Most of All You: A Love Story(97)

I pulled her into my arms and we danced for a moment, me in my boxers and her wrapped in a sheet, the floor smeared with pie, and I loved her to the depths of my soul. “Be my wife,” I murmured in her ear.

She pulled back to look at me, her eyes soft, the glimmer of a smile on her lips. “Because I can make lemon meringue pie?”

I laughed. “Well, no, but it doesn’t hurt.”

She laughed, too, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me close. “I’m in nursing school.”

I tilted my head, surprised but happy. “Then be a nurse and my wife.”

She smiled. “Shouldn’t we wait just a little while? Shouldn’t we give it more time?”

“I don’t need more time. Do you?”

She tilted her head, her eyes filled with love and honesty, and she shook her head, the expression on her face happy and perhaps a little bit amazed.

“No,” she said. “No.” She brought her hand to my face, her smile tender. “You’ve always been so sure about me. Thank you for that gift. Thank you for waiting for me to be sure about myself.”

I kissed her, my heart feeling so full. Outside the window, the daffodils were a carpet of yellow, and this time, Eloise was in my arms, and it was as if my arms had been made for her and her alone. I no longer regretted the years I’d felt too terrified to be close to someone. In my solitude, in my fear, I’d somehow saved myself for Eloise. She was my one and only. Together we would carve our future. And for the first time in so very long, I was truly home.





EPILOGUE


ELLIE

“Hey,” Gabriel whispered, bending to kiss me, “is she giving you trouble sleeping?” He smoothed the back of his finger over our daughter Mila’s silken cheek. Though she was asleep, the contact caused her to begin instinctively nursing again where she lay at my breast. After a couple of small sucks, her tiny rosebud mouth went lax.

“No.” I smiled down at her, loving her with every beat of my heart. “I just wasn’t ready to put her back in her cradle yet. And the sun was rising.” I would go back to work part-time in a couple of days, and I wanted to enjoy every waking second of the time I had at home with my family. Though I loved being a nurse and it fulfilled me in a way nothing had before, the last couple of months at home with my newborn daughter had been the sweetest days in all my life.

Gabriel had brought his work home and did his sculpting in the garage just like he had when I first came to stay with him. Then, I’d sat with him, small pieces of my body and my heart healing as I watched his beautiful, loving hands move over the seemingly unchangeable stone. But now, I held our daughter in my arms as I watched him work, and we spoke of our plans and dreams for the future.

We took long walks under covered bridges, pushing the stroller slowly along dirt roads. We napped while the baby was sleeping, and ate picnic lunches in the backyard, our daughter between us on the blanket as we gazed down at the miracle we’d created together.

Gabriel sat down in the chair next to me and stared out at the small sliver of daylight just emerging over the trees.

Light. Hope.

“Maybe we’ll go into town for dinner tonight?” he asked.

I smiled and nodded. “That sounds nice.”

“Want me to take her?”

I would have held Mila all day, but I loved to see Gabriel holding her, too, so I nodded and handed her over. He cradled her gently, gazing down into her sleeping face, and I drank in the look of loving reverence in his eyes. Sometimes watching them together filled my heart so full so suddenly, I had to suck in a breath or it felt like my lungs might collapse beneath the pressure. The overwhelming love.

He ran a hand over the small amount of peach fuzz on her head and smiled over at me. “I still think it’s yours,” he said, referring to the color of her hair.

I laughed softly. “We’ll have to wait for a few more strands to grow in before we can tell.” I loved him just for his wishful thinking, for making me feel so beautiful, not just my body, or my face, or my hair, but my heart and soul.

The man who had loved me unwaveringly.

So unfailingly. The man who’d loved me enough to wait for me to love myself.

The man who’d helped me become solid again, whole. And just as importantly, the man who’d helped me see that there was even beauty in the missing places.

The sun continued to rise, casting its light over the earth, brightening the darkness and chasing away the shadows of what had been. And every single day, it reminded me that though life could be lonely and painful, it was also filled with rainbows on water, with fields of daffodils, and angels that emerged from rock. It was filled with delicate flowers that, against all odds, found the strength to turn their faces to the sunshine and thrive. It was filled with miracles that arrived when you least expected them and the hard-won knowledge that healing, like stone, is just sand and pressure and time.





Acknowledgments


So many people helped me bring this story to life. I couldn’t have done it without you.

First and foremost, to Angela Smith who read the first three chapters of this story and gave me direction and confidence. I will never forget the image in my mind of you reading on your Kindle in a hospital room chair. Thank you for always making time for me.

To Marion Archer whose guidance and support is invaluable. And who always pushes me to make people cry just a little bit more.