The One I Trust (14 page)

“We’ll catch up with you in a minute,” I told them as they left.

“Who doesn’t like otters?” Emily asked me, looking after them questioningly as they went to the next exhibit.

“He’s weird,” I said, shrugging and putting my arm around her shoulder.

She smiled at me and turned her face to the viewing window where one lone otter was entertaining himself with a small rock. I looked around the little room we were in. There were a few people, but nowhere near as many as there’d been at the aquarium.

“Do you remember the first time we saw otters together?” I asked, pulling her a little closer.

She looked up at me and smiled.

“I remember.”

I leaned toward her and gave her a gentle, lingering kiss. When our lips parted she smiled at me again and then turned back to the window.

“You haven’t left me yet,” I pointed out, my arm still wrapped around her shoulder.

“No,” she said, keeping her eyes on the otter but putting a hand on my chest and leaning in closer to me. “I think I’ll hang around a while longer.”

We stood there like that quietly for a moment, watching the otters. Then I asked, “What if all I ever am is an ‘Inventory Control Specialist’?”

She looked at me questioningly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if that’s all I’m ever cut out to be? What if that’s all I ever amount to?”

“It won’t be,” she said reassuringly, patting my chest again. “This is just where you’re at right now in your life. It’s not what you’re going to do forever.”

“But what if it is?” I asked. “Are you still going to hang around?”

She studied me carefully for a moment.

“I don’t care what you do,” she said. “I just want you to be happy.”

“You said you wanted fireworks,” I said, “but what if all I can give you is this?” I pulled a silver sparkler from my jacket pocket and held it out for her to see.

She looked down and I saw her eyes widen before she raised her head and looked back at me. She seemed only slightly less horrified than the first time I’d asked her.

“You’re not really doing this here, are you?”

“This is where the otters are,” I said, pulling out a lighter. “Emily—”

“Seriously?” she asked, cutting me off. “You’re really doing this
here
?”

“Are you going to say ‘Yes’?” I asked.

She looked into my eyes for a moment and then gave me a little nod.

“Then yes,” I answered. “I’m really doing this here.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips and I started over.

“Emily,” I said again, striking the lighter. “I don’t have any idea why you’re still with me . . .”

I held the lighter to the tip of the sparkler.

“But ever since you’ve come into my life, things just keep getting better and better.”

The sparkler caught fire and I handed it to her.

“And I promise that if you let me, I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me.”

I looked at her and she took her eyes off the crackling sparkler to look back at me.

“Will you marry me?”

She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me carefully so as not to burn me with the sparkler that was still spewing brilliant white sparks all around us in the darkened room. A smattering of applause broke out from the handful of people who were standing around us. Emily stepped back and I dug in my pocket one more time, pulling out a ring and presenting it to her.

She looked from the sparkler to the ring and then at me.

“You’re supposed to get down on one knee,” a teenage girl called out from behind me.

I glanced back.

“She didn’t want me to get down on one knee,” I explained and then I looked back at Emily. “You don’t want me to, do you?”

She shook her head and laughed again as the sparkler died out.

“So will you marry me?” I asked.

She pressed her lips together for a moment but then nodded and broke into a delighted smile.

“Yes,” she said, hugging me once more. The people standing around us clapped again as we kissed.

“Here,” I said, taking her hand and putting the ring on her finger.

“You didn’t have to get me a ring,” she said.

“Was the opposite of a diamond solitaire marquee cut supposed to be no ring at all?”

She laughed as I slid it onto her finger.

“It’s way too big,” I noted unhappily.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, holding it out in front of her to look at it.

“We can make it smaller.”

“Is this topaz?”

“Yeah. Apparently November’s birthstone can be topaz or citrine, but I decided to go with topaz because it’s a little bit stronger.” She nodded, but I warned, “It’s nowhere near as strong as a diamond though. It’s really not the best thing to make a ring out of. I tried to make the mounting protect it as much as possible, but if you drop it hard enough or whack your hand against something, it’s going to break.”

“You
made
this?”

“Yeah.” I was only slightly worried that she would be offended by this . . . so far she had thought that everything I’d ever made was
special
. I wasn’t looking forward to the day when she no longer felt that way.

She studied it more closely.

“This is amazing,” she said. “I can’t believe you made this. I’ll be very careful with it.”

“If it breaks,” I said, “I can put a new stone in it.”

“How in the world did you make this?”

“I took a class.”

She thought for a moment, then looked at me and asked, “On Tuesday nights?”

I nodded.

“I thought you played basketball with Hale every Tuesday!”

“I do,” I said. “Just not when I have to make an engagement ring.”

“I love it,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

I grinned.

“And I love you,” she said, wrapping her arms around me for a third time.

I hugged her back.

“I love you, too.”

And so Emily and I decided to get married, and no—I didn’t talk to God about it first. Not only did I truly believe that God wasn’t going to let me have two disastrous marriages in a row, I actually felt that—after everything I’d already been through—He was getting ready to do something to make up for all of that . . . like He kind of owed me.

Emily and I were going to get married. We were going to have a perfect life. We were going to raise a perfect family.

Not that Emily and I had even talked about having kids—I honestly had no idea if she wanted them or not. But surely she did. I mean, she was becoming a teacher . . . obviously she loved kids, right?

I knew that she was young and just starting her career and I understood that she might not want to start making babies
right
away . . . but hopefully she wasn’t going to make me wait too long . . .

When Noah was little, I had promised him that I’d give him a brother or a sister one day. Even though he was gone, I could hardly wait to keep my word.

