I stand on the tips of my toes and kiss him. He grabs the back of my head with both hands and returns my kiss with just as much appreciation.
After several moments of kissing and a couple of failed efforts at stopping, he mutters something about the pancakes burning and forces himself away from me as he steps to the stove. I bring my fingers to my lips and smile when I realize he just kissed me and I had absolutely no desire to pull away from him. In fact, I wanted the kiss to last even longer than it did. It's a feeling I wasn't sure I would be capable of again.
I debate pulling him back to me because I really want to kiss him again. But I also really want pancakes, so I let him resume cooking. I turn toward the wooden box and reach for the letter I wrote to him. Now that I feel like we're on a path to recovery, it makes me want to read the words I wrote to him when we were first starting this journey together. I flip over the envelope to pull out the letter, but the envelope is still sealed. "Graham?" I turn back around. "You didn't read yours?"
Graham glances over his shoulder and smiles at me. "I didn't need to, Quinn. I'll read it on our twenty-fifth anniversary." He faces the stove and resumes cooking like he didn't just say something that feels more healing than anything he's ever said or done.
I look back down at the letter with a smile on my face. Even with the temptation of nude pictures, he was secure enough in his love for me that he didn't need any reassurance from reading this letter.
I suddenly want to write him another letter to go along with this one. In fact, I might even start doing what he's been doing all these years and add more letters to the box. I want to write him so many letters that when we finally reopen this box for the right reasons, he'll have enough letters to read for a week.
"Where do you think we'll be on our twenty-fifth anniversary?" I ask.
"Together," he says, matter-of-fact.
"Do you think we'll ever leave Connecticut?"
He faces me. "Do you want to?"
I shrug. "Maybe."
"I think about it sometimes," he admits. "I've already got a few personal clients lined up. If I secured a few more, it would allow for that, but it probably wouldn't pay as much. But we could travel for a year or two. Maybe longer if we enjoy it enough."
This conversation reminds me of the night I spoke to my mother on the steps outside of her home. I don't think I give her enough credit, but she's right. I can spend my time focusing on the perfect version of the life I'll never have or I can spend my time enjoying the life I do have. And the life I have would provide me with so much opportunity if I would get out of my own head long enough to chase those opportunities.
"I used to want to be so many things before I became obsessed with the idea of being a mother."
Graham smiles sweetly at me. "I remember. You wanted to write a book."
It's been so long since I've talked about it, I'm surprised he remembers. "I did. I still do."
He's smiling at me when he turns to flip the rest of the pancakes. "What else do you want to do besides write a book?"
I move to stand next to him near the stove. He wraps one arm around me while he cooks with his other hand. I rest my head against his shoulder. "I want to see the world," I say quietly. "And I would really like to learn a new language."
"Maybe we should move here to Italy and piggyback off Ava's language tutor."
I laugh at his comment, but Graham sets down the spatula and faces me with an excited gleam in his eyes. He leans against the counter. "Let's do it. Let's move here. We have nothing tying us down."
I tilt my head and eye him. "Are you serious?"
"It would be fun to try something new. And it doesn't even have to be Italy. We can move anywhere you want."
My heart begins to beat faster with the anticipation of doing something that insane and spontaneous.
"I do really like it here," I say. "A lot. And I miss Ava."
Graham nods. "Yeah, I kind of miss Reid. But don't repeat that."
I push myself up onto the counter next to the stove. "Last week I went for a walk and saw a cottage a few streets over for rent. We could try it out temporarily."
Graham looks at me like he's in love with the idea. Or maybe he's looking at me like he's in love with me. "Let's go look at it today."
"Okay," I say, full of giddiness. I catch myself biting my cheek in an attempt to hide my smile, but I immediately stop trying to hide it. If there's one thing Graham deserves, it's for my happiness to be transparent. And this moment is the first moment in a long time I've felt this much happiness. I want him to feel it, too.
It's like this is the first time I've truly felt like I might be okay. That we'll be okay. It's the first time I don't look at him and feel guilty for everything I can't give him because I know how grateful he is for everything I can give him. "Thank you," I whisper. "For everything you said in your letters."
