Chapter 12

Alex

I realized I was leaning forward in my seat on the plane, as if I was increasing the aerodynamics with my posture. We were two hours outside of San Francisco. I tried to relax. But the urge to get to Cecilia, grab a hold of her, and never let her go was almost overwhelming me. I needed to see her, immediately.

One hour forty-three minutes.

I looked at the terrible inflight magazine.

One hour thirty-six minutes.

Jesus Christ. I pulled out my laptop again, and tried to do some work. Focusing had been an issue during the first several hours of the flight and I hadn’t gotten shit done. I really didn’t remember California being so far away.

One hour eighteen minutes.

I put on my headphones, listening to all the songs that she loved to sing. Letting my mind drift into memories, and thinking about the future with her.

∞

I hopped into a cab to get the city after we finally landed and taxied to the gate, and thank god the driver drove like a maniac or I would have had to push him over to the passenger side and commandeer the car. We got stuck in some traffic as we headed up 101, and more when we were on the city streets. It was excruciating.

“Not as bad as most days,” the driver said complacently. “You’re lucky.”

I did not feel lucky. And then finally, we drove up to the hotel on Nob Hill. I could see Cecilia standing outside, looking at each car that approached. Before we had gotten close to the crowded driveway I was shoving money at the taxi driver. “Keep it,” I told him, and dragged my bag with me as I bolted out of the car.

She saw me coming and her whole face lit up. She started to step off the curb in front of a moving taxi, too. “Stay there!” I yelled, and finally made my way to her. She was crying as I hugged her to me, lifting her up to clutch her tight.

“I missed you!” she sobbed into my shirt, and I told her that I had missed her too. And that I loved her, and we were never taking separate vacations, ever.

I slid her down, taking her sweet face in my hands. I had missed just looking at her, and here she was, all red-eyed and teary, her nose dripping. She was so beautiful. “Let’s go inside and get my room,” I said.

“Yes!” she agreed. “Because I want to have sex, like, immediately. ”

I was totally on board with that plan. Checking into the hotel was difficult as Cecilia’s hand kept wandering up under my shirt, and she was kind of biting my bare bicep below my t-shirt sleeve. I clamped my own hand over hers and held it flat to my stomach, giving the guy at the check-in desk a tight smile as he handed me the key cards. “Thanks for your help.”

We managed to get ourselves into the elevator without causing a scene. Although my hand on her back did keep straying lower. My god, her ass was unbelievable. Had I forgotten about it? The first thing I was going to do when we got to the room was—

Cecilia impatiently pulled my ear down to her mouth. “Alex, I forgot to tell you that I started on the Pill a few weeks ago,” she whispered. It was a little loud. I pulled back and looked at her and she smiled at me. “I went back to the strep throat doctor. I was planning ahead. What do you think?”

I patted her cheek and put my finger to my lips in the universal, “We’re in an elevator and everyone can hear you” gesture. When the doors opened, both of us sort of ran, well, really ran, in opposite directions down the hallway. “Hey! Wrong way!” She turned and sprinted back toward me, her bag thumping behind her.

“I think the bigger numbers should be on the right!” she told me. I grabbed her hand, then took her bag and pulled them both along with me.

Hotel card keys sucked. SUCKED. “Fuck me,” I was muttering, when finally the green light came on and I could shove the door to the room open. Cecilia was stripping off her clothes before it even fully shut. “Hurry up, Alex!” she urged me.

“Watch this.” I pulled the t-shirt over my head and then grabbed the waistband of my pants, ripping them off my legs so I was left in my boxers. “How’s that for speed?”

“Wow,” she breathed. Her eyes were huge. “They’re just what we needed! I was wondering why you were dressed like you were going to a swap meet. Velcro pants! That’s amazing!”

“They solve a lot of our problems.” I pulled her to me, picking her up so I could kiss her as much as I wanted. She swirled her tongue together with mine and I massaged her sweet ass. Two perfect handfuls.

She gasped and pulled back. “I want you, right now! Let’s lose the underwear!” I pulled back the sheets and she straddled me, sinking down and taking me deeply. She moaned as she bottomed out and I bit my lip. She felt so good. I flipped us over and pulled her legs around me, angling her hips so I could drive hard into her.

