Page 13 of Etched In Stone
“Dance with me,” Krystina said suddenly, holding out her hand.
“Here?” I asked, looking around at the crowd of strangers.
“Here,” she confirmed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Come on, remember what we talked about yesterday? About being spontaneous?”
Before I could overthink it, I took her hand and pulled her into a dance, moving to the infectious rhythm while tourists and locals alike smiled and clapped around us. Krystina laughed with pure joy, her head thrown back, and I thought this might be the most perfect moment of my entire life. It seemed as though I were having a lot of those lately.
As the song ended and we made our way to a quieter section of the market, I found myself studying my wife once more. I recalled our first date—even if I hadn’t realized that was what it was at the time. Krystina and I had walked through Washington Square Park, where she’d found joy in a woman feeding squirrels and a young boy playing the guitar under a tree. She had this gift for finding magic in ordinary moments, for transforming even a simple market visit into something extraordinary.
“Thank you,” I said as we paused to admire a display of local artwork.
“For what?”
“For teaching me how to live in the moment instead of constantly planning the next move.”
She smiled, but there was something thoughtful in her expression.
“Speaking of the future,” she said carefully, “what do you see for us? I mean, beyond the honeymoon, beyond settling into married life. What do you want our life to look like five years from now? Ten years?”
The question caught me off guard. We’d talked about many things during our relationship, but we’d never really discussed long-term plans beyond the wedding itself.
“I see us happy,” I said slowly, trying to organize thoughts I’d never fully articulated. “I see a life where we never lose this connection we have, where we keep discovering new things about each other.”
“And family?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral. “Do you ever think about children?”
The word hit me like a cold wind despite the tropical heat.
Children.
It was a topic I’d successfully avoided thinking about for years, one that brought up complicated feelings I wasn’t sure I was ready to examine. Krystina had only mentioned having kids once—at our wedding reception. But it had been said in passing, having never come up before that.
“I...” I started, then stopped, unsure how to voice the tangle of emotions the question provoked.
Krystina must have sensed my discomfort because she quickly backtracked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about. Being around you, seeing how protective and caring you are, makes me wonder what kind of father you’d be.”
“Krystina, it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just... complicated for me.”
“Because of your own father?”
The perceptiveness of her question shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.
“Partly,” I admitted. “I’m not sure I have a clear picture of what fatherhood is supposed to look like. The way I was raised…”
She squeezed my hand encouragingly. “But you’ve grown beyond that.”
“Have I?” I asked, genuinely uncertain. “Sometimes, I look at how much I value control, and I wonder if I’m capable of bringing another human into a world of uncertainty. I can provide financially, but I don’t know if I can give emotionally simply because I don’t know how.”
“Alex,” Krystina said softly. “The fact that you’re even worried about it tells me you’d be nothing like that. You’re the most devoted, attentive man I’ve ever known. Controlling, yes. But good. You’ve spent our entire honeymoon focused completely on me—on us.”
“That’s different,” I protested. “You’re my wife. I chose you, and I am committed to you. A child would be...”
“What?” she prompted when I trailed off.
“Vulnerable,” I finished quietly. “Completely dependent on me not to screw up their life the way mine was screwed up.”
We stood in silence for a moment, watching the bustling life of the market continue around us. Finally, Krystina spoke again.
“I think about it sometimes,” she said. “What it might be like to give a child all the love and stability you never had. To create the kind of family where children feel safe and valued and wanted.”
