The Song of David

“What?” she gasped.

“Will you marry me and let me be Henry’s brother? I want you to be part of Tag Team.” I was parroting Henry’s proposal, trying to be cute, but my heart was in my throat and my hands felt slick against my T-shirt. I was glad I hadn’t pulled it off her. I pressed on. “Statistically, athletes with families have more purpose, better mental health, more stamina and overall improved performance than athletes who aren’t married.” If it wasn’t word for word what Henry had spouted off to me, it was close. But she was silent, and I couldn’t see her face.

“I was gonna ask you a month ago. I bought a ring. It was still in the glove box in my truck,” I explained, rushing over the words. And now it was in my pocket, in my jeans, waiting for her to give me an answer.

“I know. You told me,” she whispered.

“The tapes?” I asked, realizing I had indeed told her.

“Yes.”

“If none of this had happened, if I’d asked you two weeks ago, before all this went down, what would you have said?” I asked, my heart fat in my chest.

“No. I would have said no,” Millie said quietly.

My stomach lurched a little, and I pulled her closer even though I wanted to let go. My heart was pounding.

“Why, Millie?”

“Because I thought you needed more time,” she said.

“You thought I needed more time?” I asked, incredulous.

She nodded, one quick jerk of her head, and her hair tickled my lips. I waited for several seconds, processing.

“And now?” I asked.

“Now, I want to marry you so badly that I don’t care if you need more time,” she confessed.

I laughed, suddenly glad I was lying down. I felt lightheaded with relief. And then something else occurred to me.

“Have you changed your mind because I don’t have any more time?” I probed, and my voice cracked.

I felt a tremor run down her body.

“No. I’ve changed my mind because I don’t want anyone keeping us apart. I don’t want someone telling me I can’t be by your side. I want to be a Taggert. Or a Taggerson.” I felt her effort to smile, but I don’t think she succeeded. “I want to be yours. I want you to be mine. Hospital beds, my bed, your bed. I don’t care. I just want to be with you.”

“You want to take care of me,” I said flatly.

She ignored my statement and made one of her own. “If I wasn’t blind, I would have said yes. A month ago, I would have said yes.”

I waited.

“But because I’m blind, I would have wanted to give you lots of time to know what you were getting into.”

“I wouldn’t have changed my mind, sweetheart.”

“I’m always going to be blind, David.”

“Most likely . . . yeah,” I agreed.

“And a month ago, you wanted to marry me anyway?” she asked, clearly knowing the answer.

“Yeah. I did.”

“You wanted to marry me in spite of my blindness, and I want to marry you in spite of your cancer. Is that so hard to understand?”

“No,” I whispered. Because it wasn’t. Not when she put it that way.

We lay in silence, listening to each other breathing, thinking, considering. But I’d made my decision the moment I submitted. Moses had warned me that’s what it would take, hadn’t he?

“All or nothing, Millie?” I asked, my mouth pressed against her temple.

“All,” she answered back.

“Me too,” I whispered. All or nothing. That’s who I was. And if I was going to fight, if I was going to stay, I was going to have it all for as long as I could have it. I reached in my pocket and took out the ring.





Moses




I GOT UP before the sun rose. I was restless and moody, even more than usual, and I decided to paint for a while. But painting hadn’t eased the prickle under my skin or the knots in my belly, and when the sun rose I made a pot of coffee and decided to spend a little time outside seeing the day break before the rest of the house woke up and made contemplation impossible.

“You look like your thoughts weigh a thousand pounds,” Tag said, his voice rough with sleep, and the French doors to my left closed quietly. He eased down into the deck chair next to mine and faced the sluggish sunrise, his eyes trained forward. He held a cup of my coffee in a mug between his big hands and sipped at it like heaven came in mouthfuls of caffeine.

“Well, well, well,” I said, and I felt my lips twist up in a smirk. I had told myself I wasn’t going to give him any grief about being holed up with Millie for a solid sixteen hours. And here I was, giving him grief the moment he set foot on my deck.

He didn’t smirk back or tell me to shut up. He looked tired. But he looked good. Amazingly enough, he looked good. Content even. I still wasn’t used to his buzzed hair. It looked a little too skinhead for my taste, but Tag worked it. He had the jawline to pull it off, irritating as that was.

“You look like shit, Tag,” I lied, just because it was our way with each other.