"He's doing a great job."
She smiles. That specific morning smile, the one before she's fully armored up for the day — soft around the eyes, a little slower. I have been studying this smile for twelve months and I am not close to done.
I bring her coffee to the bench and sit next to her while she finishes with her boots.
"How are you feeling," I ask.
"Tired. Good." She takes the coffee. "Ask me again at ten when I've had two of these."
From the bedroom comes the sound of Macie finding her shoes, which involves pulling everything else out of the closet first and narrating each item as it lands on the floor. A boot. Her stuffed rabbit. What sounds like an entire box of crayons.
Mila tips her head against my shoulder. I put my arm around her.
One year ago, she walked into my festival with a toddler on her hip and my own eyes looking back at me and I have spent twelve months learning the shape of this life — the morning routine, the story voice, the way Macie's tantrums peak and break, the specific sound of Mila's laugh when something is actually funny versus when she's being polite. I have carried a ring in my jacket pocket since February.
Tonight, at the bonfire, I'm going to ask her.
I'm not nervous. I've known the answer since the moment a two-year-old grabbed my finger and didn't let go.
Macie appears in the doorway holding one shoe and the bear and a single crayon.
"Ready," she announces.
"You have one shoe," I say.
She looks down. Looks back up. "Ready foroneshoe."
Mila makes a sound against my shoulder that is absolutely a laugh she's trying to swallow.
"Go get the other one," I say.
Macie sighs with her whole body — the weight of it, the profound inconvenience — and turns around and goes back.
Mila lifts her head and looks at me. The morning light is coming through the kitchen window and catching the dust motes and the line of rocks on the sill and the general comfortable wreckage of a house that has people in it.
"You're smiling," she says.
"I know."
"What."
"Nothing," I say. "Go get your daughter's shoe."
She looks at me for another second. Then she gets up, still smiling, and goes to help Macie find the other shoe, and I sit on the bench with my coffee and listen to the two of them in the back room — Mila's patient voice, Macie's running commentary, the thump of something else falling out of the closet.
I finish my coffee. I put the ring in my jacket pocket.
We go to the festival together as a family.
I've had the ring in my jacket pocket since February and it still surprises me every time my hand finds it there, like my body keeps forgetting it made this decision months ago.
The festival takes up the whole day. Macie rides my shoulders past every booth, pointing at things she wants and things she's only pretending to want because pointing is fun.
By six, Macie's crashed — sun-drunk, bear clutched under one arm, rubbing her eyes with a fist that's more dirt than hand. We drop her at Maple's for the night. Maple takes one look at my face and gets a knowing smirk she doesn't bother hiding.
"Have fun," she says, entirely too pleased with herself, and I have no idea how she knows, except that everyone in this town seems to know things about my life before I do.
The bonfire's already roaring when we walk down. I've got Mila's hand in mine and I can't get my thumb to stop moving against her palm — small circles, restless, a tell I didn't know I had until she calls it out.
