“You said you wantedcasual, Win.”
“You really need to stop listening to me,” I say, tears springing freeagain.
“Noted,” Bo says, smirking. He takes a long breath, steadier this time, as he searches my eyes. “Every day forweeksafterward, I thought about you. I thought about your smile. Your laugh. Your eyes… your mouth. I came close to asking Caleb for your number, but I was scared. I was scared after everything with Cora, with my cancer… with all of it, that I wasn’t enough. That I wouldn’t be enough to get you from casual to more.”
I shake my head,refusingto accept that he ever felt that way, wishing I’d known, and place my hand in his, squeezing tightly.
“Then, on one random day in December, you texted me. I felt like I’d won the lottery.”
I laugh, rolling my eyes, as Bo brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my wrist.
“Ever since then, I’ve fallen deeper and deeper in love with you. Your heart, your kindness, your strength, your joy, your selflessness.” He reaches around me, dropping the bandanna back into the box along with the rest of our beautiful, if unconventional story.
“Bo, I…”
He turns, reaching into the couch again, smiling mischievously. “One more thing…”
“I’m searching the couch from now on,” I say, wiping a tear off my cheek. “You’ll have to find a new hiding spot.”
He turns back around, his palm covering something he’s placed in his lap. Something, I suspect, that’s shiny and in a smaller box than the one sitting next to me. I put a hand on my stomach involuntarily, feeling the baby kick with the quickened rhythm of my heart.
“Bo,” I choke out.
“You are my soul’s purpose, Win. To know you, to love you, to build a family with you, to spend every day taking care of you, to watch you shine and get all the good things you deserve out of this life.” Bo ducks his head and reveals the small leather box in his hands, opening it to show me the most stunning, simple gold band.
“Yes,” I say involuntarily, looking up to him. “Yes,” I repeat.
He chuckles lightly, shaking his head. “Can I ask first?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry.” I wave him on, smiling as tears roll over the corners of my upturned lips.
“Winnifred June McNulty, love of my life and mother of my child, will youpleasemarry me?”
“I will,” I say, throwing myself at him. “I will, and Iwillbe proposing back to you.”
“It’s only fair,” Bo says, his lips trembling against my own.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, kissing him sloppily as he attempts to slip the ring on my finger. “But it’s far too small, honey. I’mverypregnant.”
“We’ll get it resized when we put a stone on it,” he says, holding it out to me.
I slide the ring onto the ring finger on my right hand, which it’sfartoo big for.
“It was my mom’s,” Bo says, bringing my right hand between us, twiddling it with his thumb. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Absolutely,” I say, punctuated by a kiss. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
For the rest of the night, I wear the ring on my smaller thumb, refusing to take it off. We eat leftover food from the baby shower in our pyjamas and dance to Frank Sinatrain the dining room afterward, my belly poking out between us.
All evening I look around the house, look at my fiancé, look at my belly, smiling with so much gratitude it’s quite nearly painful. Thinking that I cannot wait for whatever comes next. HowcapableI feel to face it all with Bo at my side.
August Durand was born at 11:56pm on July thirty-first, only four minutes shy of her namesake. Her mother decided on the middle name Sarah, and her father decided that he’d never witnessed anything as formidable as his wife-to-be during labour. It was a short but intense delivery—having barely made it to the hospital in time—but they held hands through it all and welcomed their daughter with tears streaking down their smile-risen cheeks. As a matter of fact, the new parents cried far more than little August as the nurses placed her across her mother’s chest for the very first time. They lay side by side, curled around one another inside the narrow hospital bed, and looked down at their daughter with awe—completely enraptured by every perfect piece of her. Her cute, if a little purple, feet. Her tiny, adorable hands that they couldn’t stop reaching for. Her bald head and dark eyes, leaving them guessing at who she’ll most resemble. They speculated aloud to one another in those first few moments that no baby had been or will ever be as wise as August. They watched her as she seemingly took in her surroundings, her eyes opened wide and surprisingly aware as she lifted her head with muscles that shocked even the nurses.She’s smart like her father, her mother said quietly.She’s strong like her mother, her father said loudly to anyone who would listen.We love you, they whispered to her over and over and over again.Thank you, her father added, kissing her mother.I did it, her mother whispered, kissing him back.
EPILOGUE
Ten Years Later
“Gus!”Ishout,trippingover her purple Converse on my way through the door. “Your shoes… again!”
