“That’s not going to stop me."
I knock on the glass door, and Mr. Cho promptly opens it. Grace stares at me in horror as though ignoring the posted notice is akin to crimes against humanity. “Jude...”
“Mr. Mercer,” the restaurant owner greets me. “Come in, come in.”
The look of horror on Grace’s face fades to confusion. Max and I share a conspiratorial glance, excited that our plot is working, but she catches it.
“What are you two up to?” she demands as we step inside.
I don’t bother to answer, not wanting to risk more suspicion. Mr. Cho shows us to a table in the center of the restaurant. He’s placed a white linen table cloth on it and a cluster of daisies in a vase. There's even a lit tea light.
“Did you do this?” she asks me as she takes it all in.
“I thought we should have fine dining on such an important day, but I also really wanted Chinese.”
“It is a tradition,” she teases me as we take our seats.
I’d prearranged the menu with Mr. Cho to ensure that all of our favorites were ready. Max is going through a growth spurt, and he manages to eat damn near his weight in food. We plan what we'll plant in the garden and Max makes his case for a dog.
Grace's smile is radiant the entire evening, and I sketch it into memory. Someday I'll paint her like this, but I'll never do her justice.
“I can’t believe you did this,” she says as Mr. Cho drops off the check along with three fortune cookies.
“I wanted to make today memorable."
“You’ve already made all my dreams come true,” she says.
I raise an eyebrow. Reaching out, I take her hand. “All of them?”
Our eyes lock. Just finding each other has completed our lives, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that I still want, and I want them with her. Grace breaks away and passes out the fortune cookies. We lapse into silence as we begin our ritual. She’s too busy reading hers to realize mine is still sitting on my plate. Max winks next to me. Then, he passes me his fortune.
“You will get a dog,” I read aloud.
That’s what I get for not asking him what he had chosen to put on his personalized cookie.
“That is very specific and timely,” his mother says, narrowing her eyes.
Max holds up his hands, but his impish smirk undermines his pretense of innocence.
“What about yours?” I ask her.
She swallows, and I realize tears are glistening in her green eyes.
“It says all my dreams will come true.” Her voice cracks as she reads it. She sniffs and wipes her finger along the rim of her eye. “What does yours say?”
By now she’s figured out that I’ve planted all of the fortunes, but I think I can still surprise her.
“I don’t know,” I say, holding mine up.
“You cheat,” she says. “Whatever is in there is not going to come true now.”
“I established the rules. I can change them.”
“Oh, yeah? What do you want to change?”
I push to my feet and move to her side of the table. Grace's breathing speeds up as I get closer.
“From now on, I think we should share all of our fortunes.”
“Sometimes our fortunes suck,” she whispers.
“There’s no one I’d rather get a sucky fortune with,” I say to her as I slowly lower myself to one knee.
Grace’s hand flies to her mouth as I crack open the cookie, revealing a slip of paper tucked around the band of a diamond ring.
“Why don’t we start with this fortune?” I suggest.
Her eyes don’t leave mine. She reaches out and plucks the slip free with trembling fingers.
“I don’t think I can read it,” she admits. “I’m shaking too hard.”
I take the ring, dropping the cookie on the table and hold it out to her. She pauses before she allows me to slide it onto her finger.
“What does it say?” she asks, giving the slip to me. I take it, but I don’t bother to look.
“It says I love you. It says that you’ve given me more love than I ever thought I deserved. It says that if we’ve made it through the storms we’ve faced, we can make it through anything. It says we’re going to grow old together in rocking chairs on our front porch. It says you’ve given me your heart, and not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for that.”
“That’s a lot for one tiny slip of paper." She's crying now even though she's still smiling.
“I’m sorry,” I say, a smirk curving across my mouth. “I meant that it says, will you marry me?”
“Yes.” She barely gets the word out before I’m kissing her.
Max wiggles between us, and I’m so glad he’s here to share the moment when my last dream came true.
That night we’re all too giddy to sleep. When Max finally surrenders, I tiptoe downstairs, trying not to trip over boxes. The house is quiet, and after searching a few minutes, I find Grace on the porch gazing in the direction of the sea.
"It's too dark to appreciate the view," I call out.