Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) (32 page)

But you'd already accustomed yourself to that idea, anywaythat loving Erika could kill you. You'd accepted it. Because you loved
her more than you loved your own life. Because you couldn't not
love her.

You didn't drown. You came home and picked out a stone from a
certified dealer and had the ring made.

Seventeen years. Seventeen years from the moment you'd known
she was the only woman you would ever love. And now she's next to
you, sweating and swearing, and she's never looked more beautiful
to you than she does right now.

You gave her the ring in Florida. She'd probably expected to get it
in Maine, where you'd gone first, making the rounds of the parents
for the holidays. You'd spent a couple of days up in the snows of East
Machias-too close to the shoreline to go skiing, but that was okay,
this was a family visit, not a ski vacation. Your brothers were there.
George pretended to wrestle you, but of course you weren't his puny
baby brother anymore. You're as big as he is these days, and he knew
that if he took you on, you'd have him pinned in two seconds flat.
Josh and Adam and Nancy and their assorted partners, spouses, and
children were there, your parents' house was crowded and noisy and
Erika kept giving you looks that grew progressively more doubtful,
more worried.

But you waited. You wanted to do this right-not with all your
nosy, noisy siblings around.

So you flew with her from Maine down to Florida, and she was
getting a bit edgy and anxious. You were kind of edgy, too, because
her parents-who are really great people but kind of old fashionedput you in the guest bedroom and her on the convertible sofa in the
den, and you were horny as hell. At six-thirty in the morning, you
couldn't stand it any longer, so you sneaked into the den and joined
her on the sofa just for a snuggle, you weren't going to get into
anything intense with her parents asleep just down the hall. And she
started cuddling against you, making you ten times hornier, and you
said you wanted to take a walk.

"Alone?" she asked.

"You can join me if you'd like," you said, all casual. Thank God
she'd decided to come with you.

She was dressed in pink. The color of the sun rising over the
ocean. You had the beach to yourself; everyone else was probably still
in bed, visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. The sand was
soft and white, the air sweet and morning-cool, the water as smooth
as a mirror.

You couldn't stop looking at her. You couldn't stop thinking that
everything you'd ever wanted, everything you'd ever dreamed of,
everything you'd ever wished upon a star for-it was here. It was
her. Erika.

You were rehearsing in your head how you would phrase the
question-as if there were all that many ways of phrasing it-but
before you could speak, she launched into a monologue, going on
and on about how wasn't it amazing that a year ago you weren't
even in each other's lives, and six months ago you'd met at Fanelli's,
and as soon as she'd said good-bye to you that day, she'd realized she
was in love with you, and how generous fate had been to bring you
and her back together-and you're thinking, excuse me, I was the
one who got us back together, sending you that email and asking if
you'd like to meet for a drink, but okay, give fate all the credit-and
she was babbling, and you were wondering if she'd ever stop to catch
her breath, only you didn't want her to stop because she was just
saying, in so many different ways, that she loved you.

And you realized that yes, there were many ways to phrase the
question.

So you finally turned to face her, and she finally shut up, and you
said, "You are the only woman I have ever really loved. "And you fell
to your knees on that warm, white sand and said, "I want to spend
the rest of my life with you." And you gave her the ring, which did
not have a stone from the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, and damn it, if you'd drowned there, it wouldn't have
been the worst way to go.

You remember that at your wedding, the first song you and she
danced to as husband and wife was "Songbird," by Fleetwood Mac.
The song she'd included on the mix tape she'd given you so many
years ago. The heartfelt ballad that said everything. "I love you, I
love you, I love you like never before ..."

She's groaning, and you steer your attention back to the hospital
room. Floral wallpaper-supposedly soothing, but only one thing
would soothe her right now, and it's happening in its own time.
There's a doctor in the room, a nurse, a midwife, and everyone is
smiling, even Erika when she's not muttering and panting and doing
all those breathing things you tell her to do. You want to point out to
her that she was the one who insisted you had to start having babies
right away, and as it turned out, right away happened on the honeymoon.

Not a bad way to celebrate a wedding.

Even if it meant you wound up spending your first few months of
marriage searching for a bigger apartment. Because there was no
way you could squeeze a crib into the Doll House. But you found the
apartment. Not the house you've talked about in the country, with
horses for her and donkeys for you and a dog like Spot, although
Erika says if you have a dog it has to be fixed.

The way she's feeling right now, you wonder if she's going to want
to have you fixed so she doesn't have to go through this again. You
squeeze her hand, wipe a damp cloth over her forehead, kiss her
matted hair, and remind her to keep breathing.

"I have to push," she says.

You wish you could push for her. You wish you could take on her
pain for her. But she would never let you. She promised you she
would never cause you pain again, and she never will. You know that now. She's Erika, wise, beautiful, earthy, brave Erika.

The only woman you've ever really loved.

"It's crowning," the midwife says. "Let's have another big push
now, okay?"

And suddenly everything happens so fast, and Erika clutches your
hand and scrunches her face and pushes, and you feel as if you're
drowning right now, not in a hole in a diamond mine but right here,
drowning in love and joy, and the midwife says, "It's a boy."

And your son lets out a cry. And you and Erika start crying, too.

So many years. So much pain, loss, distance. So much love.

They ask you to cut the cord, and you do, and your son is bundled
into a blanket and handed into Erika's loving arms. And you think,
it was worth it. All those years, all that hurt, but now you have this.
You have everything.

It was definitely worth the wait.

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