The escalator takes her all the way up, all the way out of view.
Once more, it’s just me and Jonah.
I put my hand on my son's shoulder.
“Come on, bud,” I say. “Let's go home.”
We walk back toward the parking lot. Jonah's hand finds mine and holds it, his small face very serious. We make it about fifty yards before Jonah says, “Daddy?”
He never calls me “Daddy” anymore. He announced one day that he was too grown up for it and it was “Dad” now, so I know something big is coming.
He asks, “Why did Sadie say no? When you asked her to stay?”
I don’t have an answer for him.
My mind flashes through every conversation about it Sadie and I have had since June. Every moment I got close to asking her. The pool, the lake, the porch swing last night, a thousand other times.
The moment I finally told her why I wasn't asking her.
I just…
I never actuallyaskedher to stay.
I did the same bossy cowboy thing she told me I was doing that first day I met her, before I knew what she was going to do to my life but already had a feeling it would be seismic.
Not once did I just ask her the simple question and let her answer it herself.
Because I was too fucking afraid. Afraid she’d say no. Afraid she’d say yes and learn to regret it.
I've written a hundred songs about love and loss. I thought I knew what both felt like.
I had no idea.
None of it, not a single word I ever put to music, until the songs we wrote together, comes close to what it feels like to bewith her. None of it comes close to the heartbreak of watching her walk away from me.
But standing here in a parking lot with my son looking up at me, I know one thing only. I would rather lay my whole heart on the line and have her say no than spend the rest of my life wondering.
I look down at Jonah. “I didn’t ask,” I say simply.
He's looking back up at me with the classic Rhodes green eyes and my stubborn jaw and the disappointed look of a kid who just realized his dad doesn’t know everything.
“Dad,” he says. “You have to ask.”
I'm already turning around.
“Hold my hand,” I tell him. “And keep up.”
We run.
Chapter 42
Pop the Question
WALKER
The departures hall is busier than it was five minutes ago. I come through the doors with Jonah's hand in mine, both of us at a dead run. I swing him up on my hip and take the escalator two steps at a time.
Upstairs, I scan the space. Eyes moving across the security lines, the families with their luggage, the coffee shop, the gate displays. Looking for that flash of copper hair.
