One Year Ago

One Year Ago

"Let's get out of here," he said.

Cory looked over at him. They were standing on the curb in front of his childhood home, near the mailbox. They were supposed to be on their way to their high school for Liam's fiftieth reunion. Liam had wanted to stop here on the way. He had wanted to ask the new family to let them in for a beat, so he could take Cory inside and check out his childhood bedroom. The closet. Cory & Liam. He wanted to see if it was still there. The doorway where he first met her. He wanted to stand beneath it. He wanted to hold her hand.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Cory said. "Do you want to ditch the house visit? Or the reunion?"

Liam was looking through the small living room windows at the family inside. A family with young children, watching cartoons. He didn't know them at all. This wasn't even the family who had bought the house from Liam's parents. This was the family after that family. He hadn't been inside since this home had become theirs.

"Both. Neither. Yes."

Cory bit back a smile. "You do know you're the one who suggested this misbegotten adventure?"

"I do know that, yes."

"And what did I tell you when you suggested it."

"That I'd want to call it off."

She started to laugh. "Look at who is becoming predictable in his old age."

He turned to her and smiled. "Well, you look pretty tired tonight anyway."

"A woman loves hearing that."

"That's not how I meant it," he said. Then he leaned over and took her hand, kissed her on the palm.

"Forgive me," he whispered.

And, like that, he wasn't just talking about tonight. He reached into his coat pocket. And he pulled out a ring. It was the same ring he wanted to propose with on the night before she left for graduate school in California. It was a ring he had almost pulled out a dozen times since.

"What are you doing?"

"Asking you to be my wife."

"Oh, for crying out loud. You've got to stop this. I'm fine ."

He was quiet. She didn't want to hear him. She did look tired, though. He would fight that battle later. He would call her doctor. He'd check in with Elliot too. He would insist she take more time off.

He gave her a smile. "It's not too late."

"I won't have it. This kind of regret. Let's just say we did the best we could and leave it at that."

"Don't you want to just do it already?"

"Do what?"

"I want to wake up with you every day," he said. "As many days as we have."

She drilled him with a look. "Must we do this, what, every six months? Every year?"

"I wish you wouldn't minimize this…"

"You're the one minimizing it by suggesting we should be a different way."

He met her eyes, trying to figure out how to best make his case. How could he explain it? It wasn't that he needed it to be another way between them. It was that he needed her. Always had.

"Ask me when I bought this."

"No."

"Please ask me."

She tilted her head, took him in. "No. Because you're just going to give me an answer that makes me want to not be mad at you anymore, and quite frankly, I'm in the mood to be mad at you. It's cold out here and these shoes were an error. And the family is watching us through the window. The mom looks suspicious. And look at the little boy. He wants to know why two old weirdos are standing outside his house. We're going to make him cry."

She stepped off the curb.

"Let's go."

"I bought it the day after we met," he said. "You walked out of my bedroom wearing that green dress and I bought it the next day from Mr. Parker on Avenue A for eighty-five dollars and fifteen cents."

She turned back to him.

"That's why I wanted to come back here tonight, to ask you what I should have asked you then."

"The day after we met? That would have gone well."

Cory stepped back onto the curb. Then she reached out, ran her finger around the ring. The band. There wasn't a diamond there. There wasn't even anything to look at. It was just a band. A gold-plated band. It wasn't even real gold all the way through. Mr. Parker took pity on him by discounting it.

"It's perfect," she said.

Then she took her hand away.

He held out the ring, closer toward her. "For God's sake, Grace, it's been half a century, take the damn thing."

She smiled. He never called her Grace, not when they were alone, except when he was starting to get mad.

"As tempting as it is to be wife number four, I have no desire to marry you, my darling."

"Well, thank you for that."

"You're welcome."

He closed his fingers over the ring, not saying anything. His childhood street was lantern-lit behind her. His past, his present. How easy to say she was wrapped up in all of it. How inadequate. She was all of it.

"I hated the idea of the reunion anyway," she said. "So that's not a loss. But you got me all dressed up, so let's do something. Should we stop by Sheet Music? Get some dinner? I'd like to meet Jack."

"You haven't yet?"

"Just that time on the street…"

"You're going to like him. He's a good guy. He really is."

She put her arm through his as they started walking back toward his car. "That's some faint praise."

"No, it's not that. He's the person for her, I don't doubt that." He shrugged. "I still just like Elliot a lot."

"Hmm," she said. "For Nora or for you?"

He laughed. "Touché."

He opened the car door and Cory started to step inside. "Also, I need to try this strawberry pizza I keep hearing about."

"So let's go and get it for you."

Liam went to put the ring back in his coat pocket. This was when she put out her hand. This was when she stopped him.

"I'll take that, thank you."

She took the ring from him, cupping it in her palm. She didn't put it on, not in that moment, but she did take it. Then she smiled up at him. That smile.

"No wedding, that's a nonstarter," she said. "But, together, in the same house? We could do that."

He nodded. "I think we have the house."

Grace sat down in the passenger seat, pulling her dress in tightly around herself. "Okay, then."

She said it so casually, he could have missed it. Okay, then. After all this time, like it was that simple.

Perhaps it was that simple. Wasn't that what love could be, after all? Whether it takes you a minute to get there or a lifetime to make it so. At the end of the day, it's still better when I'm with you.

He leaned down, held his nose against hers, breathing her in.

"Nice to know you're not sick of me just yet…" she said.

"No. Not just yet," he said. "Not ever."