Chapter 17 - The Question I Waited Six Years to Ask
I didn't rent a ballroom.
I didn't hire musicians.
I didn't tell the press.
I took Rosalind back to the airport.
Terminal 2.
She realized what I was doing the moment we entered.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am.”
“This is where you found me looking like I'd been awake for three days.”
“You had.”
“My hair was terrible.”
“It was.”
She punched my arm.
Oliver and Elliot were with us.
So were their teddy bear and a small blue suitcase.
Not the battered original.
That suitcase sat framed in my office now.
A reminder.
We walked toward the windows.
I stopped near the exact place where I'd seen her.
“Six years ago, people made decisions for us.”
Rosalind's eyes filled.
“I don't want anyone making this one except you.”
I knelt.
Then I took out the ring.
Oliver gasped dramatically even though he had helped choose it.
Elliot whispered loudly:
“Dad, you're supposed to ask now.”
Rosalind laughed through tears.
So I did.
“Rosalind Mercer, will you marry me?”
She made me wait three seconds.
They were the longest three seconds of my life.
“Yes.”
Oliver screamed.
Elliot applauded.
Several strangers nearby started clapping without having any idea who we were.
I slipped the ring onto her finger.
Then Rosalind leaned down.
“One condition.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“No Hawthorne Foundation ballroom wedding.”
“Agreed.”
“No eight-hundred-person guest list.”
“Agreed.”
“No swans.”
“I wasn't planning swans.”
“Your mother would.”
From behind us came a familiar voice.
“I heard that.”
Genevieve stood several yards away.
Rosalind stared at me.
“You invited her?”
“The boys did.”
Genevieve remained where she was.
She didn't intrude.
Rosalind looked at her.
Then slowly extended one hand.
“Come here.”
My mother approached.
It wasn't complete forgiveness.
It wasn't forgetting.
It was something more realistic.
A beginning.
And beginnings, I had learned, didn't need to erase what came before them.
May you like
They simply needed to be honest.
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