“Yours to keep,” I echo back to him, threading our fingers together.
“The only thing that’s true, that’s real, is this, Pep.” He pulls my other hand over his heart, pressing his hand over mine. “So you don’t have to worry about losing me. You can’t lose me. My soul is lodged that deeply in yours. I’m completely yours.”
I collapse against him, our hands over our hearts a holy press between us.
“You asked me what I was writing on the harmonica when you came out.” He pushes the hair over my shoulder.
I nod, pulling back to look at his face.
“I didn’t think you were ready to hear what I was writing, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” He glances down and then up, watching my face closely. “It was a song for our little girl. The one we’re going to have one day. The one I dream about.”
Shock and hope roll through me. Too much to even process.
“I told you before I don’t need rings or ceremonies to know you’re mine.” He draws a deep breath, his chest swelling against mine. “But I want them. With you I want it all. I want the spectacle of a day that’s all about us. I want you coming down an aisle and me feeling completely unworthy. I want you having my babies and me kissing your stretch marks.”
“Stretch marks?” I shake against him laughing. “Boo to stretch marks.”
“And I’ll give you silver chewing gum paper for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.” He laughs into my hair. “And Gold Bond medicated powder for our fiftieth.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I laugh even though tears roll over my cheeks and down my chin, christening the space where our bodies touch.
“And we’ll get so old that people forget about us. Forget we were ever famous. Forget our music. Hell, we’ll get so old together that I might even forget our anniversary date, but it’ll be okay. We’ll get so old that the only thing I remember from this life is you. And if there’s a next life—”
“There is.” I cling to that. Maybe I’ve discarded my faith somewhere along the way, and I’ll pick it back up when I’m ready, but I do know I’ll see Mama again. “There has to be another life, Rhyson.”
“Then in the next one,” he says, eyes filled with infinite promises. “I’ll find you again.”
“Find me,” I whisper back with a smile.
“Do you remember that scene from Cold Mountain?” He pushes all my hair back so that he sees my face clearly. “When Nicole Kidman says ‘Isn’t there some religion where you just have to say three times “I marry you,” and you’re man and wife?’”
I can’t hold on to my smile because this moment feels as sacred as what we’ll do in a church one day real soon.
“I marry you.” My voice quakes with the beauty of the declaration. “I marry you. I marry you.”
His eyes burn across my face with the sweetest heat, with assurances of his love, with the certainty of forever.
“I marry you.” He ordains my lips with a kiss, soft and tender. “I marry you. I marry you.”
Neither of us saw this kind of love growing up. Between his parents, he saw nothing more than a business arrangement, between mine I only saw a broken promise, but we made our own way, made our own love.
We’ve made our own vow, and this one we’ll keep.
THE END