“But it isn’t mine—” Amelia started.
But Elizabeth interrupted. “It doesn’t matter, Amelia. It absolutely does not matter. Once they live inside of you, they are yours. It will kill you.”
“I am totally amenable to your raising it with me,” I interjected, smiling.
Amelia smirked at me. “That is not in the contract, my friend. If you’ll recall, I have no interest in raising babies.”
I had always thought she had no interest in babies because she knew she couldn’t have them. Evidently, I had been wrong. Well, there went that idea. Back to interviewing nannies.
Elizabeth and Mom were glaring at each other. Dad and Mr. Saxton looked embarrassed, and Amelia looked on the verge of tears. This was my moment. I had to appeal to their emotions; this was my one shot, and it had to be good.
“You guys, look. I understand that it’s unconventional. But I lost the love of my life. I have the opportunity to have a piece of her back, to make good on our promises to each other, even though she’s gone. And Amelia coming alongside me in that journey is the greatest act of love I have ever seen from one friend to another.” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Tears sprang to my eyes. “My life has been impossible without Greer. I have to find joy again. And I think this is how I can.”
Mom and Elizabeth looked at me blankly. Dad said, “This is the craziest damn thing I’ve ever heard. When your life is ruined, don’t come crying to me.” Then he stood up and said, “Charles, shall we?” Mr. Saxton looked at Amelia and said, “Did you even consider what this would do to Robby’s poll numbers?”
I’ll admit, I had to stifle a laugh at that one as they retired to Dad’s study, as usual. Mason grabbed his plate so quickly I was surprised the food didn’t fall off, said, “Bro, you’re on your own with this one,” and ran off behind them. I’d figured this would be a lot for them—the two most hands-off fathers of all time and a man in his late thirties who still let his mom cook all his meals—to take in. But I didn’t need their approval.
“Amelia, please,” Elizabeth pleaded again.
She just shook her head. “Mom, look. I have spent my entire life thinking that I would never feel a baby growing inside of me. And now, here I am, single, alone, jobless, and, frankly, needing to find my place in the universe. I can’t explain how I know I’m supposed to do this. I just do. I’m thirty-five years old, and this is a decision I’m allowed to make.”
Mom and Elizabeth shared a look that wordlessly said we were both ill-behaved children.
This wasn’t over. Far from it, in fact. I knew that. But we had done it. We had told the truth. I had taken a stand for my wife today. I had fought the good fight. And now it occurred to me that I had forgotten one major piece of this puzzle: I had told my family. Now I had to tell Greer’s.
Greer
JUNE 11, 2012
TODAY WAS, DEFINITIVELY, THE BEST day of my life. I had told Parker over and over again that I didn’t want an elaborate proposal, just something simple and easy and us. And what I love most is that he knew me well enough to ignore me.
I was in New York to help him pack, and, while my father was thrilled that I had been there so much over the past fourteen months while Parker and I had been dating, he was already grumbling. Now that Parker’s moving to Palm Beach, you’ll never want to come here anymore and Who’s going to take over all your New York accounts?
But I was so happy to have my love with me all the time that I couldn’t even be upset by his grumbling. He looked down at his watch and said, “Well, I guess we aren’t getting any work done today anyway. May as well not starve to death, too.”
I smiled sweetly at him and said, “Why, yes, Daddy, I would love to go to lunch with you.”
When we pulled up to Michael’s, it hit me how long it had been since I had eaten there. Maybe even that lunch where my editor and I were talking about my first book deal. That lunch where I met Parker. I smiled just remembering it.
Dad said, “Hop on out, sugar. I need to talk to the driver for a minute.”
As I stepped out of the car, Parker stepped out of a cab right beside me. He grinned at me, and I swear my heart stopped beating. The abs under that shirt were the only other thing that could do that to me. “Hey, babe,” he said casually, taking my hand. He motioned with his head for me to climb back in the cab with him. The back seat was lined in twinkle lights, the part where there was usually a partition had been removed, and a little shelf had been added and was lined with flowers. That was when I noticed there was no driver. And it smelled remarkably un-cab-like, thank goodness. “Is this the cab?” I whispered.
Parker nodded. “This is the cab that changed my life. It’s the cab where I picked up a phone and decided to track down a stranger.”
“I love you, Parker,” I said, overwhelmed.
“Do you know what I love most about you?” he asked me.
“Enlighten me.”
“What I love most about you is that you have the most polished, perfect exterior I have ever seen, but, babe, you’re kind of a mess.”
I laughed. It wasn’t the most romantic start to a proposal I had ever heard, but okay.
“You do things like leave your phone in cabs and forget one shoe in a hotel in Paris and lose your car in parking garages.”
I nodded. “I do. I do lose my car in parking garages.”
He smiled. “And that’s good, because if you were as completely perfect as you seem, you wouldn’t need me. There wouldn’t be any room for me in your life. You aren’t perfect, and neither am I. But when we are together, we are just right. We fit, babe. We fill up those empty parts of each other and make each other better.”
I wiped a tear from my eye and whispered, “We really do.”
He reached into his coat pocket and attempted to kneel in the back of that cab, which made us both crack up.
“Greer, I can’t live without you. And I never want to. Will you marry me?”
I laughed and was crying in earnest now. I nodded. It was truly the easiest decision of my life. “Yes, Parker. Of course. Let’s get married!”
He slid a ring on my finger, and we hugged awkwardly—we were in the back of a cab, after all—and kissed and then he said, “Let’s get out of this gross thing.”
I ran my finger across the black faux-leather seat, which was duct-taped in various places, and said, “What? I was hoping we could keep it.”
He nodded. “Oh, we can. I had to buy it, so if you need a side hustle…”
We both laughed, and he helped me out of the cab. My dad and Parker’s parents were waiting to cover us with hugs and kisses when we got into the restaurant. His mom was crying and saying, “I finally have a daughter.”
And I said, “I couldn’t have handpicked a better mother-in-law.”
Even still, my insides burned like fire that my own mother wasn’t there to see this day. All I can do is hope that somewhere, somehow, she is looking down on me. She knows I’m happy. And she knows that, someday, we’ll be together again.
Elizabeth
SPUR THEM ON