“Alex! Please, like that,” Cecilia said, then started her little moans as I slammed into her, palming her breasts and pinching her nipples. When she arched her back and started to clench around my cock, I came so hard I thought I saw stars.

I lay on top of her, panting, and she gripped my shoulders. “I missed you,” I repeated, and she leaned up and bit my shoulder. “Am I squishing you?” I asked softly.

She gripped me tighter. “I like it. I want to feel you on me, and in me. You should stay like this forever.”

“I can reach the phone to order room service, but I don’t want to subject the waiter to this view.”

“Anyone would be lucky to see your butt!” she admonished me, then grabbed it, and patted it. “I love your butt.”

“It’s mutual. I love yours too. I love you, too.” I lowered my mouth to hers, and we were on for Round Two. A lot slower and less frantic, but with the same satisfying result.

Afterwards I curled around her. She kept snuggling closer and closer. “Sweetie, eventually you’re going to push us off the bed,” I said, and nuzzled her neck. Oh Jesus, she smelled so damn good.

“I want to be close to you. I wish you hadn’t pulled out. I wasn’t kidding about staying inside me forever.”

“It just raises so many practical concerns,” I said, and she elbowed me. “Cecilia, I have to tell you something.”

She turned to face me, eyebrows raised. “What is it?”

“Happy birthday, honey.”

Her face wreathed in smiles. “How did you know?”

“Remember filling out all those medical forms when you had strep? I do.” I kissed her. “Hang on.”

She sat up and watched me walk naked across to my bag. “You’re quite impressive,” she told me. “Most men would really gross me out if they left it all hanging like that, but you’re a sight to behold!”

“Thank you, I guess.” I got out the small, flat box, and handed it to her. “This is your birthday present.”

“Alex, what is this?” She pulled off the ribbon, and opened it. “Oh! It’s the sun!” She held up the necklace, and the diamonds sparkled .

I took it from her, and she held up her hair while I did the clasp. The little sun shone on her throat.

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned in my whole life, besides your drawings,” she said, tears welling up. “I love it. Thank you!” She held my cheek, and kissed me, again and again.

“It reminded me of you,” I told her, tracing her collarbone with my fingers. “That’s what you are to me. You’re like sunlight. I can’t get by without you.”

“Alex!” She was crying to beat the band. “You say the most romantic things ever!” She was trying to kiss me through her tears.

“Here,” I said, handing her some tissues.

“Now I’m going to be such a mess,” Cecilia said, swiping at her face.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a bad crier! I look so ugly when I cry.”

“Are you joking?” I was flabbergasted. “You look gorgeous. You’re absolutely beautiful.”

“Oh, Alex!” She reached for me, and we started on Round Three.

∞

“I feel a little peckish,” Cecilia said as she lay on top of me, and I kneaded her back muscles. And her ass. It was like a magnet for my hands .

“Is that a phallic reference? If so, I’m resenting your use of the word little.”

“That would be a little pecker ,” she explained. “And you don’t have to worry about that! I’ve seen many a penis in my day, and you’re doing great.”

“And how, exactly, did you see this large number of penises?”

“My mom went through a nudist phase,” she said. “It was very awkward for me as a tween. Anyway, peckish is British for hungry. I’m ravenous.”

“You’ve mentioned before that sex makes you hungry,” I said. “Although I’m wondering how you can tell that it’s the sex that does it when it seems to be a constant state with you.”

“I’m resenting your slurs on my appetite,” she said primly. “Maybe I’ll just leave.”

“It would be hard to do that while I’m still inside you,” I commented, and slapped her ass. She squealed and I flipped her under me, pushing back her curls. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Cecilia answered, and pulled my face down to kiss me.

“Have I told you that I love you?”

“I think so,” she said, fingering her new necklace. “But what was your name again?”

God, I had missed her. We finally got up out of the bed, which I thought the hotel might want to examine for broken springs after we checked out. I also thought it would be a good idea for us to shower together, just to make sure she got really clean. I did a very thorough job in helping her.

Over a very late lunch/very early dinner at an Italian restaurant nearby, Cecilia filled me in on what had been happening with her mom. I worked very hard to emulate Dr. Mavromatis and keep my poker face on. No matter how I felt, she very clearly loved that fucking idiot. Poker face on the outside, seething hatred within.