THREE WEEKS LATER Emily and I drove to her parents’ house in Pennsylvania so that I could meet them. After the picture Emily had painted, I was not looking forward to the whole ordeal, but everything actually wound up going fine. Her mom and dad weren’t at all what I was expecting.

First of all, I thought that they were going to give me the cold shoulder—that they were going to be resentful of the fact that Emily was marrying me instead of Ethan (or of the fact that Emily was marrying someone with an arrest record or of the fact that Emily was marrying someone who was ten years older than she was—pick a reason). But they both acted very pleasant toward me and smiled a lot and acted like they were trying to make a good impression. Maybe they were just as worried about what she had told me about them as I was about what she had told them about me.

Second of all, I was kind of expecting to see some pictures around the house with Ethan in them—or at least some evidence that his family was as close to Emily’s family as she’d said. But I saw no sign of him at all, and neither he nor his family were mentioned or even hinted at the entire time I was there.

Emily did show me a picture of Ethan in her yearbook after her parents went to bed on our last night there. The yearbook was from Emily’s junior year—Ethan’s senior year—and he was wearing a tux like all the other senior guys. He was wearing a tux like he would have been if he’d waited for Emily at the end of an aisle.

I turned and looked at her.

“What happened to your wedding dress?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still have it?”

She nodded.

“I want to see it.”

“Why?”

“Because I do.”

She furrowed her brow for a few seconds but then said, “Okay,” and led me up the stairs to her bedroom.

Closing the door behind us so that we wouldn’t wake up her parents and brother (whose bedrooms were on either side of hers), Emily headed for her large, walk-in closet. A moment later, she emerged, carrying a bulky, white vinyl bag, which she threw onto her bed.

She unzipped the bag and pulled out a whole bunch of white, sparkly, shiny fabric. Shaking it out, she held it up for me to see.

“Put it on,” I said.

“What?”

“I said, ‘Put it on.’”

“Why?”

“Because I want to see you in it!”

She considered me for a moment but then shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I don’t think so . . .”

“Oh, come on!” I urged. “I want to see.”

She hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing, and took it back in to her closet.

I sat down on her bed and waited. After a few moments she opened the door and stuck her head out.

“This is stupid,” she said. “I’m not going to be able to do it up in the back.”

“I’ll do it up for you.”

She pressed her lips together and sighed before disappearing back into the closet.

After another few moments she finally emerged.

“Wow.”

She glanced down self-consciously and smoothed the front of her dress.

“Have I ever told you that Ethan was an idiot?” I asked.

She looked back up at me with a small, appreciative smile just like the last time I’d told her that he was an idiot.

“You look amazing,” I said seriously, crooking my finger at her. “Come here.”

“It’s not done up in the back.”

“Well then, come here.”

She came closer, stopping directly in front of me. I was still sitting on the bed and I looked up at her.

“You really do look amazing,” I said quietly. She smiled at me again.

“Here,” I said, putting my hands on her waist and gently turning her away from me. “Turn around.”

She obediently turned and faced the closet, leaving me nothing to stare at but bare back. Gathering her hair at the nape of her neck, she carefully moved it over her shoulder so that it wasn’t in the way of the buttons.

Slowly I reached my hand up and touched the skin on her lower back. It was warm and soft and flawless. I ran my hand slowly up her back to her neck and then I put my hands on her waist again and pulled her closer, kissing the small of her back.

I felt her shiver.

“I thought you were going to do up my buttons,” she said softly.

“I am.”

And I did—even though that wasn’t really the direction I wanted to be going.

There were a lot of them. Little cloth-covered buttons that barely fit into little tiny loops. They went all the way from the small of her back up to her hairline. I had to stand up to get those.

When I’d finally finished I put my hands on her waist a third time and turned her so that she was facing me again.

She moved her hair behind her and took a few steps back, carefully moving the long, billowy skirt out of the way so she didn’t step on it. She spread the train out behind her and then looked at me.

“Well?”

“Even more amazing.”

She gave me a little smile.

“You should totally wear that for our wedding.”

“What?” she cried. “No!”

“Are you going to return it?”

“No.” She shook her head. “They already did the first set of alterations.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Burn it?”

“You should wear it at our wedding.”

“I’m not wearing this at our wedding!”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “But I’m not marrying you in a dress that I bought for Ethan!”

“Did you really buy it for Ethan?” I asked. “Or did you buy it because you loved it?”

She didn’t answer.

“You bought it for
you
,” I said. “When you went shopping for dresses, this was your favorite one, wasn’t it?”

She still didn’t answer.

“You love this dress,” I said. “This is what you should wear.”

“We’re getting married in
June
,” she said, shaking her arms at me. “I’m not wearing long sleeves in
June
.”

“Get them cut off.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment and then she walked out her bedroom door, her dress rustling behind her. She returned in a moment, carrying a pair of scissors, and she held them out to me.

“You do it.”

“What?”

“I want you to cut the sleeves off.”

“What? No! I meant you need to go somewhere and have it professionally altered.”

“I know what you meant,” she said quietly, still holding the scissors before me. “But I want you to do it.”

“I don’t know how to alter a dress!”

“You’re an artist,” she said, holding up her hand with the engagement ring to remind me. “I want you to do it.”

I looked at her carefully and realized she was as serious as I’d ever seen her. We stared at each other for another minute, and then I finally took the scissors from her and she stepped back, holding out one arm.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked.

She gave me a smile. “I’m positive.”

I thought about that. I asked, “Can I cut more than just the sleeves?”

She grinned. “You can cut whatever you want.”

I started near her wrist and slowly cut up the first sleeve until I reached the seam where it joined the bodice. She lifted her arm for me so I could cut all the way along the sleeve. After a moment, it fell to the floor.