The room is painfully quiet except for our daughter letting out a small coo.
Gracie keeps her eyes set on me and hesitantlyaccepts the dreidel. She doesn’t even blink once. Maybe she realizes what is about to happen.
Everyone here knows what is about to happen except the woman who a few seconds ago looked perplexed but now seems to grasp the situation. I asked for Hudson’s permission at Thanksgiving, and then my dad helped me pick out the ring a few weeks ago. Call me traditional.
She sets the dreidel on the table and spins it. It feels as though everyone is holding their breath.
It lands on the table, and she studies it, trying to make sense, but then she sees it. A small crack. My cheeks tighten from a warm smile developing on my mouth. Her face blooms with a happiness that I haven’t yet seen on her before.
She reaches down to touch the pieces that are broken and to shovel out the ring that is meant only for her.
She holds it up.
“Ohhh, that’s why she needed the dreidel.” My brother snaps his fingers. “Should have clued me in on this plan.”
I don’t give him even a glare, instead lolling my head to the side for a millisecond.
“Read the room. Shut up,” Tyler mumbles to my brother and swats him.
Silence returns, with all eyes on us. This is my moment.
Sliding off my chair, I get down on one bent knee. “You’ll always be the greatest holiday present. Will you marry me?”
Her face floods with emotion. Her eyes water and glisten, only making her more beautiful in this very moment.
“What the hell.” Her eyes drop to the ring between her fingers.
My heart begins to pound so hard that I almost hear it in my ears, and I feel the room get smaller. Her eyes follow my every move.
“Are you crazy?” she nearly scolds me.
What?Oh shit.
I sweep my eyes across the room and see concerned faces.
“Asking you to marry me in a creative holiday way. How is that crazy?”
“The dreidel might never have broken, and then the ring would be stuck forever! Tell me this isn’t my great-grandmother’s ring that was passed down generations all the way back to when they lived on a Shtetel and the neighbor played a violin.” She is dead serious.
I stare at her blankly. “That’s Fiddler on the Roof, not your fifth-grade family genealogy report,” I comment defensively.
“So full of wisdom, that movie.” Shaw sets his hand on his heart.
Gracie holds my gaze for a second, and I’m reminded of how sharp she is. Because slowly the corner of Gracie’s mouth begins to stretch because she’s playing with me.
“Hmm, maybe I should hear the question again,” she encourages and bites back her wide smile itching to escape.
Phew.
I interlink my fingers with her hand hanging low with the ring. “Gracie Arrows, will you marry me?”
Her eyes pierce through me and darts her love straight into my heart. “Yes. I’ll be your wife.”
Elation fills me, and my grin is wide. I stand to slip the ring on her finger, and the room erupts in noise and a mazel tov. Gracie throws her arms around my neck. “I’m going to be your wife.” She kisses me, and I kiss her back with reverence that is respectable enough for the room.
The next few minutes are a blur. The kisses, the congratulations, the thumbs-up from my future father-in-law, and my brother grinning because he’s happy for me and knows I will forgive him for ruining the scene… on several occasions.
I have a fiancée, the best gift, and I don’t even think I was on Santa’s nice list this year.
