Shoe Strings

I didn’t care if
I lived or died and it took years to feel happy again.   I wouldn’t survive another loss.”
    “Did the doctor tell you what happened?   Did he say it might happen again?”
    She turned away, tried to tamp down her anger.   They were just questions and she could
answer them without feeling like he was nailing daggers in her flesh.   “The cord wrapped around his neck.   They said it was a fluke.”
    She felt his hand on her shoulder, rubbing, soothing, felt
it slip under the collar of the robe and touch the bare skin of her neck.   His hands, strong, calloused, steadily
worked the tension from her knotted muscles.   “If we tried again, I would be there
with you.   We would see specialists,
constantly monitor your progress…”   She turned and tried to make him stop talking.   He wouldn’t be deterred.   “And if you couldn’t do it, we’d adopt.”
    “Jesse…”   Something inside of her fluttered, like little angel wings of hope, but
she couldn’t give it flight.   “This
is crazy.   You live in North
Carolina, I live here.   You have
your business, I have mine.   It
would never work.”
    “You worked the whole time you were away.   Bryce said you e-mailed your designs to
Sophie and every time I saw you, you had that sketch pad in your bag.”
    “There’s more to my job than designing.”   She hated the other parts, but that was
beside the point.   “And I can’t
abandon Sophie, especially now.’
    “What do you mean, especially now?”
    “I told you she’s pregnant.”   For the first time, she experienced the
sting of what that would mean, watching her best friend glow with health, feel
her child move inside of her womb, grow and give life to something that would
live and thrive.  
    Jesse must have seen her thoughts on her face.   She’d always been told she wore it all
like a mirror.   “Baby,” he said and
the tenderness in his voice had her wanting to walk into his arms.   “We can have it all, we just have to
work it out, that’s all.”
    “It’s not that simple.”
    “Nothing worth having ever is.”   He ran his hands over his face.   He looked as wrung out as she felt.   She hadn’t even told him she loved him
and he talked of children and a life together.   She couldn’t tell him what was in her
heart; he’d never let her go.
    “Jesse, I can’t let you do this.”
    “You don’t have any choice and neither do I.”   He pulled something from his front
pocket and held it against his heart for a moment.   With his eyes closed, he looked like he
was praying.   “Angelita, I want to
spend the rest of my life with you, even if we can’t have kids, even if we
never try.   I simply can’t go
another day without you in my life.   I know you’ve been through a lot and we’ve got a lot of stuff to work
out, but I don’t care about any of that.   I want you to be my wife.”   He held out his hand and in his palm was what looked like an antique
diamond engagement ring.   “This was
my mother’s.   Cal gave it to me
before I left to come down here.”
    She’d seen a ring like that before, in an antique store
glass case.   She remembered thinking
how lucky a woman would be to have a ring with history, a ring that had been
through life and death and unimaginable love.   Here, in her tiny home where she’d
dreamed of things bigger than herself, stood the very man she’d waited her
whole life to find.   It wasn’t just
the ring he offered her, it was his heart.   She was stunned beyond words, unable to speak, unable to move.  
    “I’ll give you two weeks to figure it out.   Kerri Ann wants you at her wedding and
I’ll need you to have an answer for me by then.”
    “They’re getting married?” she sputtered.
    “In two weeks.   That’s all the time I’ll give you.”
    She watched as he lifted her arm, put the ring in her hand,
and turned around to retrieve his bag by the door.   He turned to face her.   “If you don’t come to me, I’ll come
after you, so don’t even think about hiding out here.”
    He stared at her a long moment, his eyes the color of the
sky at dusk, his face so serious.   Then the door closed behind him and she was left holding her future in
her hand.   A smile, as big and broad
as the mountains she’d soon call home, broke out on her face.   “Jesse,” she called as she ran for the
door.   He wasn’t in the hallway or
the stairwell leading to the parking garage.