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A YEAR LATER: NICOLE
The twins were still far too small to sit on the swing themselves, but Nicole still liked to bring them to the copse of oak trees on the far side of the farm, just to sit out in the sunshine and take in the world around them. It had been such a dreary place for her, the place she had come when things went wrong, when she wanted to escape. She wanted to change that, make it a happy place, somewhere bright and joyful. She sat at the edge of the trees with the twins on a blanket, Beth fascinated with the leaves fluttering high above and Olivia attempting to eat her hand.
Pregnancy for Nicole had been rough. Carrying twins when you were as petite as she was wasn’t exactly ideal, and most days towards the end she’d been worried that she was constantly going to tip over. Not being able to work had been the hardest part. She hadn’t known how tostop. Luckily, Brendan had stepped up and proven himself a hundred times over.
Even now she watched him approach from out in the field where he’d been checking over some new calves that had been born this morning, already finding their feet and bouncing around like little firecrackers. It would be a while before the twins would be running around like that, and Nicole couldn’t wait.
“Hello,” Brendan said, kneeling down at the edge of the blanket, his voice always so soft when he talked to the girls, as if he didn’t want to frighten them. One after the other, he leaned down and gave them a kiss on the tummy, which delighted Beth but didn’t faze Olivia who was still focused on the hand in her mouth.
Brendan sat down with a huff and wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve, making sure the twins were sufficiently shaded from the sun. Nicole was torn between wanting the twins to stay this small forever and also wanting them to grow enough so that they could watch the herd out in the adjacent field.
The most recent calving season had been the most successful one yet, with the result being dozens of new calves running this way and that on gangly legs, falling asleep curled up in the grass, and following their mothers around as if they were attached with Velcro. They’d nearly doubled the size of the herd in a few short weeks but thankfully they’d finally gotten some reliable farmhands onto the books, with Brendan searching country-wide and enticing people to move to the area with the promise of a crazy good salary, much the same way that Nicole had been enticed to stay not all that long ago. It felt like a lifetime ago, though, with how much everything had changed.
“So I have a question,” Brendan said, looking at her with a glint in his eye.
“And that is?” What was he planning? He only had that look on his smug little face when he was planning something.
Brendan shuffled around to face her directly, kneeling on the picnic rug, and fished around in his back pocket. It only clicked what he was doing a fraction of a second before he opened the small, square box to reveal a ring.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, still looking very pleased with himself, having been able to actually surprise her.
It wasn’t often that Nicole was struck speechless, but right now she couldn’t seem to make words come out of her mouth like they were supposed to, so she settled for nodding vigorously and refusing to cry, blinking back tears.
Brendan grinned, because of course he had to have known that she’d say yes. He pulled the ring out and slipped it onto her finger where it looked like it had always belonged. It was simple, the quintessential image of what an engagement ring was supposed to look like, a plain gold band with a small diamond right in the center.
“I love it,” she said, unable to take her eyes away from it, worried it might disappear if she looked away for even a second.
“Tina was horrified when I showed her,” Brendan said, laughing at his sister.
“What? Why?”
“She thought it was far too basic and that I was being a stupid man and not having a good enough look for the perfect ring, especially when I could afford pretty much anything. It took a while to convince her that it was the ringyouwould want.”
Nicole smiled, thankful nonetheless that Tina had been horrified on her behalf and doubly thankful that she had someone like Brendan.
“I’ll call her later and tell her I love it.”
“Please do, then she might actually leave me alone about it and stop giving me dirty looks whenever I video-call her.”
“And I’ll have to call Uncle Scott, won’t I?” said Nicole, addressing the twins who were blissfully unaware of what was going on between their parents right now.
“Uh, well, Scott also already knows,” Brendan said, looking a little guilty.
“He’s not going to jump out from behind a tree as a surprise, is he?”
“No, it’s just…” Brendan trailed off with a shrug.
“What?”
“It’s kind of corny, but the groom is supposed to ask the dad’s permission, right? And since that wasn’t something we could do, I asked Scott in his stead.”
Now Nicole had no power over the tears that promptly started falling down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Brendan laughed, scooping her into his lap for a hug. “I didn’t want to make you cry.”
“I’m not crying,” she sniffled, wiping her face.
“There is water coming out of your eyes, my dear.”
“Yeah, water, not tears. It’s different.”
“Sure.”
They could have kept bickering, and on another day they might have, just to hear each other’s voices. But for now the quiet was enough. Nicole stayed in Brendan’s lap, their daughters content beside them, and looked out at the herd, mothers and babies scattered everywhere, all of them happy.
The End
