“But you’re already married,” Ridley said like they were dumb, like How could you not know?
“Okay, then,” Hannah said, moving a little closer to Joel. Both kids were watching them now. “Will you marry me for the second time?”
“I will,” he said. “I absolutely will.”
“And can this be the only other time we get married?” she asked seriously.
“Yes,” he said, like he knew exactly what she was saying. “This will be it—our marriage for the rest of our lives.”
“So you will?” she asked.
“I will!” he said.
“Does everyone get married twice?” Ridley asked.
“Not necessarily,” Hannah said. “But sometimes.”
“I want to get married ten times!” Ridley said.
Hannah realized they might not have relayed the correct message to her, but right now she wasn’t going to worry about that. She would make sure to circle back to this later, maybe in ten or twelve years, just when Ridley was starting to date but hopefully before she fell in love for the first time, and explain what had happened here. Maybe.
“Oh, wait,” Hannah said, running to her purse. She still had the bag in there from yesterday. In her mind she had thought she would do a much more corny proposal at the parade, with everyone watching and Richard on Skype. But this was so much better. She opened the crinkly paper bag and pulled out a small plastic one tied with a blue ribbon, shaking off some of the green confetti that had found its way into her purse at the parade.
“For you,” she said, handing it to Joel. “And for me.”
Joel looked at it through the plastic but didn’t say anything. The kids were trying to get a better look.
“I was going to get a pearl, but I didn’t want that idea of the bad thing—in the pearl’s case, the sand or whatever brings it into existence—to be at our core, not to mention it’s a cliché, so I chose sea glass because it starts as one thing before it churns and churns and churns and softens and eventually becomes something else. Also a cliché, but still, I like the symbolism. Plus, I collected sea glass when I was their age. I always loved it. It seemed just right.”
Joel still didn’t say anything.
“Can I have it?” Ridley asked, reaching for the plastic bag containing the smooth blue piece of sea glass.
“Sure,” Hannah said. “It isn’t like it’s a ring. I just wanted some sort of object, but we don’t have to honor it or anything. I just wanted to make my point.”
“Really?” she asked gleefully, like she couldn’t believe Hannah had said yes. “It’s so pretty.”
Ridley grabbed for it, and Joel absentmindedly handed it to her. She stuffed it into the pocket of her bright-green Bobby Lemons’ Christmas Tree Stand sweatshirt fast, like if she gave them any time to think about it, they might change their minds.
“Are you going to have a wedding?” Lincoln asked. He was the only one who seemed to be fully tuned in at the moment. “A real one?”
“I don’t know, probably not,” Hannah said, looking at Joel. “Kids—go get your shoes on, get your backpacks.” She was almost surprised when they listened to her. “Are you okay?” she asked Joel once the kids had dispersed.
“I am so okay,” he said slowly. “I was so unsure, I was so scared—” He stopped and looked to make sure the kids weren’t listening. “Now I am so happy. And here is something that I’ve wanted to tell you for months, but I wasn’t sure how to. I was planning a surprise party for you. It was all set, invitations were about to go out, I scheduled it for a little more than a month before your birthday to completely throw you off. It was going to be so much fun. But then, well, everything happened, and I postponed it. I could have just cancelled—they offered to give me the deposit back—but I didn’t want to. I hoped we would still be able to have the party at some point. In fact, when things were at their absolute worst, that’s what I would imagine to try to feel better or to punish myself. I’m not sure which. Night after night when I couldn’t sleep, I would picture you walking in and being surprised and being mine, still mine, but I didn’t know if that would ever be true again. So let’s do it. I can call today; we can have your no-surprise surprise party. It will be a great way to, I don’t know, get back to normal, not to pretend it didn’t happen, that we aren’t different, but to celebrate that we’re here, that we’re still a family. For me it will be like living that fantasy I imagined so many times.”
“Where would it be? Where did you plan to have the party?”
Joel smiled his confident, slow smile.