“I told her that I was done. That I wanted her to call me to keep in touch, but that I wouldn’t be coming to the rescue anymore. I just want us to be friends now, if we can be.” She sighed. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

“How do you feel about it?” Yeah, I was totally channeling Dr. Mavromatis.

Cecilia sighed again. “I feel kind of empty. I’ve been taking care of her for a long time. Even from far away. But I also feel so relieved.” She looked at me anxiously. “Is that terrible?”

“No, that’s not terrible at all. It’s understandable.”

Cecilia played with her fork. “She forgot that it’s my birthday,” she mentioned. I clenched my fist and hated her mom even more. I mean, if you only had one child… “I talked to her friend Amina in Oakland for a long time yesterday. She and my mom used to be really close, and Amina is going to try to work on her too. Maybe she’ll come to her senses about that disgusting Allen. And when she moves out, I’ll narc on him! I hope he enjoys Alcatraz. No one can escape from there!”

“I don’t think they send people to Alcatraz anymore.”

Her face fell. “Really? I had all these fantasies about Allen trying to make a raft out of raincoats and sinking in the bay. That really happened. I read a book about it.”

“There’s a movie too. Why don’t I try to get tickets out to the island and we can go see it for ourselves?”

She was bouncing. “Oooh, I want to! I want to go. Alex, this is the best birthday ever.” That didn’t say much about her past celebrations. I promised myself that I was going to make every one of her birthdays special, for as long as she kept me around. Cecilia smiled at me, and put her hand on my cheek.

She was so damn hard not to kiss. “I’ll take you to a former federal prison any day, sweetie.” I gave up trying not to kiss her.

Cecilia

I was never going to leave Alex, not even for a minute. I tried to keep his hand in mine, or my arm through his, at all times. I loved the necklace he gave me, but my favorite part about it was that every time I felt the little diamond sun on my neck, I remembered what he’d said to me, that I was like sunlight to him. I’d never forget it. And the best present of all was him coming to California to be with me.

We walked all around downtown San Francisco, and on the way back to the hotel we stopped at a bakery and he bought me a cupcake. Then he pulled a box of birthday cake candles and matches out of his pocket so I would have something to blow out! I kept trying not to cry, and losing the battle. Then we went back to the hotel room, and he let me do the pants rip-off move on him. I mean, really—best birthday ever!

I was still feeling pretty off-kilter about my mom, and I checked my phone a few times, hoping she would call. She had kind of forgotten my birthday, and I wondered if she would remember. I was also kind of hoping that she would call me and tell me that she had realized that I was right, and that she was going to start acting a little more grown up. I knew that it was silly to expect a miraculous turnaround. She wasn’t suddenly going to become self-sufficient! But I checked my phone anyway.

Alex was really talented at distracting me. After I tore off his pants in our room, we kissed our way into bed, and he had me curl up on my side with him at my back. I loved to lie like that with him. It made me feel all cozy and safe.

Usually. But tonight, he started running his hands up and down my body, and I went from feeling cozy to pretty hot. Then hotter, when his hand cupped around my breast. I was watching his long fingers pluck at my nipple, tweaking and rubbing, while he started to rub himself up against my butt. He snuck his other arm underneath me and reached around to cup my pussy. He rubbed me against his hand when he moved up and down behind me. It was an overload to my senses—it felt like he was all around me, lips and teeth and breath on my neck, hands massaging now, and making my body move against him. I tried to move more but he told me to lie still. He was doing it.

He slid two, then three fingers inside me, and I moaned and tried to rub against them. “You’re ready for me,” he whispered into my neck. “Want me now?”

“Yes,” I gasped.“Now.Now!”

He picked up my leg and slid his long length into me, and the friction felt so different from this direction. His fingers rubbed up and down, through my folds, teasing me as I tried to rock against them. “Let me,” he told me, and finally moved up to my clit and I called out his name. He pumped harder and harder into me, driving me against his fingers, faster and faster and I felt my body start to shake. I was calling his name again and asking him to please, please when I felt my orgasm shake up from where his fingers rubbed me, and echo all through my body. He clutched me hard against him and I heard him groan and felt him come deep inside me.

