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“I may require toast with butter and raspberry jam.”

That got her, just for a second. A real smile, small but there.

Then she looked toward the window, past the pool to the lawn and the lake. “What do you want, Paul?”

No one in my family had asked me that question. I could have given her a long answer. A week ago, I would have.

“I want you,” I said with a shrug.

Her breath caught.

“I want to marry you someday. I want children with you if you want them. I want a house where your mother visits way too often and my mother critiques the curtains. I want to know how you spend your day, and I want to be the person you call when your car makes a sound it shouldn’t.”

“Very romantic.”

“I’m better with jumper cables than poetry.”

She smiled. “I know.”

“But I don’t want tonight if tonight makes you feel trapped.” I looked down at the floor because it was easier than looking at her. “Say the word and we’ll cancel the dinner, our parents and their embarrassment be damned.”

Lorrie made a small sound, and when I looked up, she was crying.

Not a graceful tear sliding down one cheek the way women cried in movies. Her face crumpled, and she turned away fast, one hand pressed to her mouth, as if she could stop it by force.

“Lorrie?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I moved closer and stopped before touching her. “May I?”

She nodded.

I put my arms around her, and she came against me with enough force that I rocked back on my heels. She gripped the front of my shirt and cried harder, her forehead pressed to my chest, one earring still missing, her makeup streaking my shirt.

After a minute, she whispered, “I dreamed of a baby.”

I looked at her, feeling the crease between my brows.

“What?”

“A baby asleep on you.” Her voice was muffled against my shirt. “So small, you were afraid to move.”

I stared over her head at the yellow gingham curtains. I didn’t know what to say to that. A smarter man might have said something gentle. A more romantic one might have made a promise. I only stood there with the ring box in my pocket and her tears soaking into my shirt.

“That sounds like me,” I said finally. “Afraid to move.”

She laughed, which turned into another sob.

I found a towel on the chair beside us and handed it to her. It had ducks on it. Naturally, at the most serious moment of my life, I was offering a woman a duck towel.

She wiped her face, then looked down at it. “This is Henry’s.”

“I won’t tell him.”

“He’s four. He’ll know.”

“Then I’ll apologize.”