Best kind!
“Grace, Grace,” her mother called. “You hung the award, didn’t you?”
“Yes, already.” The mayor had proclaimed today an official celebration in honor of Reynaldo Cruz.
The distinctive red hanbok her mother wore for special occasions had a full-length A-shaped skirt in the Korean style and was at risk of catching in the swinging doors as she carried food to the steam table.
“Mom, let me take that.” Grace held out her arms for the tray of fried noodles.
“No, no. You are also guest of honor.”
Then she understood. In her parents’ minds this was also an engagement celebration. By her silence, she’d permitted the status quo to continue since the original news announcement. Whatever people thought hadn’t affected her in Seattle, and now that Rey was home and had satisfied her father’s career interrogation, they must assume wedding plans would move forward. If her offer of living together had made him need independence, her parents’ expectations might make him freeze. Or disappear.
Her stomach churned while she rolled napkins around silverware, greeted people she’d known since childhood and waited for Rey to arrive. He entered the restaurant after his mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nieces, wearing a sport coat that molded to his shoulders and upper arms. This afternoonhe’d opted for his C-legs and khaki cargo shorts, which in theory should look unusual in December paired with a blazer, but the transformer legs were so striking that the shorts were perfect. They were Rey.
Watching him across the tables was all she managed to do for the first hour while people jostled to reach him. Eventually she recognized the hyper-focused squint that meant his words had faded.
“Excuse me.” She extricated herself from a parent of one of her sister’s students, someone who had been behind her in school who she ought to remember better, but right now she wanted to rescue Rey.
She slipped her hand around his arm, and he squeezed it to his side until her fingers were sandwiched between his elbow and his ribs as naturally as if they really were engaged.
“Can you excuse us for a minute?” She smiled at Mrs. Sandoval, Salito’s mayor, postmistress, municipal judge and hardware store owner. “I need Rey in the back for a surprise.”
His eyes met hers and she saw, as if she’d been born able to read his expressions, relief, the beginnings of anxiety and a hunger to breathe air that wasn’t filled with pine and people and garlic bean stir-fry.
They managed to sidestep greetings and slip through the doors into the tight kitchen. Here there was only the scent of cooking oil. Past the range and stainless steel sink, she opened the broom closet. The hiding spot was tight but well-organized, with supplies hung on walls or arranged on shelves. Nothing would trip him. “In here.”
He reached over her head to the string of the ceiling bulb, plunging them into darkness.
“Better.” That was all he said before his head lowered.
After her week in Seattle, the warm welcome of his kiss promised that they wouldn’t lose the closeness they’d found on the road home.
“Tiny hands.” He brought her palm to his face, pressed his lips to each finger, and the dark focused her senses on his touch and the spice of his skin. That was how she knew he was doing something to her finger, but at first she didn’t understand what.
Her stomach understood first, because it lurched like a rollercoaster. Her heart figured it out next, because it thumpity-thumped to a sprint, and that must have pushed enough oxygen to her head that her brain comprehended: he’d put metal on her third left finger.
“What is…” she didn’t know how to finish her question. It was a ring. But she didn’t know if he was making their engagement real.
“Shrapnel.”
“What?” She knew shrapnel meant the metal debris from a bomb but didn’t understand what that had to do with a ring.
“Lost legs.” He cradled her face in his hands. “Found you.” He pulled her close, fitting her head under his chin and encircling her with his arms.
The breath she’d been holding escaped in a whoosh as delayed understanding drove a fist into her stomach. The ring. Was his shrapnel. From his wound.
“Damn good deal.” His declaration was clear and urgent.
He couldn’t think that.
“Tears.” It was pitch black and he didn’t have fancy army gear, but somehow he knew she was crying. He bent to kiss her cheeks. “Why?”
“I’m not worth your legs. Or your speech. You lost so much.”
“Still me.” He cupped the hand with his ring, kissed her palm and then slid it over his chest. “Still me here.” Then he movedher hand lower, and she brushed his hardness. “Same me.” She heard the smile, but this wasn’t a joke.
“There’s more to you than that.”
