The water was fairly calm, and Nicole stood at the edge and let the waves come in and bring the water up over her feet. It was chilly and sent shivers up her spine. She hugged herself, smiling and thinking about just how right this all was—the ocean, the sky—the expansiveness of this place.
Somehow, out here, she knew they weren’t alone in this. She knew that something here was taking care of them.
Nicole wasn’t religious—her parents had been casual churchgoers at best, and none of her spotty religious upbringing had quite stuck. But in this moment, she could feel some kind of presence out here, on this beach, with her.
“Hey,” Red spoke from behind her.
Nicole turned and saw that he was holding two large paper lanterns in each hand. They were both bright orange in color, and fairly large.
“What are those for?” she asked, but already a huge sensation was blooming in her chest. She felt afraid but excited all at once.
Red’s eyes were suddenly wet. He swallowed and she saw that he was having a little trouble getting the words out. Nicole had never seen him like this before.
“I didn’t go to look at offices today. Well, I did, but I couldn’t be bothered to stick around. I felt like I had to do something—I was practically jumping out of my skin.” His voice was husky and rough with emotion.
Nicole nodded and wiped at her eyes. “You found this place instead?”
“I thought we could have a ceremony for our baby,” he whispered. “I need something and I thought maybe you do too.”
“Yeah. I do.” She smiled. She thought that looking at him now, she’d never love him more than she did right this very moment. He was so vulnerable, but also perhaps the strongest he’d ever been. His dark eyes were filled with sadness and caring and she felt completely connected to him.
“Here,” he said, putting the lanterns down on the sandy beach and kneeling. “I got some candles. When we light them, the candle heats the air inside the lantern and makes it lift—“
“Like a hot air balloon,” Nicole said.
“Exactly.” He smiled up at her.
She walked over to where he was kneeling and Nicole knelt down beside him. “They’re beautiful,” she told him.
“Just like our baby’s spirit,” he managed to choke out.
Red handed her a lighter and a small candle, which she lit. He then did the same, and then helped her affix her candle within her lamp. He placed his candle in his own lamp and then they each stood and held the glowing yellow lanterns, waiting.
“You want to say something, Nicole?” he asked. “Before we send them off?”
She sighed. “I don’t want to cry again.”
“It’s okay to cry. It’s just me and you here.”
“I just want to thank you for being the most amazing man I’ve ever known, and for doing this for us. And I want to say that we’re never going to forget our little one who never got a chance. But I wanted to say…” she couldn’t finish.
“You’ll always be in our hearts,” Red finished for her.
And then they released their lanterns into the air. Watching them float up into the sky, Nicole suddenly felt the burden lifting from her. Maybe it was just a silly ceremony, and a made up one at that, but somehow it eased her mind.
She knew that although they would move on from this, they wouldn’t ever forget that there had once been a child—a child that had been conceived by the two of them—who would never get the chance to experience the life it deserved. No matter that the unborn child had been so tiny and new that it had barely registered on a sonogram—to Nicole, every moment that she’d known her baby existed had been a miracle and she never wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened.
So the two of them stood hand in hand and watched their lanterns rising and rising and rising, until they were swallowed up by the deep blue sky.
And then Nicole and Red stayed and watched the sun set, and the sky was on fire with color.
***
The next day, Nicole informed Red that she did, in fact, want to have a “traditional” wedding.
“That’s what I figured,” he said, as they walked through the empty floor of an office building in downtown Hartford.
The realtor had let them in and told them to just have a look while he waited by the door. Red disliked pushy realtors and had made it clear he didn’t want to be followed around and blabbered to while he assessed the space.
“Are you okay with that?” Nicole asked him. “With having a normal wedding?”
“What do you define as normal?” he said, turning toward the window that looked out over the afternoon traffic. “How many people do you want to invite?”
“I don’t know. Maybe fifty people?”
Red laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but that’s not a normal wedding. That’s tiny.”
“Well excuse me,” she said. Nicole turned and looked at the ceiling. “Are those water stains up there?”
Red glanced upwards. “Yep.”
“This place isn’t very slick—it’s kind of dumpy.”
“We’re not going for slick anymore. I want an office environment that says grit, determination and hard work. Did you ever see Rocky III?”