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I follow Kara through the salon. A float pulled by a tractor passes by in front of the salon entrance. We’re on Main Street, and this is where we do parades, but it’s Tuesday morning a little after ten a.m. in March.
Kara, Mia, Alicia, and I pile outside onto the sidewalk. I shield my eyes from the bright morning sun. A police car leads the parade, lights on, sirens off. The songMy Universefrom Coldplay blares through speakers.
A green tractor pulling a flatbed slowly makes its way down Main Street. All along both sides of the street, folks gather on the sidewalk, watching curiously. As the tractor draws closer, I recognize the driver. It’s Noah. A group of people on the flatbed he’s pulling are waving flags. I recognize a lot of the faces. They’re his restaurant employees, and paper cut-out hearts are stuck to their clothes.
The convertible behind Noah’s float is driven by Liam. His kids are hanging out on the back seat, throwing out candy on the sidewalk, basically littering. Liam’s wife is in the passenger seat, and she holds a giant white posterboard with the words “Say Yes” emblazoned in red.
And everything stops when I look past them and see Oliver driving the second tractor. He’s pulling another flatbed. They set speakers up on all the corners, and Ian stands in the middle of the flatbed with a microphone in hand.
The music ends, and the rest of the world falls away.
“Dear Whispering Creek, I’ve got an announcement. And lest you fear, this is streaming live on Instagram. My future sister-in-law is right over there videoing for prosperity, and she’s gonna tweet it and TikTok it too. I think she said something about Reels.”
Kate waves. She’s farther down the sidewalk and holding her phone sideways, presumably videoing. She’s grinning wide. My heart is at risk of pounding out of my chest.
“I want every single one of you to know something. I love this woman. All of you call her Sandra. But I call her Sunny. Always have. I have loved her since I was fourteen. But don’t go starting any rumors… she left my virtue intact. She was someone I loved from afar. And yes, she dated my older brother, Sam.” He pauses and rolls his hand dramatically. “Twenty years ago. All of you remember that. I know you do. But they figured out early on they weren’t a great fit. I went to med school and residency and built a life in Houston. Without my sun. But against all odds, I came back into her orbit. And I don’t want to ever return to the dark. Now, I know this town loves to gossip, so I’m going to give you all something to talk about for years to come.”
His Gibson hangs around his neck. He strums a few chords, and my eyes fill. The world blurs as the lyrics toI’m Yoursby Jason Mraz vibrate through me. It’s a little slower than intended, but at the same time, it’s the best acoustic rendition I’ve ever heard. With the last refrain, he bows to scattered applause, jumps off the flatbed, and approaches, a sexy smile behind the microphone. “I’m going to let every single one of you watch me get down on one knee and ask the love of my life to marry me.”
My hand clasps my mouth. My cheeks are soaked. The nausea medicine must do nothing for pregnancy hormones.
“Breathe, baby.” Around us, people laugh. But I don’t. I’m in awe as he goes down on one knee and asks into a microphone, “Sunny, will you marry me? Will you spend the rest of your life with me, as my wife?”
I’m nodding, and I think I must say yes, but the microphone shrieks when he drops it to the ground. He picks me up and spins me around, shouting through the applause, “She said yes.”
Epilogue
Ian
The October My Universe Flourished
As a medical resident, I learned a lot. That’s what residents do. We learn.
After a few grueling years of learning under trial by fire, and observing and partaking in both successes and failures, I developed a philosophy regarding medicine. Medicine, you see, can be taken as more than it is, and viewed as less extraordinary than it can be.
Sunny expanded that philosophy for me. Those truths also apply to love.
I expect that raising a child will be a lot like surgery, and I will learn skill and confidence through experience. You could say that about anything, really. Tennis, cooking, gardening. Your pick. But the difference here is that surgery and parenting are practiced on human beings.
The tiny human lying before me, legs bent and held up in the air, squirms. Her eyelids are half-closed, and her paper-thin nails curl outwards in an unnatural direction. There’s a mop of black hair on her head that my wife says will change color, and her eyes are currently a mystical, deep-water blue, but those may change too. I will love my baby girl with all my heart through every change.
Shelby stands at my side. She insisted I learn by doing. That’s the way we do things in the hospital. Her dark thumb contrasts with the extremely pale, splotched skin of my baby girl, and it slips with ease, far too much ease, beneath the diaper.
“I think you need to try that again, Dr. Duke. When you lift her, that diapers going to fall right off.”
“Well, I didn’t want it to be too tight.” I don’t know why I’m arguing with Shelby. She’s familiar from seeing her over the years in the cafeteria and around the hospital, but my work doesn’t bring me onto the maternity ward.
We’re in Houston because I know the doctors here and that was important to me since I want the absolute best medical care for my family. Knowing the doctors gave me more control, just in case.
We purchased a home in Austin near the hospital, and I’ll start working there next month. My private practice expanded with an office in Austin. I’ll still come back to Houston regularly, so I kept my apartment here. And we still have Sunny’s family home in Whispering Creek, right down the road from the Duke ranch.
My amazing wife watches Shelby and me from the hospital bed, clearly entertained. Her blonde, sweat-dried hair is tied back with a multi-colored flowery strip of cloth. She’s not wearing any make-up, and her blonde eyebrows blend into her smooth forehead, letting those blue eyes shine above her flushed, rosy cheeks.
We ran into some complications during delivery, and she had to have an emergency c-section. I’m not one to cry, and I’m not one to pray to a god I don’t believe in, but I did both. There’s nothing quite like being a surgeon and having to watch your universe disappear behind the OR doors.
There was no medical reason to believe Sunny would suffer from complications from her c-section. But statistics and reasoning disappear in the face of a threat to life.
My phone vibrates. I ignore it and re-do the diaper with the highest degree of concentration.
