separate occasions. But as I see him sitting across from me I realize it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that I knew,that I anticipated this, that I saw it coming. Nothing, exactly, can prepare you for when these moments arrive.
“Yes?”
Jake is wearing a white button-down and light jeans. He has on loafers, a gift from my father. His freckles are fully in bloom. He looks charming and handsome—his long ears and curved nose and bright blue eyes. All the little details of significance, of someone significant.
He takes my hand from across the table. My stomach clenches, thinking he might get down on one knee, but he doesn’t. He just holds my fingers in his palms—delicately and carefully.
“I love you,” he says. “And I told you before I’m not really in the business of casual. I hope I’ve proven to you that I want to be here, and that I am.”
I think about Jake getting me water every night before bed. I think about him putting my towel in the dryer if he knows I’m going to take a morning shower. Driving to my monthly bloodwork, now. All these small ways he shows he cares.
