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“I thought we’d stay there for a while longer.”
“It seems mad to have three homes.”
I grin. Probably better to wait to tell her about the other ones. “We’ll spend some time in all of them.”
Her foot hooks around my leg. “Could we go walk in the water?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
We take our shoes off, and we step down off the porch, over the sand, into the cool, blue water.
“I love it. Even though I was afraid of it,” she says, catching my hand again. “I missed it. How did you know?”
“I don’t know. Because I know my wife.”
“Say it again,” she whispers.
“My wife.”
She smiles. “My husband. Does it give you a thrill?”
“Every time.”
“It really does?”
“Of course.” I pull her close and lean my cheek against her head. “Being your husband is the most important thing to me. It’s the only thing.”
“I feel the same,” she murmurs.
“We’re a team here.”
“Team one shoe.”
We stand
there for the longest time with our feet submerged and our arms wrapped around each other. I rub her back in circles, the way I know she likes, and Finley kisses my chest. When I’m hard enough to hurt, and Finley’s leaning on me, moaning, as my hand delves into her pants, we stretch out on our new mattress and spend the night there, christening the master bedroom and eating what my shopper stashed in the pantry: Pop-Tarts and wedding cookies.
In the morning, we drive back to Baby. To our cabin. It’s our secret place, where nothing else can touch us. Even after we move fulltime to Seattle, I think the cabin will remain my favorite.
When we pull up in the driveway, there’s our doe and buck. They’re in the front yard this time. When they see the car, they don’t move; they don’t even freeze up. “I guess they just like us now.”
“They’re always together,” Finley murmurs. “Never any other deer.” She looks down, and then back at me. “Do you think they’ll have a baby one day?”
“I don’t know.” I laugh. “Do you think they will?”
“Perhaps.” Her cheeks color.
And that’s how I know.
Epilogue
Finley
April 1, 2019
Mummy,
It’s been a bit of a stretch, hasn’t it? We were talking quite a lot as I would wander through the forest or along the shore last summer and I suppose into the fall…but now things are so busy. I suppose I felt like writing again on a day like today, when it’s rainy and the sky is milk white.
