One True Loves(85)

“And Jesse?” Sam asks.

“I love Jesse. I’ll always love him. But he was right for me then. You are right for me now. And always.”

Sam breathes in, letting my words flow into his ears and settle in his brain.

“Do you mean all of this?” he asks me. “It’s not just something you’re saying to be dramatic and wonderful?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m not trying to be dramatic and wonderful.”

“I mean, you’ve succeeded in it, for sure.”

“But I mean it. All of it. Assuming that you can forgive me for being uncertain, for needing to leave, for needing more time with him, to find out what I think I already knew.”

“I can forgive that,” Sam says. “Of course I can.”

It’s important to me that he knows what I’ve done, that I face it. “We went to Maine together, alone,” I say.

I don’t say anything more because I don’t have to.

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to know. It’s over. It’s in the past. All that matters is from here on out.”

I nod my head, desperate to assure him. “I don’t want anyone or anything except you from here on out, forever.”

He takes it all in, closing his eyes.

“You’ll be my wife?” he says, smiling wide. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more loved than in this moment, when the idea that I might marry a man brings that much joy to his face.

“Yes,” I say. “God, yes.”

Sam leans over to my side of the car and kisses me, beaming. The tears in my eyes are finally happy tears. My heart is no longer pounding but swelling.

No more conflicted feelings. No more uncertainty.

“I love you,” I say. “I don’t think I ever knew just how much until now.” It’s a good sign, I think, that our love has proven to grow, rather than wane, when faced with a challenge. I think it bodes well for our future, for all of the things ahead of us: marriage, children.

“Oh, God, I was so scared I’d lost you,” Sam says. “I was capsizing over here. Worried I’d lose the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”

“You didn’t lose me,” I say. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

I kiss him.

The two of us are sitting awkwardly half over the console with cricked necks and the stick shift digging into my knee. I just want to be as close to him as possible. Sam kisses my temple and I can smell our laundry detergent on his shirt.

“Take me home?” I ask.

Sam smiles. It is the sort of smile that any minute might turn to tears. “Absolutely.”

I move away from him, putting myself firmly in the passenger seat as he puts the car in reverse and backs out.

My phone and my wallet are in my car, as well as my weekend bag with all of my things. But I don’t stop him. I don’t ask him to wait just a minute while I grab them. Because I don’t need them. Not right now. I don’t need anything that I don’t have right this minute.

Sam holds my left hand with his right. He does so the entire way home except for a twenty-second period when I lean forward and dig through his glove compartment for his favorite Charles Mingus CD that he keeps buried in the dash. I still can’t stand jazz and he still loves it. In both important and unimportant ways, Sam and I are the same to each other that we were back then. When the music begins, Sam looks at me, impressed.

“You hate Mingus,” he says.

“I love you, though, so . . .”

This seems like a good enough explanation for him and so he grabs my hand again. There is no tension, no pressure. We are at peace simply being next to each other. A deep calm comes over me as I watch the snowplowed streets of Acton turn to those of Concord, as the evergreens that hug the highway leading us through Lexington and Belmont turn to brick sidewalks and brownstones in Cambridge. The world feels like a mirror, in that what I see in front of me is finally in perfect synchronicity with what I am made of.

I feel like myself on these streets, with this man.

We park and head up to our apartment. I am tucked into the crook of his arm, using his body as a shield against the cold.

Sam turns the key and when the door shuts behind us, it feels like we’ve locked the whole world out. When he kisses me, his lips are still chilled and I feel them warm up with my touch.

“Hi,” he says, smiling. It is the kind of “hi” that means everything except hello.

“Hi,” I say back.

The smell of our apartment, a scent I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed before, is spicy and fresh, like cinnamon toothpaste. I spot both of the cats under the piano. They are OK. Everything is OK.

Sam pushes himself against me as I rest against the back of our front door. He puts his hand to my cheek, his fingers slip into my hair as his thumb grazes under my eye.

“I was afraid I’d lost these freckles of yours forever,” he says as he looks right at me. His gaze feels comforting, safe. I find myself moving my head toward his hand, pressing against it.

“You didn’t,” I say. “I’m here. And I will do anything for you. Anything. For the rest of our lives.”

“I don’t need anything from you,” Sam says. “Just you. I just want you.”