We lay still for a few minutes, with his fingers still against my clit. I was so sensitive there, when his hand twitched I jumped, and sighed, and he laughed softly. I heard his breathing even out, and we fell asleep like that, still tangled up in each other.

∞

I knew that Alex thought it was funny, but sex really did make you super hungry! We ordered room service for breakfast the next day, because I never had before and it had always been a dream of mine, but I could barely wait for the cart to arrive.

I hadn’t told him about the Roger/Robert news my mom had given me, and it started to feel like I was keeping a secret. I told myself that there was no reason to be ashamed. How I was conceived and with whom didn’t reflect on who I was as a person. It just felt that way, a little.

“This is the first you’ve heard of this Robert guy?” Alex asked, carefully putting jam on his toast. I could tell he working really hard to keep his face all emotionless, but he ended up looking like he smelled something bad. He should never play poker, that was for sure!

“She and I went through all the possibilities before I left to go to high school. Or, I thought we had gone through all the possibilities. Now it seems like I shouldn’t cross anyone off the list. Anyone with sperm-making capabilities could be my father.” I realized I was shredding a piece of bacon with my fingers and made myself stop. That bacon was delicious and it didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. I ate the shredded pieces one by one.

“Honey, it seems like our best bet will be to wait and see what the P.I. comes back with. She’s been checking in with me, and I know you didn’t want to hear it, but she had turned over a few more possibilities too. This Robert wasn’t on her list, though. I’ll send it to her.” He grabbed his phone and typed. “Robert question mark for last name, Santa Ana Bar.” I felt my cheeks burning. A question mark for a last name sounded terrible. “This is good,” he said, reaching over and grabbing my hand. “It’s good to give her more leads.”

“I guess.”

He looked at me. “Do you want me to tell her to stop looking? It’s up to you, Cecilia.”

“I just feel like it’s kind of a waste of your money. We’ll probably never find him,” I said morosely. “There must be a million possibilities.”

Alex shook his head now. “Don’t say that. She hasn’t been looking that long. As far as I’m concerned, it’s money well-spent. If it gets out of hand in terms of cost, I’ll tell you.” I knew he wouldn’t tell me. “This is a little bit of a role-reversal for us, Ceci. Usually you’re the one pepping me up.”

I kissed his hand. “I’m glad I have you to do it for me, too.”

“You have me any way you want.” His eyes strayed down to my cleavage, which was pretty visible in the open V of my hotel robe. I shrugged my shoulders around and the two sides of the robe parted more. “Why don’t you come sit on my lap?” he suggested. When I started to sit with my back to his chest, he said, “No, the other way. Put your legs on either side of me. Yeah, like that. Come here, Ceci. Kiss me.”

I ran my hands down his chest, all the way down until I was pushing his cock against me. “Make yourself come,” he told me breathlessly.

Breakfast had to wait for a bit.

After we got ourselves into something other than robes, we did get to go to Alcatraz thanks to a very hardworking guy at the concierge desk. It was even better than I expected! We did the audio tour and listened to the docents and I bought postcards for everyone I knew. “Machine Gun Kelly!” I told Alex over the voice coming through the headphones. “Al Capone!” He patted my cheek. It was all extremely cool.

Then we went back into the city, and Alex asked me if there was any place I’d like to go before we left the next day.

“Doesn’t your cousin live out here?” I asked him.

“Tucker. He’s on a road trip,” he explained, and wiped his forehead.

“You ok?”

Alex nodded vigorously. “I have an idea. What about the Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park?”

“I’d love to go back there!” I told him. “It was my favorite place in San Francisco when I was here as a kid. I loved all of Golden Gate Park. But once, I got chased by a dog, like a pit bull, and ended up running into a homeless encampment by mistake. They made the dog leave me alone, so it ended up working out great! But it was still a little freaky.”

Now Alex was shaking his head. “Your stories about your youth never cease to surprise me. And horrify me,” he added .

“There’s plenty more you haven’t heard yet!” I told him cheerfully. He rolled his eyes, then got a very serious look on his face.

“Cecilia, you wouldn’t want to raise kids like that, would you? Letting them be, uh, how did you call it, ‘free range?’”

I was appalled. “Alex! No! Why would you think that?”

