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“Look in my bag.” Her bag rests between our two chairs. She sits up, crosses her legs, and waits. “Go on.”
I shuffle through her things until I find a jewelry box. With a wary glance at her, I hold it between us. Wordlessly, Galina holds out her left hand.
“Put it on me, Sergey. Make me your wife.”
“You’re already my wife.”
She laughs. “But I want to actually be your wife.”
I don’t believe her. That would be news too good to be true. “Are you sure? Don’t you want me to propose? To have a wedding?”
Galina shakes her head. “One wedding was enough and I don’t want you to ask. This is my decision.” Uncertainty causes her hand to lower to her knee and her shoulders to slump. “Unless you don’t want to? We don’t have to change anything.”
I open the ring box and take her hand. With a steady hand, I slide the ring onto her finger. “I would love to have you as my wife.” The moment her ring is in place, she leans forward to kiss me. Her fingers tickle the back of my neck and I pull away just a little before I realize what she’s doing.
She lets my ring fall into her hand. “Your turn,” she mutters as she slips it onto my finger and lets the chain fall into her bag. “I know nothing is actually changing, but it feels different, doesn’t it?”
It does. It feels more real this time. Both of us are actually making a decision for ourselves. The time that I’ve had with her since she decided to stay has been nothing short of amazing. It hasn’t been pretty, but it’s been us figuring each other out and learning more about one another all by ourselves.
Galina seems like a new person. The expectations each of our parents had for her clearly weighed her down. She’s as light as a feather these days. That’s one reason I wanted us to take this vacation together. It’s been up and down as we navigate our separate routines and having two solid weeks with nothing to do but enjoy ourselves was much needed.
A server walks by and Galina flags him down to order more drinks. There’s something I feel like she has the right to know, but I really don’t want to bring it up to her.
“What is it?” Galina asks, as if she can read my mind.
While Galina hasn’t spoken to her mom, I have. She decided to start keeping tabs on us again after she found out Galina came to see me. And since she can’t talk to Galina, she talks to me. Surprisingly, both of our moms have followed what I demanded and don’t call us; granted, it took about two months before they realized I was serious. Once they knew I wasn’t playing around, they started waiting for me to call them and I do so about once a month.
Last month, though, Galina’s mom made a request. I’ve been sitting on this request for what feels like forever. I know what decision I want to make, but part of me feels as if Galina should decide instead.
“Sergey?” she asks, resting a hand on my knee.
The server buys me a few more seconds as he drops off our drinks.
Clearing my throat, I get it over with. “Your mom would like for us to visit.”
Immediately, she frowns and her brows pinch together. “No.” As if she feels the need to explain herself to me, she continues, “I don’t feel ready for that yet. It’ll be my luck that we’ll go and she takes that as the green light to start up again, asking when there will be a baby. I’m not going, even knowing you’d come with me.” Her shoulders drop a bit. “I do miss her though.” Galina sighs as if the weight is creeping back onto her shoulders.
“Maybe next time I call, you can talk to her? Work on repairing the bridge between you.”
“Maybe.” Galina settles back into her seat with her face toward the sky. That’s the only sign I need to know the conversation is over for now. I’m perfectly okay with it.
As I settle back into my own chair, I ask, “The team will be getting together in a couple months to reunite basically. Want to go with me?”
While I made Galina go with me to a few gatherings, I haven’t immersed her in my hockey life too much. I’ve been more focused on dating Galina than anything else.
“I think it would be nice to get to know your friends a little better,” she says, causing me to smile. “We should probably do dinner with Scotty and his wife too. She will be thrilled that we’re wearing our rings.” Galina pauses and then adds, “I’m sorry it took me so long to come directly to you to fix this mess.”
“Maybe we had to be on separate paths before things would work. A few years of heartache in order to have a lifetime of happiness.”
Galina turns her head and smiles. “You sound very certain of our future.”
“I am.” I don’t know everything that is in our future, but I know there will always be an us. That’s all that matters.
