“Honey, I’m home,” I called out as I walked in.
“In the library!” she answered.
I left the pizza I’d brought for dinner on the kitchen table and walked in to see her sketching at the easel. Her hands moved gracefully over Rose’s face, adding details as she tilted her head this way and that.
“How was your day?” she asked, setting the pencil down and walking over to loop her arms around my neck.
“I don’t have the Alzheimer’s gene.”
“Okay?” Her brows lowered in confusion.
“I had the test run because Dad’s is genetic. I don’t have it.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, still surprised all these months later that I got to do it.
“Oh, good.” She leaned up and kissed me. “That’s a load off.”
“Wait, you’ve thought about it?” I pulled back just enough to look in her eyes.
“I figured if you wanted to get tested, you would, and if you didn’t, that was okay, too.” She shrugged.
“And if I had it?” My heart clenched at the thought of not recognizing her one day.
“Then, we’d make the best of the years we had.”
I lifted her in my arms and walked to the armchair, adjusting her so she straddled my lap. “But now you have me for a lot of years.”
“Seems like it,” she noted with a grin, throwing my very words back at me. “Did I mention that Walt called about you taking your dad’s seat on the Historical Society council?” she asked with a scrunched nose.
“No.” I shook my head.
“No, I didn’t tell you, or no, you don’t want it?”
I groaned, letting my head fall back against the couch. “Can no just be the universal answer?”
“Not if you want to do some good.” She kissed my nose.
“You’re my good.” I settled my hands on her hips and tugged her closer.
Life was built from our choices. Mine hadn’t always been good, but not all had been bad. And I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single one of them, especially not the one in my arms.
I kissed her deep and long, vowing to make every single one of those years worth everything that had happened to bring us here.