“Well, you don’t seem to have any bad feelings about it, or regrets. I just want you to know, I don’t want to raise kids the way I was raised, either, with nannies, and absentee parents.” His face was looking a little bleak now.

I put my palms on his cheeks, and drew his face down close to me. “I won’t be like my mom.” I kissed him and let him stand back up. Bending to me all the time was probably bad for his back! “I know she thought she was doing me a favor by letting me do whatever I wanted, but sometimes, ok often, it was dangerous. Like letting me sleep on the beach by myself so I could see the Hawksbill turtles hatch. It was really cool, but I was only seven. And sometimes it made me think that she didn’t care about me. I mean, did I always have to be so self-sufficient? I don’t want our children to have to be adults—I want them to be children. Free range up to a point, not little pampered princes and princesses. But I believe in a regular amount of supervision!” He relaxed some. “Ok with you?”

“Yes.” Alex gave me a quick kiss. He still looked a little nervous, though. I thought I would continue to try to convince him I wouldn’t be Katharine redux as a mom.

We took a taxi to the park, then walked in hand and hand. I kept an eye out for stray dogs. Lightning wasn’t supposed to strike twice in the same place, but you never knew! And as we walked I was developing a plan. The Shakespeare Garden was the perfect place for a marriage proposal! I had been 100% serious when I told my mom that I was going to marry Alex. There was no better guy in the whole world, and I planned to hitch my wagon right to his for keeps. So maybe today was the day to do it! Was it a good idea to just come out and say it, like, “We should get married!” Or was it better to ask? Men seemed to ask, not demand. I didn’t have a ring, or anything. Were you supposed to give a ring if you asked a man? Did they wear engagement rings? My experience with weddings was limited to Keri, and I certainly didn’t want to emulate her.

Maybe I would just wing it. I would know when the time was right, and the question wasn’t as important as the answer. I squared my shoulders. This was the day we were going to get engaged!

The Shakespeare Garden was beautiful, with flowering crab apple trees and brick pathway. In spite of the cool wind I felt a little flushed. I pulled Alex along behind me, secretly looking for a good spot to ask him. “See, isn’t it awesome? Come here and look at this chart. There are all these plants here that the real Shakespeare wrote about! I only read Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet but someday I’m going to read more. See? Let’s go find the mandrake. Alex, are you listening to me?” He was actually looking really pale. “Are you feeling sick or something?”

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Cecilia,” he said, then stopped. “Cecilia…” He took a deep breath. He almost sounded like he was hyperventilating a little, and now he was sweating like a pig!

“Alex, what is the matter? Why are you so sweaty?” I reached up to feel his forehead. “Do you have a fever or something? ”

He took my hand and was pulling me over to a wooden bench. The breeze picked up, and the soft petals from the crab apple trees started to fall like pinky white raindrops. I sat down, but he didn’t sit next to me. I thought he was falling for a minute, but then I saw he was down on one knee.

“Cecilia, I’m such an idiot with these things.” He wiped his forehead again. “Jesus Christ. Sweetie, I love you so much. You’re the best, most wonderful thing in my life, and I’m the luckiest man on the planet to have you. I just want to make you happy, Ceci. That’s all I want to do.” He was nodding at me earnestly, and I put my hand to his cheek.

“Alex—”

“Cecilia, will you marry me?”

I looked at him, speechless. He was gripping one of my hands tight, and when I looked down, I saw that with his other hand he was holding out a ring.

“Alex! Oh my god!”

My mouth was open and I couldn’t speak. I stared at the ring, then at his face, then back at the ring.

“Alex, are you serious?” I managed to get out.

I realized he hadn’t been breathing when he suddenly sucked in a big lungful of air. “Fu—I mean, Cecilia, yes, I’m really serious,” he said. “I’m really serious.” He hesitated. “What do you say?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you’ll marry me?”

“Yes. Of course, yes! You didn’t have to get all sweaty! I want to marry you, and be your wife, and have a family together. Alex! Oh my god!”

He held up my hand and slid the ring on my finger, his own hands trembling. “Do you like it?” he asked. “We can get a different one, if you don’t.”

It was the most beautiful ring in the world. “I’ve never seen anything so perfect,” I told him, and picked up his hands and held them to my heart.

