She was currently nursing her four-month-old—a fourth boy—at the table, so I wouldn’t exactly say there weren’t babies in the family, but if she was happy, I was happy.
But Parker looked perturbed. “It isn’t right,” he said. I gave him my best What do you want me to do? look. “It isn’t right,” he continued, “for us to be living here at Dogwood, in Cape Carolina, with these babies, without making it official.”
I was ninety percent sure I knew what was coming next, but I didn’t quite have time to protest. Parker was on his knee and reaching his hand out to his mother, who slipped a ring out of her pocket so fast I barely saw it happen. “I never dreamed that I would get lucky enough to fall in love with the girl next door. I really never dreamed that I would get lucky enough to have the girl next door be the mother of my children. But I think what would really make me the luckiest of all would be to marry the girl next door.” He took a deep breath, and I could tell he was nervous. “So, Amelia Saxton, will you marry me?”
I had been a wife before, and it hadn’t ended well for me. But, this time, I was determined to do it differently, to do it better. This time was different anyway because, without any thought, without any action, without so much as a good therapy session, I had fallen into Parker. I trusted him so fully that my old worry of never being able to commit to another person had vanished. It never even crossed my mind. And maybe it was because I had committed to four people—to Parker, to these two babies of ours, and to Greer, the woman that, though I once feared she would always be between us, had somehow become the glue that held us together.
I wondered what he had said to Greer in this very same moment. I wondered how she had felt. All those years ago, Parker had walked into marriage wide-eyed, naïve, and fresh. Tonight, he knew what could happen, knew the risks. He was a soldier choosing to go back to war.
To walk back into the line of fire was a big love, a love so big maybe I couldn’t even comprehend it.
“Everyone is looking,” I whispered.
“Sorry,” he whispered back. “I was going to do this later on the dock, but I couldn’t wait any longer.”
I smiled at him and took the ring out of his hand. “I love you, Parker.” I took his hands in mine and said, “Let’s do this.” I kissed him to applause around the table and then turned back to the moms. “But not until after the babies. They don’t need the stress of wedding planning with Elizabeth Saxton and Olivia Thaysden while they’re forming neurons.”
Mom looked at me with mock seriousness and said, “Whatever the new mistress of Dogwood wishes.”
* * *
Now, bouncing down the highway in the U-Haul, thirty-five weeks pregnant, that night felt like a faraway dream, like something so wonderful it couldn’t have been true. Tying up the loose ends and coming home felt right.
Maybe it hadn’t all happened in the usual way, but it had happened. I had grown two human beings that, even if they were born right now on the sidewalk, would be healthy, viable little people. It is the most ordinary thing in the world until it happens to you. And then it is extraordinary beyond belief.
Twenty-seven bathroom breaks and an overnight stay in DC later, my little map dot, our beautiful home, came into view. And, roughly every ten feet, another red and white SAXTON FOR MAYOR sign appeared.
Parker groaned. “He’s going to make us work polls, isn’t he?”
I patted his arm. “Well, before that, he’s going to make us put out signs. I told him you would do it, because I couldn’t, with my swollen ankles and everything.”
“And he let you off the hook that easily?”
I smirked. “Nope. He sent me compression socks.”
Parker burst out laughing as we pulled into the driveway of Dogwood. “When are you going to run for mayor?” he asked. The babies kicked sharply, voicing their disapproval. Or maybe they just knew that they were home.
I never thought I’d be a mother. I never thought I’d be a fiancée again. I certainly never thought I’d move to Cape Carolina or give up investigative journalism for lifestyle editing. While I had always believed that I was the master of my own destiny, perhaps this was written in the stars after all. And while driving away from a city I had come to love had been a little sad, I had to admit that, in Cape Carolina, the stars shone a whole lot brighter.
Parker
MEMORIES
WHEN AMELIA WOKE ME IN the middle of the night, I was sure she was in labor. It was our first night in Dogwood, in our new house, in our new bed. It felt different. And the same. It’s hard to explain. We had renovated the entire house. New plumbing, new electrical, new wood, new paint, refinished floors, and new furniture with the old heirlooms still mixed in. You don’t donate a dining room table with George Washington’s initials carved in it.
I jumped up and started putting on my shoes, which was nonsensical since I wasn’t wearing any pants.
“Park, what are you doing?” I turned back. Amelia was lying on her left side, her head propped on her hand, staring at me.
“Get up! What are you doing? Unless you want to have our babies in the same place your great-grandmother had your grandmother, I suggest you hurry.”
“Sweetie, I’m not in labor,” she said soothingly.
I exhaled, unlaced my shoes, and flopped back into bed. “Do you need ice cream? Pie? Jalapeño pizza?” These were the three most common requests of Amelia’s pregnancy. I did my best to accommodate her because she looked so uncomfortable all the time.
“Parker, I want to get married.”
I looked over at the bedside table. It was four thirty. I switched on the lamp so I could see her face. “Amelia, are you having a dream? We are getting married. In November. Remember? You wanted to get married Thanksgiving weekend so the leaves would be falling?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But I’m just lying here thinking about how we won’t all have the same name when the babies are born, and I’d like to be married when they come.”
I would have done anything in the world for Amelia at that moment—except tell our mothers that we wanted to get married now. They were trying to hide their incessant planning from Amelia so as not to stress her out, but they didn’t mind stressing me out. I knew more than I had ever planned to know about flowers. And we were only inviting, like, forty people. I couldn’t imagine if this were a first wedding.
“Babe, I don’t know if we can pull that off,” I said soothingly.
“We won’t tell anyone!” she snapped. “I just want to go to the courthouse and get married.”
“We do have the license already,” I mused, more to myself than to her.
“Right,” she said. “So, tomorrow, let’s please go get married.”
She seemed almost frantic about it, and I have to admit that it made me worry. Was there something she wasn’t telling me? But then I looked at her, lying there, so uncomfortably pregnant with my babies.
“I can’t wait to marry you.” I kissed her passionately.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she snapped.
I tried to stifle my laugh as I rolled back over.