More Than Words(41)

39



There was a knock on the door, and Nina went downstairs to answer it. Tim was back, carrying two bags of food.

“You wouldn’t believe what I found,” he said as he walked into the kitchen and put them down on the island.

Nina began unpacking and smiled, realizing Tim had bought everything he usually bought for his own apartment. Roasted chicken, kalamata olives, cheddar cheese. At least dinner would be easy. “What did you find?” she asked.

He pulled an elaborate gingerbread kit out of the second bag of groceries. One that would look like a castle, with a drawbridge and parapets and four different turrets. “Just like the one we made a million years ago. The store was unpacking these when I got there—the first holiday shipment of the season.”



* * *



? ? ?

“This is looking even better than our castle did when we were kids,” Tim said, later, as he held two gingerbread walls together so that Nina could pipe icing on the outside corner.

“I don’t know, that was a pretty good one,” Nina said, concentrating on keeping the icing straight and even. “If my memory serves.” Though, of course, now she was wondering if it did.

“We had fun when we were kids, didn’t we.” Tim moved on to the balustrade, icing the bottom so it would stick to the top of the terrace before Nina added the piping. “We’ve always made a great team.”

Nina thought about the epic sand sculptures they built on Georgica Beach with their dads’ occasional directions, the surprise party they made when they found out that Richard, who took care of the house in East Hampton, was turning forty, roping in all the adults to celebrate and getting the cook they had that summer to make a cake in the shape of a football, since that was Richard’s favorite sport. She remembered, too, how Tim joined her under the table during the first Christmas without her mom, when she couldn’t face the adults anymore, with the sympathy in their eyes. Tim had crawled under the table with a plate of cookies. “Thought you might be hungry,” was all he’d said. And they’d stayed there eating cookies until she was ready to come out again.

“We did. Nina and Tim, Friends Until the End—isn’t that what our parents used to say?”

Tim paused in his icing to look at Nina.

“Okay, I’m too gooey,” she said. “I have to wash my hands or I’m going to stick to the piping bag.” Nina got up from the table, but Tim stopped her with his hand on her wrist.

“Wait,” he said, his voice serious. She sat back down. “I want to say something. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this the right way ever since the conversation we had in your dad’s kitchen.”

Nina’s heart sped up. She knew what was coming next. Unconsciously her eye went to her left ring finger. She licked off the tiny bit of frosting that was on her knuckle.

Tim cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, with your dad gone, with our lives changing. It’s been hard, and I know I haven’t always said the right thing or done the right thing, but Nina, I don’t want to lose you. I keep thinking about what would happen if you died, how shattered I’d be. I know, it’s morbid and awful, but I can’t get the image out of my mind. And I keep thinking about being here with you now, being with you at your dad’s funeral. I want to always be with you. The world seems more manageable when we travel through it together. This is what I should’ve said before, but it took me a while to figure out how to say it.

“I’ve never loved anyone else the way I love you. When I dated other women, I was always looking for what we have, the closeness, the comfort, the unconditional support. When I think about children, I think about having them with you. When I think about living out the rest of my life, I think about doing it with you by my side. That awe I felt when I first met you, when you were fifteen hours old and I cried when they made me leave you—I don’t know if it’s ever gone away.” His eyes were wide, open, almost pleading. He got down on one knee and pulled a ring box out of his back pocket. “I couldn’t get to your mom’s ring,” he said, “because of the will and everything. So . . . I bought you a new one. And maybe that’s better. It’s our story, not anyone else’s.”

“Oh, Tim,” Nina said. She looked at him, the person she’d known and loved her entire life, and took the box from his hand, opening it up as she did. Inside was an exquisitely beautiful ring. A round diamond surrounded by sapphires, with smaller diamonds set into the platinum band that would encircle her finger. The sapphires were the same color as the drop her father had gotten her, the same color as the bracelet, as her eyes. Of course she would say yes. Of course she would.

“Nina?” he asked, softly, as he stood. Then he reached over and brushed frosting off her cheek and she laughed, sliding the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

“I’m a mess,” she said. “But yes. Of course yes. And, Tim, this ring is gorgeous.”

Tim kissed her, and she wrapped her arms around him. And she started to cry.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Tim said, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his fingers. His breath smelled like the gumdrop he’d just eaten. “We’re going to make it okay.”

“I know,” she said, leaning her head against Tim’s chest, feeling its solidity and warmth. Feeling his heart beat so strong and steady. He knew her. He was the man her father had always wanted her to be with—whom he’d given his permission to the day before he died. Maybe this was her dad’s last gift to her.