Page 127 of When Wildflowers Bloom

I smile, forcing the mental dominoes that want to fall regarding all the reasons why I might have a headache to stay put. “Fine, just a headache. My body needs coffee.”

He hands me his mug—of course he does—and wraps an arm around me as I take a sip.

My dad pulls up in his truck. Opening his door, he gives us a wave before bending over, rolling a ball with the little bit of snow, and lobbing it at the kids with a loud roar.

I laugh.

For a single white Christmas morning, I have everything. Noise I didn’t know my quiet was missing, chaos I didn’t know my order needed. The marvelous unpredictability of bringing more beating hearts into the rhythm of my own.

Palm to palm, fingers intertwined on one hand and his coffee in the other, Bo and I stand watching our lives happen in front of us.The moments that will fill frames and become our stories should we be lucky enough to get so old we retell them too many times.

My dad reaches into the passenger side of his truck and pulls out boxes wrapped in reds and greens, making the kids shriek and file into the house—snow-dusted boots form a trail to the Christmas tree.

“Merry Christmas, Little Bird,” my dad says giving me a hug around the presents as he steps onto the porch.

“Merry Christmas, Dad.”

Then it’s piles of presents and mounds of shredded wrapping paper while I make breakfast—pancakes with organic flour, raw milk from a local dairy, and North Carolina tapped maple syrup.

It’s as beautiful as one of Mabel’s books, Sam’s stories of Vietnam, and Veda’s clay pots. As I flip a pancake in the pan, the fact I’ve spent so much time fighting this makes me ache for all I might have missed out on.

“Merry Christmas,” Bo says, slipping his arms around me as I stand at the stove, still in sweatpants and a T-shirt, kissing me lightly on the temple.

I hum with contentment, leaning against him.

His hand grazes the length of my left arm down to my hand where he traces my fingers that rest on the counter, fumbling with something before wrapping my hand in his. I look down at our interlaced fingers, seeing what he’s done: on my finger is a ring. Not big and bold, but an oval opal on a gold band. I put the spatula down and turn to face him, my mouth hanging open.

“It was Gran’s,” he tells me, using his fingers to spin the ring around my own finger. “She wanted you to have it…when you were ready.”

“For what?” I ask, knowing but not.

“To love me forever,” he says easily, pulling my hand to his mouth and kissing my palm. “To let me loveyouforever. In sickness and health,” he says, with another kiss to my palm. Then another.

My eyes burn. “You want to marry me?”

He laughs. “Yes, Birdie. I want to marry you. I know it hasn’t been long, but it’s been long enough for me to know I don’t want any more time to pass without us and I—”

I cut him off with a loud squeal, sliding my arms around his neck, jumping into his arms with my legs wrapped around his waist, my mouth slamming into his. “Yes, Bo,” I say between kisses. “Yesyesyes.”

Because yes, I don’t want to live in a life where I’m not Bo’s and he’s not mine for as long as our forever gets to be.

Tangled in each other in a kitchen Bo built, it’s a, “Get a room, perverts,” that pulls us apart in a laugh. John stands looking like Santa’s outcast cousin in the doorway followed by Libby who fits easily into his side.

“You give it to her?” she asks.

“I did,” Bo says, taking a casual sip of his coffee.

“Welcome to the family, Pam Beesly!” she shrieks, running across the kitchen to wrap me in a hug.

Laughter turns to the happiest of tears the instant she’s next to me.

When the food is finally ready, it’s a roaring sound of everyone talking over everyone else as we take our seats.

“Cool table,” Libby says, putting a platter of pancakes in the center of it.

At her words, both Bo and my dad smile knowingly, raising their mimosas in a silent cheers to one another.

“It is, isn’t it?” I say, looking at the work of art we are gathering around that was once a busted cookie slab in my dad’s shop. The way Bo tells it, the second he saw the table he knew he had to have it. The way my dad tells it, the second he saw me with Bo, he knew where the table belonged.

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