Except there was one problem preventing me from relaxing. One problem that was starting to fester and gnaw at my mind, reminding me of something I didn’t want to face: our time here was running out. This was our last full day in Maui, and then our flight tomorrow would take us all the way back to Freya, Washington, the closest city to Rockwood with an airport. From there, I had no idea what came next. Neither one of us had spoken about it or referred to it in the slightest. What would we do when we got back to Washington—especially now that we had come this far together? Now that he had confessed the truth of his feelings to me in a cemetery—now that I had confessed the truth to both him and myself in a dark bedroom.
“What are you thinking?” River was looking at me with his head tilted down, and he combed his fingers through my hair. “You look concerned.”
My troubled thoughts had apparently been shaping my mouth into a frown, my eyes into a squint. “I don’t want this to end,” I said. “I’m afraid of what comes next.”
“Why are you afraid?”
“I guess because . . . I guess I just don’t understand what comes next. I don’t want to be apart again. I don’t want to go back to the way things were. I’m afraid all of these changes will fade away, and we won’t be together.”
He took a wisp of my black hair in his hand, analyzing it as though it held all of the answers to my fears.
“I love you, Drew.” He let the breeze carry my hair out of his hand, through his fingers. “Things don’t have to be complex. I don’t want to leave you, ever.”
“I don’t want to leave you, either.”
“I want you to be mine.”
“I want that, too.”
“Then . . .” His voice trailed off as he leaned toward me. I was anticipating a kiss, but instead, he unclasped the necklace from around my neck. The action confounded me as I felt the chain slip away, and River looked down at the emerald stone. “I think this would make a nice ring. What do you think?”
My confusion only amplified at his question. I felt my eyebrows raise, my skin tingle, my head get light. River took my left hand into his right.
“I think we should get married,” he said. “Before we leave. Will you marry me, Drew?”
My confusion dissipated. It blew away into the air, gone. I sensed my head beginning to move up and down. I heard one word exit my mouth. I saw River’s bright gleam of a smile that matched the gleam in his eyes, and I felt the soft air swirl around me as we were suddenly standing, and I was in his arms, and we were spinning around like dancers, like children, like the wandering breeze itself.
◈
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth
crumbs.
-Robert Frost, Putting in the Seed
Chapter 20
River and I were married in Maui that same day he looked at the emerald gem in a new light and asked me if I could see it in that light, too. We had found the essentials within two hours: a white dress, a button-up shirt and pair of slacks, and a pastor in a small, white chapel. We had been able to change our flight plans and add on extra nights at our cottage—seven more, to be precise—and we remained on the island, suddenly as honeymooners. Just the two of us, hidden away from the rest of the world.
But it couldn’t stay that way forever, and we knew that full well. We knew that day would come when we would have to leave our cottage, abandon Maui, fly back to the mainland, and return to the world where family and friends existed—where family and friends wanted to know where we had been and what exactly we had been up to.
I remember looking into River’s eyes when we had returned to Rockwood and were standing outside my parents’ front door. He smiled at me reassuringly and thumbed the emerald ring on my finger. We had been able to convert the gemstone into my wedding ring while in Hawaii, and had also purchased a matching gold band that now encircled River’s finger.
Things were never quite the same after we crossed that threshold into my parents’ house. Suddenly, it was no longer just me and River holding onto this knowledge, living on an island. Suddenly, other people knew our secret, and they were shocked, at first, but the shock rapidly faded and a gladness took its place. It made sense to everyone. My mom had blubbered while trying to tell stories of our childhood: swimming together in the backyard, trick-or-treating together in silly costumes. My dad had shaken River’s hand and then embraced me for nearly a whole minute. Afterward, he had looked at me with shiny eyes, and I started telling him about the different trees I’d encountered in Hawaii, particularly the huge banyan in the jungle.
After making our announcement to my parents, we had driven my car over to Freya next, where we found Cambria at the apartment that had been my home with her for the past two years. Wetness welled up in her eyes as she hugged me and River, and she scolded me for not giving her the opportunity to be a bridesmaid. Then she whipped out her phone and said, “I can’t wait to tell Jamie,” and River and I exchanged grins.
We drove back into Rockwood, this time to River’s mother’s house. It looked exactly the same after all these years—the same landscaping, the same green trim around the windows, the same mailbox. I remembered the first time I had lain eyes on this house and couldn’t help but notice that it was quite a bit larger than my parents’. Now, I understood that this was probably related to the lawsuit against Haiku county.
River’s mother had always seemed cold and distant, and I didn’t expect much of a reaction from her. But, as we sat across from her on a gray couch, River didn’t just tell her about our elopement. He told her first about Haiku Elementary, about seeing their old house and the old banyan tree. Then he told her about visiting Julian’s grave, and tears streamed down her face, and finally he told her that we were married. She stood up from the couch opposite us, and River did the same. She held him in her arms and cried. When I stood up and approached them, she took my hand in hers as she continued holding River. She said, “My baby,” and I couldn’t tell if she was referring to River or Julian, but we were all standing there, the three of us touching.
His mother insisted that we stay with her in the oversized house while we looked for our own place to live. So, we took up residence in River’s old bedroom, which his mother hadn’t altered in any way, just like she hadn’t altered any other part of the house. There was still the bookcase of Harry Potter stories in one corner of the room, the gray-blue comforter spread across the bed, and the world map pinned to the otherwise blank wall.
It was strange being together in River’s old bedroom, a place we had never spent much time to begin with growing up. And now we were married, and we were sleeping together in his old bed, and I felt like I could die happy. I told River that one night in that very bed, and he said he felt the same. He proceeded to slip his hands up my thighs, under my nightgown, and slide the cotton underwear down my hips.