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“I told you the day I married you that your happiness is my happiness. If you want to move, we’ll move.”
She exhales. “I can’t ask you to walk away from your life’s work. We tried that in Phoenix, remember? You were miserable.”
“I can practice law here.”
“Now you’re just being optimistic.” Her voice is soft, apologetic almost.
But she’s right. With a population just above a thousand, I’d be lucky to land one new client every other week in Calypso Harbor. It’s a blink-and-you-miss it village that an overwhelming majority of locals forget even exists. That said, if we sold the brownstone, we’d have enough to fund a new little venture, maybe something in e-commerce.
The opportunities are endless.
“We can figure it out.” I tighten my hold on her.
“You make it sound so simple when it’s anything but.” That’s Brie—the worrier. She’s always been a numbers girl, gravitating toward the safety facts and figures give her, though I’ve helped her to loosen up a little over the years.
“Nothing’s ever simple,” I remind her. Our entire life together has been proof of that. “But we’ve always managed to figure it out. If this is what you want, we’ll make it happen. One way or another.”
I flip her wrist over and lift it to my lips, kissing the tiny tattoo that resides there—the one she got in honor of her twin sister shortly after we started dating. She was supposed to do it years ago and chickened out with a myriad of Brie-like explanations. I had to dial in my trial lawyer training from my law school days just to reason with her, and in the end, my persuasiveness did the trick. Shortly after that, I booked her an appointment with one of the best tattooists in Brooklyn and held her hand the entire time.
Elle and C.J. squeal with delight in the background, running from yet another gentle wave as it chases them up the shore, leaving a path of tiny footprints that get washed away in seconds.
Turning my attention to my lovely wife, I cup her cheek with my hand and claim her cherry-flavored mouth with a kiss—the mouth I could kiss a million times and never tire of.
But she doesn’t kiss me back.
Instead she pulls away.
“Cainan … there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you …”
“Of course. You can tell me anything.” My heart hammers, every second that passes more endless than the one before.
She bites her lower lip, looking away, and her shoulders rise and fall as she gathers a salted breath. And then she turns to me, green eyes dancing. “I’m pregnant.”
Afterword
My grandmother, Norma Jean, was sixteen when she dreamt she’d married a farmer, and in this dream, she found herself suspended from a crystal chandelier high above a room filled with farm animals of every kind.
Not quite ten years later, she was working at a bank in her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania and engaged to a local man when she met a handsome young soldier from rural South Dakota. The country was in the midst of the second World War, and he’d been drafted and stationed near her home for training.
The star-crossed souls had an instant connection, and soon she found herself torn between two men—and two vastly different futures.
Norma Jean chose the soldier …
… who just so happened to hail from a large farming family.
After the war ended, the two married in a civil ceremony, loaded into a Chevy pickup with a top speed of fifty miles per hour, and drove for three days until they reached southeastern South Dakota. When the newlyweds arrived, Norma Jean and the soldier were given a one-room house and some land from his family’s homestead, and thus began her life as a farmer’s wife.
Fifteen years later, on their crystal wedding anniversary, Norma Jean and her farmer husband had more livestock than ever before.