“Villa di Roma,” he said proudly. “Perfect place for a first date, a proposal, and a birthday party. Your birthday party.”
“It could also be the perfect place for a wedding celebration,” she said, moving in to hug him. She rested her head on his chest.
“That’s true,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “But will we tell people? I don’t know that I want to have to tell everyone what I did and what we’ve been through these last few months.”
“I agree,” she said. “But let’s do it anyway. We don’t have to explain anything—we’ll know—but we’ll just call it a celebration, with meatballs and cannoli and a huge banner that reads I’ll See You Tomorrow.”
“Really? Why?” he asked.
Those words had run through her mind so much lately, ever since Richard had said them to Reuben, and especially more recently when she’d really been deciding—for so many reasons—and then to have him say them yesterday, in a way he hadn’t in so long . . . they were Richard’s words, and they were such hopeful words. That was the thing about being married: there were exceptions, of course, work trips and other reasons to be out of town here and there, but the basic belief was that you would see that person tomorrow. She’d never wished for that to not be true with Joel, and she quietly thanked Richard for helping her realize it.
That was too much to explain right now. The kids were back, waiting at the door. They were already late.
“Because I always want to see you tomorrow,” she said, keeping it simple because finally, for them, it was again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I will begin where I always do, by thanking my outstanding, kind, creative, intrepid, and brilliant agent, Uwe Stender. This book is dedicated to you because, really, I couldn’t have done any of this without you. I am so proud to be a part of Triada US. Thank you to everyone there for your strong and continued support.
I also could not have done this without my amazing, caring, smart, and patient editor Jodi Warshaw at Lake Union Publishing. It is a great pleasure to work with you again on this fourth book together. I am grateful for your unwavering guidance. Thank you to my developmental editor, Jenna Free, who, as usual, could see the whole of my novel more clearly than I could and helped me navigate it to the right place. To everyone else at Lake Union, including Nicole Pomeroy, Rosanna Brockley, Riam Griswold, Haleigh Rucinski, Kelsey Snyder, Gabriella Dumpit, and, of course, Danielle Marshall, I thank you all so much!
My continued gratitude goes to Dennelle Catlett and Kathleen Carter for doing so much to help get the word out about my books. You are the best!
Thank you to Melissa DePino for being a constant touchstone as I write and for your early feedback about this book. Thank you to Elisa Ludwig for reading this novel early and offering invaluable insight and suggestions. Thank you to Greg Pinchbeck, fellow Hackley Hornet and NBC Page, for talking me through the ins and outs of using the overhead flags at a swimming pool so Lance could show Hannah how to successfully do the backstroke. Thank you to Leah Kellar for your friendship and your insight into the details of the online dating world. Thank you to Cynthia Mollen for your willingness to answer my most random medical questions. Thank you to Carmela Amore Calderone for over twenty years of great haircuts and even better conversation. Thank you to Ivy Gilbert for your rapid late-stage proofreading and great catch. Thank you to Don Friedman for introducing me to kintsugi. Thank you also to Jennif
er Weiner, Simona Gross, Dawn Davenport, Nika and Dave Haase, Mary McManus, Jane Greer, Kathleen Woodberry, Andrea Cipriani Mecchi, Jennifer Mansfield, Margie McNaughton Ford, and Doug Cooper for your seemingly endless support.
Thank you to the Philadelphia Eagles for the amazing Super Bowl win and memorable season—here’s to many more! Fly Eagles Fly!
And finally thank you to my family, especially my husband, Craig, and my children, Alice and Arthur. For the record, given the choice between a quiet train car and a regular one where we can be together talking and laughing—I would always pick the noisy one!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2016 Andrea Cipriani Mecchi
Elizabeth LaBan is the author of Not Perfect, The Restaurant Critic’s Wife, and Pretty Little World, which she wrote with Melissa DePino. She is also the author of The Tragedy Paper, which has been translated into eleven languages, and The Grandparents Handbook, which has been translated into seven languages. She lives in Philadelphia with her restaurant-critic husband and two children.
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