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“You’re coming with me?”
“If Silver Shores doesn’t mind one additional underage resident?”
“This is really happening?”
“Yes. If you’ll have me, I’m yours. I want to sing you to sleep in person whenever you’re home.”
“This is truly the happiest day of my life, Perky. I want you to know that.”
Later that afternoon, Carter and I were on the beach sipping Caipirinhas just like we had done during the beginning of our journey. I thought back to how scary of a time that was for me compared to the peace I was experiencing now.
“The last time we were here doing this, I didn’t know who I was. I was just a girl sitting with a hot pilot, sipping drinks on the beach in Rio. I was a confused person, ready to sell her soul and that of her unborn child.”
“And now?”
“Now, I’m just…loved. I don’t want anything else but to be the girl sitting on the beach with the pilot who loves me. Everything I ever needed, I actually had that day. I just didn’t know it yet. And my future children will not only have me but are so lucky that they will have you as a father.”
“You want to have a baby with me, Perky?”
“Someday, yes. But I want to enjoy being with you for a while first.”
He looked at me for a good length of time before he said, “I kept it.”
I tilted my head. “Kept what?”
“The little suit you bought from Carter’s that looked like a pilot’s uniform.”
“How did you know about that?”
“It was hanging in your closet in Texas. When I saw it, that was how I knew.”
“Then, you knew I was going to tell you I wanted to have your baby, that I lied at the airport lounge when I said I’d made my decision to go through with the insemination.”
“That little suit was what I’d held onto for hope all of this time.”
“I was sure when I spotted it at the store with your name that it was a sign.”
“It was. We just had a few detours in the meantime.”
“There are signs everywhere, aren’t there?”
The sound of a small plane could be heard overhead.
Carter pointed up to it. “There’s one right now.”
We both looked up at the sky in unison. A banner with a message was trailing the small aircraft.
Carter huffed, “Fuck! Assholes ruined it. The banner was supposed to say, The Answer is in the Sky: Kendall loves Carter. I knew that guy didn’t understand me!”
Instead it read: The Answer is in Disguise: Ken Doll Loves Farting.
CARTER AND I WERE BACK at Silver Shores following Gordon’s memorial service. It was a rainy day, fitting for the task at hand. We were cleaning out his apartment, choosing which items to donate and which Carter would keep.
“There’s no way I’m throwing out these pictures of him and his son. I’ll keep them with me for as long as I live. It’s the least I could do for him.”
Gordon had no family that we knew of, so if Carter hadn’t kept this stuff, all of the keepsakes would have likely been destroyed.
As I was cleaning out the bedroom closet, I laughed when I spotted the pair of pants that Carter had borrowed the night of our missing clothing mishap by the lake.