He stands between my legs, placing his hands on my hips. I wrap my arms around his neck, and for the first time in a long time, I kiss my husband and feel full of gratitude. I know my life as a whole hasn't been perfect, but I'm finally starting to appreciate all the perfect things within it. There are so many of them. My flexible job, my husband, my in-laws, my sister, my nieces, my nephew.
That thought makes me pause. I pull back and look up at Graham. "What did my fortune say? Do you have it memorized?"
"If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim."
I think about it for a moment. About how fitting that fortune is for my life. I've spent way too much time putting all of my focus on my infertility. So much so, my husband and all the other things that are perfect in my life were being forced to take a backseat.
Since the moment we cracked open those fortune cookies, I've never really taken them seriously. But maybe Graham is right. Maybe those fortunes are more than a coincidence. And maybe Graham was right about the existence of fate.
If so, I think my fate is standing right in front of me.
Graham touches my mouth with the tips of his fingers and slowly traces the smile on my lips. "You have no idea what this smile means to me, Quinn. I've missed it so much."
Epilogue
* * *
"Wait, look at this one!" I pull on Graham's hand, making him stop in his tracks on the sidewalk again. But I can't help it. Almost every store on this street has the cutest children's clothes I've ever seen and Max would be adorable in the outfit displayed in the window.
Graham tries to keep moving forward, but I pull on his hand until he relents and follows me into the store. "We were almost to the car," he says. "So close."
I shove the bags of kids clothes I've already bought into Graham's hands and then find the rack with the toddler sizes. "Should I get the green pants or the yellow ones?"
I hold them up to Graham and he says, "Definitely yellow."
The green pants are cuter, but I go with Graham's choice simply because he volunteered an answer. He hates shopping for clothes, and this is only the ninth store I've forced him to follow me into. "I swear this is the last one. Then we can go home." I give Graham a quick peck on the lips before walking to the register.
Graham follows me and pulls his wallet out of his pocket. "You know I don't care, Quinn. Shop all day if you want. He only turns two once."
I hand the clothes to the cashier. In a thick Italian accent, she says, "This outfit is my absolute favorite." She looks up at us and says, "How old is your little boy?"
"He's our nephew. Tomorrow is his second birthday."
"Ah, perfect," she says. "Would you like this in a gift box?"
"No, a bag is fine."
She tells Graham the total, and as he's paying, the cashier looks at me again. "What about the two of you? Any children of your own?"
I smile at her and open my mouth, but Graham beats me to the punch. "We have six children," he lies. "But they're all grown now and out of the house."
I try not to laugh, but once we decided to start lying to strange
rs about our infertility, it's become a competition with who can be the most ridiculous. Graham usually wins. Last week he told a lady we had quadruplets. Now he's trying to convince someone that a couple our age could have six children already grown and out of our home.
"All girls," I add. "We kept trying for a boy, but it just wasn't in the cards."
The cashier's mouth falls open. "You have six daughters?"
Graham takes the bag and the receipt from her. "Yes. And two granddaughters."
He always takes it a little too far. I grab Graham's hand and mutter a thank-you to the cashier, pulling him outside as fast as I pulled him inside. When we're on the sidewalk again, I slap him on the arm. "You are so ridiculous," I say, laughing.
He threads our fingers together as we begin to walk. "We should make up names for our imaginary daughters," he says. "In case someone probes for details."
We're passing a kitchen store when he says this, and my eyes automatically fall on a spice rack in the window. "Coriander," I tell him. "She's the oldest."
Graham pauses and looks at the spice rack with me. "Parsley is the youngest. And Paprika and Cinnamon are the oldest set of twins."
I laugh. "We have two sets of twins?"
"Juniper and Saffron."
As we're walking toward our car, I say, "Okay, let me make sure I have this right. In order of birth: Coriander, Paprika, Cinnamon, Juniper, Saffron and Parsley."
Graham smiles. "Almost. Saffron was born two minutes before Juniper."
I roll my eyes, and he squeezes my hand as we cross the street together.
It still amazes me how much has changed since we opened the box two years ago. We came so close to losing everything we had built together because of something that was out of our control. Something that should have brought us closer together but instead pulled us further apart.