“I have,” he said, and leaned forward and kissed me.

Alex

My hands were still shaking from the proposal, and I couldn’t really remember what I’d said, except I was pretty sure I hadn’t cursed. That had been my goal, that and getting her to say yes by any means available.

We called Steve first to tell him. It made me so nervous I had to hold Cecilia’s hand. I knew he would say that I was rushing things, I hadn’t thought it through. I didn’t want him to be disappointed in me.

“Steve.”

“Hey, Alex. How’s San Francisco?”

“I just asked Cecilia to marry me and she said yes.” I said it very fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

There was total silence for a minute. Then he really surprised me. “I think that’s the smartest thing you ever did. Lock that down, Alex. Congratulations. Let me talk to Cecilia. ”

Wordlessly, I passed her the phone. Cecilia hadn’t stopped beaming since she said yes, and I waited to see if talking with Steve would erase the smile from her face.

“Hi, Steve!...Thank you, I’m so happy! He’s the best. Can you believe you’ll be an uncle?...No, not right now! I mean in a while. Take a deep breath!...Ok, we’ll see you when we get home.”

She handed the phone back, mouthing, “Sorry about the uncle thing!”

“Hey,” I said into the phone.

“Just want to clarify, are you guys also expecting?”

“No, no, she’s just thinking of the future. Are you really ok with this?” I asked him.

“I meant what I said. I think it’s the best decision you ever made.”

“Then we’re in complete agreement. We’ll see you soon.” I breathed a sigh of relief when I hung up, while Cecilia watched me.

“Were you worried about telling him?” she asked.

“I know he thinks I have poor judgement. I mean, I thought that he thought that. I don’t know what I’m saying. He seems to be trusting me.”

“Give him a little break,” she suggested. “He does trust you. But he loves you, too. So, it’s hard to let go. I can understand that.”

I nodded, and hugged her. My fiancée. It made me smile .

Cecilia wanted to hold hands with her right hand, so she could continue to stare at the ring, the three stones glittering in the afternoon sun. “Are those rubies?” she asked, seemingly mesmerized.

“Yes. And the middle one is a diamond. It’s antique, from my grandmother. She liked me better than Steve, because I reminded her more of the Whitaker side.”

“That’s terrible!”

I laughed. “She wasn’t the nicest person, but she and I got along. Actually, there’s something I have to tell you about her.”

“About your grandma? What?”

“She didn’t just leave me a ring. I was her heir, when she died. She left some bequests to charity, but not too many because she was a pretty mean old lady, and she left some money to Steve and the rest of the cousins, her grandchildren. She didn’t leave anything to her own kids because she didn’t like them much, and she cut out Luke and Annie entirely because she absolutely hated my uncle George. Mostly she left her property to me.”

“Ok.What does that mean?”

I stopped and swung her around to face me. “It means we have a lot of money. A lot.”

“So to me a lot is having more than a hundred dollars saved,” she explained.

“A lot, meaning that neither of us ever need to work again, a lot meaning that our kids wouldn’t have to, either. A lot, a lot. More than a hundred,” I told her .

“Are you being serious?” she asked skeptically.

“Yes, definitely more than a hundred dollars.” I kissed her head. “I’m just telling you that you don’t have to worry about stuff. We’re not going to end up living in a van. And I have my job, too, and that pays well.” I paused. “I think I still have my job. That’s going to be something we need to talk about too.”

“We have a lot of time,” Cecilia told me. “We don’t need to work everything out right now. We could just stand here, and stare at my ring!”

Sometimes it was like I just had to kiss her.

“Alex?” she said, when we stopped embarrassing ourselves in public. “Are you ok with my mom?”

“I haven’t met her yet,” I hedged.

“I can tell you don’t like her. It shows on your face whenever I say anything about her.”

What? No. I was like the sphinx, wasn’t I? “Some of the things she’s done I don’t like.” So, so many examples. “But she must be a better person than I imagine, because she had you. I’m not going to fight with her, or try to keep you from seeing her, or anything like that. I’ll be civil, and I’m sure we’ll work something out. I don’t like drama in families.”

Cecilia grimaced. “Then maybe you shouldn’t meet her.”

“In our family, between you and me, no drama. I can deal with it from others.”

