He looked genuinely shocked, as though the idea that I’d ever had a life outside of this one had never occurred to him. “You are home, TL.”
I laughed. “I have a condo.”
“Sell it.”
“I have a job.”
“Quit it.”
I looked down at my hand. “I have a fiancé.”
“Marry me.”
I smirked, but I could feel my heart racing. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my hand in his, my lips on his, my skin on his. I wanted to take his name and breathe his air and sing his songs. Forever. But saying that to someone you have known three days is generally considered bad form.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I want to marry you.”
“Ben, come on.”
He got down on his knee, right there on the sidewalk. “Annabelle,” he said, “I knew when you walked into that bar that I had written every love song of my life for you.” He softened a bit. “You’re it for me, TL. I want to spend the rest of my life making love and babies with you. I want to be there when you fall asleep and when you wake up, when you’re young and spry and when you’re old and feeble. I want to take care of you when you’re sick, be your shoulder to cry on when you’ve had a bad day, be the man who still thinks you’re that beautiful, young thing even when you’re ninety. I want to see your face when I’m taking my last breath and live one minute less than you so that I never have to be without you again.”
I am not an emotionally gushy person, but that last part got me. I thought of Lovey and the deep, forever love she had with D-daddy. She had known from the moment she saw him as a ten-year-old child, so why was I questioning that I knew now at twenty-two? Moreover, I had always said that the most important characteristic in my future husband was that, at ninety, I could prance around in a thong and he would still see my hot, twenty-something ass.
I smiled and, trying to ease the intensity of the moment, said, “So what you’re saying is that you don’t want me to go home right now?”
He stood up and gave me one of those kisses that, in no time at all, had become like oxygen to me. I had so many questions. “Where will we live? What will we tell people?”
He smiled. “It will all be all right if we’re together. Please marry me, Annabelle.”
I thought of my mother’s disapproving look, the disappointment Lovey would feel at me throwing away my so-called perfect life, the whispers all over town and the scandal of me marrying a man I barely knew. If Mom and Dad didn’t disown me and refuse to pay for it, people would be buying tickets to see this wedding. But now that I knew what it was like to feel this carefree, this in the moment, I never wanted to go back to the way things were. Maybe it was dangerous and maybe it was reckless. But that was how I felt. So I smiled back and kissed Ben again. I nodded, threw my arms around his neck and whispered, “I can’t imagine that I could ever love anyone like this. Of course I’ll marry you.”
And so I did.
Lovey
The Best Gift in Life
My momma always said that a woman’s most important job was taking care of her husband. And I had done that tirelessly from the day I walked down that aisle. But, at eighty-seven, packing, traveling and the mental strain of caring for a relatively helpless man were becoming quite a bit more taxing than they had once been. But it had all been worth it. For that half hour that Dan had seemed like his old self again, I would have traveled day in and day out for the rest of my fleeting time on this earth.
I thought about the photo of that day in Times Square, packaged tightly in my suitcase, surrounded by a cushion of clothing. I had the perfect spot for it, over the credenza in the den, right beside Dan’s chair, where we could look at it together all the time.
“You ready to get home, Lovey?” Annabelle asked, shutting off her phone for takeoff.
I nodded, closing my eyes, smelling the smells of home, feelingthe give of my mattress, hearing the whirr of the air-conditioning as it clicked on and shut off.
“Home,” I repeated. It truly was the sweetest word coming off my lips. Much like “naptime” had been when all my girls were young.
Home was Dan’s routine. Home was a revolving door of caregivers, our doctors down the street, the emergency room I knew, no worries about strokes or infections or tooth abscesses.
“You know, Annabelle,” I said, “as much as I hate it, I think this might be our last trip.”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that, Lovey. You and D-daddy love to travel so much.”
I smiled thinking of Dan, so dapper in his overcoat and top hat, holding my hand, walking through an airport, completely transformed, transported by being somewhere new. I turned to peek through the crack between the seats, almost expecting to see that same bright-eyed, shiny-skinned man he had been. When I turned, it was almost as if it was someone else sitting there, the sallow complexion, free from the suit he wore every day of our married life.
“We loved to travel,” I said. And it surprised me when “He doesn’t know where he is anymore” escaped from my lips.
Annabelle turned to look out the window, and I knew I had upset her. But pretending that things were all right didn’t change them. Sometimes the truth just is.
