Page 66 of This Love
“You do love me, don’t you?”
He leaned in to brush his lips on mine. “One thousand times over.” Then he pulled away to tug a box from his pocket. He placed it in my hand.
By now, I knew what a small velvet box meant. I opened it, and a diamond ring sat inside. I recognized it, too. I’d worn it in lots of pictures before our wedding day. The only reason I hadn’t had it on me in the limo was that it had been passed to Tucker’s friend Bill to hold until the right moment in the ceremony.
“Are you ready to wear it again yet?” he asked. “Because I still want more than anything for you to be my wife. I’ve weathered all this many times, and I will do it as many times as I need.”
I stared at the gemstone sparkling in the sun. My throat caught. Could I do this?
I didn’t answer him right away. I was so unsure. It wasn’t that I doubted how he felt about me. And I recognized this connection to him that I was sure related to all the times I’d loved him before.
But survival Ava was unpredictable. It wasn’t something I could control.
And even more importantly, I realized something critical after taking all the photographs over the last few months. Marriage often led to children.
Tucker only had his Gram. Surely, he’d want to create a family of his own.
There was no way I could do that. I wished old Ava had written something down about this. Had she thought this through when she agreed to marry Tucker before?
Or was the old version of me willing to have a family? I wasn’t now. When I watched those tiny, vulnerable humans turning to their mothers when they bumped their knee or got scared by a stranger, I knew I could never be responsible for something so fragile, so tender.
What kind of mother could I be if I forgot my own child? If I had a seizure in the living room, and they came to me, and I screamed for them to get out? Or worse, I was in a grocery store and took off, leaving them in a shopping cart because I didn’t know they were mine?
The horrifying scenarios lined up. Leaving them in a park or in some dangerous place like a hot car, strapped to their seat.
Even if we were at home, I could forget them in a bath or alone in a high chair, running from the house as I panicked about who I was.
I shivered. No. Never.
To be married to me would mean to never have kids.
And Tucker would be such a great dad. I couldn’t take that away from him. He would say it didn’t matter. That he loved me more than those hypothetical children.
Even so, we needed to have that conversation before I could agree to marriage. Maybe I could ask my dad or Big Harry if I had ever brought it up to them.
But I couldn’t tell him yes or no. I wasn’t ready to do that right now.
I closed the box and stuck it in my pocket.
“Can I answer that later?” I asked him. “I’m still not quite comfortable in this skin yet.”
He drew me close. “Of course. Absolutely. I only wanted to make sure you knew where I stood.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. I loved him. I absolutely did.
But truthfully, I was only five months old. I couldn’t make a decision like this.
Not yet.
Chapter 25
Tucker
December was a whirlwind. We taught Ava our Thanksgiving traditions, a mix of Gram’s and her father’s. As we rolled into the Christmas season, Ava and Vinnie were slammed with family photos.
And I was finally graduating with an associate’s degree in supply chain logistics. With so many manufacturers in Austin, it felt like a safe, easy career path to support Ava.
The morning of graduation was laid back, nothing like the wedding or even high school. Marcus came down, which was nice, plus Gram and Harry and Maya.
