Page 128 of The False Flat
I smiled. “Jerk. Did you plan that?”
He shook his head. “It just came. When I saw you standing there, I couldn’t let Chuck make all those promises for me. I wanted to make them myself.”
My tears were no longer elegant but streamed down in a wave that threatened to wash me away. Grant held me in place.
I looked down, desperately wanting to say something beautiful in response. A candle flickered, and I gazed into it. “But I didn’t prepare . . . all these people . . .”
He tilted my chin until our eyes met again. “What people?”
I inhaled, and they didn’t all vanish, but they dimmed. “Grant, with you as my partner, I don’t want anything else. I love you with everything inside of me, now and forever, even without your mustache. You are the . . . the spark that lit me. And every time I look at you, I will remember that life is complicated, precious, and worth all the hard work.”
It wasn’t everything, not even half, but it was true. Like the candles burning all around us, I’d been lit, altered, and I couldn’t be unlit. The flame might come and go, but the change was permanent. Together, Grant and I shone, two lights that darkness could not overcome. And I didn’t know what might happen next, but the path forward was illuminated because of us.
Why couldn’t I have said that out loud.
I turned to Chuck. “Say the words.”
He cocked a half smile and said the words.
Gloria let out a congratulatory screech as Grant slipped his arms under my cloak, pulled me against his body, and kissed me like no one was watching.
EPILOGUE
“YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN. AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW. AND YOU ARE THE ONE WHO’LL DECIDE WHERE YOU GO . . .”
—DR. SEUSS
Over two years. That’s what we got. Grant did better than well, especially after we’d enrolled him into a clinical trial where he was treated with a novel cancer drug. In the end, it wasn’t even the cancer that got him. He developed a “hospital-acquired, antibiotic-resistant” infection after breaking his ankle. The end came swiftly after that. In a way, it was better. We remember him exactly as he was, Grant to the very end.
He didn’t suffer; he barely declined. I’m sure the drugs had something to do with that, but I attribute most of his health to Gloria, our daughter. Turns out I was four weeks pregnant with her at our wedding.
Pregnancy equation:
Forty-eight hours with no birth control pills
+
blacking out
+
emotional overload because I’d found out the love of my life had cancer
×
a hot, sexy night when I had frizzy hair and was completely myself
=
a curly-headed, thankfully unmustached, pudgy newborn who’d turned into a spectacular little girl who loved architecture and Barbie dolls.
I was wrong when I’d said life was like a cake with all the right ingredients. Life isn’t about having the right ingredients; it’s about figuring out what to make when you’re missing some.
I’d never wanted kids, never thought I could mother anyone. But Gloria was just the person I’d needed when I didn’t think I could open my eyes the day after he died. I opened them for her. And then I kept opening them for her. The two of us had become inseparable.
And now, three months without him, Gloria wrapped her arms around my neck, her little body fitting seamlessly with mine as we walked into Deanna’s house, where Deanna was making all of Grant’s favorite unhealthy things: sticky cinnamon buns, homemade yeast rolls, pizza crust with cornmeal baked into the bottom. The warmth of her kitchen was like a hug from an old friend. As she kneaded the dough, I almost felt Grant’s arm brushing past mine to dip his finger in icing. An ache started in my toes and worked its way to my eyes, climbing out in a single tear that stung.
When Deanna saw us, she dropped to Gloria’s level and threw out her arms. Gloria promptly ran to her aunt. Then Deanna reached for me. She’d remained my right hand, before Gloria’s birth and thereafter. She’d invested with me, and her business was so prosperous that she was contemplating a second space.