“Our family, you and me and our kids, right? Because you know I want a big family. And in fact, I would like to go back to our hotel now and practice how we’ll achieve that goal. ”

“There must be taxis on the street through that gate. We can run.”

The best sound in the world was Cecilia laughing.

∞

“Now I’m going to have the best memories of San Francisco,” Cecilia told me, snuggled up to my side on the plane home. “I was really starting to hate it there, because it’s just all tainted with Allen. But now I’ll remember it as the place we got engaged. And soon, as the place where Allen got indicted.”

“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” I mentioned. “Here. Take a look.” I pushed my laptop across to her tray so she could see the images.

“What is this?” she asked me, head tilted as she looked. “It’s so pretty there!”

“These are three pieces of property that I looked at last weekend when I went up north. These two are just lots. But this one,” I indicated, “has an old house on it. It’s in very bad shape, needs a lot of work to even be habitable. Here.” I clicked open the picture of the house exterior, and Cecilia gasped.

“Alex! How did you do that?”

“It’s a touchscreen, you goober.”

“No, I mean that’s it! That’s our house!”

I stared at the screen. “It’s similar to what I drew.”

Cecilia was sniffing. “No, honey, that’s it. That’s our house. I can’t believe you found it!” She wiped her eyes. “It’s exactly like I always dreamed about.”

“The house is a dump, but it’s a really nice piece of land.” I started listing the attributes, but she was busy clicking through the different images with a dreamy smile on her face.

The kitchen with the hole in the wall: “Look at the beautiful old sink!”

The living room, windows broken out: “There’s a fireplace!”

The one bathroom, smaller than the front seat of my car: “A clawfoot tub! How did it last there for so long?”

The bedroom, with no closet: “Oh, Alex, look at the view! This would be our room.”

The barn, which a stiff wind could topple: tears. Just tears.

I took the laptop back. “Ok,” I told her, and sent an email to the real estate agent who was listing my dad’s house. “We’ll put in a bid.”

“Wait, what?” she asked me. “Are you seriously buying that house?

“ We are seriously putting in an offer. They may not accept it, so don’t get too—”

Hard to talk when someone was hugging you so hard it was squeezing the life from you.

“I don’t think anything could make this any better,” she said.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Well, I could eat,” she admitted .

Cecilia immediately started to write lists of what she needed to do to the house. I watched her for a while. “Ceci, would you want to live up there year-round?” She stopped writing and chewed on the end of her pen. She was so sexy when she was thinking. “Winters up there are tough,” I continued, “and you get cold when the thermostat in the condo falls below seventy degrees.”

“I’ll wear more clothes,” she told me.

“Or we could invest heavily in the HVAC system. I like you in less clothing, preferably none.” I kissed her. “But seriously, we’d have Luke and Annie and their families, but you wouldn’t know anyone besides them. You’d have to get a new job.”

“Alex, I can make friends. You don’t need to worry about me, I’m very self-sufficient. I can get a new job. I bet there are coffee shops nearby.” She shrugged. “I was actually thinking about college, a little bit.”

I kissed her forehead. “I think that’s a great idea. We need a college graduate in the family.”

She punched my arm, then kissed where she punched. “I would miss people downstate, but it’s not that long a drive. Nina can make it!”

“By the way, we’re getting you a new car. Nina can rest in the barn,” I mentioned. “And a new phone, along with your new winter wardrobe. Do you like shopping? I don’t even know.”

“Well,” she said slowly. “I’ve never been a big shopper. I might like it.”

“Now you’ll get to find out,” I told her .

She took the laptop back and started to click through the pictures again. “We’re going to hang your art everywhere.”

“We’ll need walls, first,” I said. That was not a joke.

“What about your job?” she asked me. “It’s not that long a drive, but too far for a commute!”

“Maybe I could work in Detroit during the week and come up with you on weekends.”

“No,” Cecilia told me. “I don’t want that weekend thing. I go where you go.”

“Maybe I could work from up there.” I had a lot to think about. A new wife, new house. New job?

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” I told her. “I don’t know what I did to deserve all this, but man, I’m thankful.”

She smiled at me. “Speaking of thankful, we need to get the house done by Thanksgiving. I’m inviting everyone over to our new house.”