Avoidance sounds like such a harmless word, but that one word can cause some severe damage to a relationship. We avoided so much in our marriage, simply out of fear. We avoided communicating. We avoided talking about the challenges we faced. We avoided all the things that made us the saddest. And after time, I began to avoid the other half of my life altogether. I avoided him physically, which led to emotional avoidance, which led to a lot of feelings that were left unsaid.
Opening that box made me realize that our marriage wasn't in need of a minor repair. It needed to be rebuilt from the ground up, with an entirely different foundation. I started out our life together with certain expectations, and when those expectations weren't met, I had no idea how to move forward.
But Graham has been the constant fighting force behind my healing. I finally stopped being as sad about our fate. I stopped focusing on what we would never have together and started focusing on all the things we did have and could have. It didn't eliminate my pain altogether, but I'm happier than I've been in a very long time.
Of course opening the box didn't miraculously solve everything. It didn't immediately take away my desire for children, although it did increase my lust for a life outside of being a mother. It didn't completely dissolve my aversion to sex, although it did open the door to slowly learning how to separate the sex from the hope from the devastation. And I occasionally still cry in the shower, but I never cry alone. I cry while Graham holds me, because he made me promise I would stop trying to hide the brunt of my heartache.
I no longer hide it. I embrace it. I'm learning how to wear my struggle as a badge and not be ashamed of it. I'm learning to not be so personally offended by other people's ignorance in relation to infertility. And part of what I've learned is that I have to have a sense of humor about it all. I never thought I would be at a point where we could turn all the painful questions into a game. Now when we're out in public, I actually look forward to when someone asks if we have kids. Because I know Graham is going to say something that will make me laugh.
I've also learned that it's okay to have a little hope.
For so long, I was so worn down and emotionally exhausted that I thought if I figured out a way to lose all hope, I would also lose all expectation and all disappointment. But it didn't work that way. The hope has been the only positive thing about being infertile.
I will never lose hope that we might actually have a child of our own. I still apply to adoption agencies and talk to lawyers. I don't know that we'll ever stop trying to make it happen. But I've learned that even though I'm still hoping to become a mother, it doesn't mean I can't live a fulfilling life while I continue to try.
For once, I'm happy. And I know that I'll be happy twenty years from now, even if it's still just me and Graham.
"Shit," Graham mutters as we reach our car. He points at the tire. "We have a flat."
I glance at the car, and the tire is definitely flat. So flat, no amount of air could salvage it. "Do we have a spare?"
We're in Graham's car, so he opens the trunk and lifts the floor portion, revealing a spare and a jack. "Thank God," he says.
I put our bags in the backseat of the car and watch as he pulls out the tire and the jack. Luckily the flat is on the passenger side, which is flush with the sidewalk rather than the road. Graham rolls the tire near the flat one and then moves the jack. He looks up at me with an embarrassed look on his face. "Quinn . . ." He kicks at a pebble on the sidewalk, breaking eye contact with me.
I laugh, because I can tell by his embarrassment that he has no idea what to do next. "Graham Wells, have you never changed a flat tire?"
He shrugs. "I'm sure I could google it. But you mentioned to me once that Ethan never let you change a flat." He motions toward the tire. "I'm giving you first dibs."
I grin. I'm loving this way too much. "Put the parking brake on."
Graham sets the parking brake while I position the jack under the car and begin to raise it.
"This is kind of hot," Graham says, leaning against a light pole as he watches me. I grab the wrench and begin removing the lug nuts from the tires.
We're on a busy sidewalk, so two people stop to ask if they can help, because they don't realize Graham is with me. Both times, Graham says, "Thank you, but my wife has got this."
I laugh when I realize what he's doing. The entire time I'm changing the tire, Graham brags about it to everyone who walks by. "Look! My wife knows how to change a tire."
When I finally finish, he puts the jack and the flat tire back in the trunk. My hands are covered in grease.
"I'm going to run inside this store and wash my hands."
Graham nods and opens the driver's side door while I rush into the nearest store. When I walk inside, I'm taken off guard as I look around. I was expecting this to be another clothing store, but it isn't. There are pet crates displayed in the window and a bird--a parakeet--perched on top of a cage near the front door.
"Ciao!" the bird says loudly.
I raise an eyebrow. "Hello."
"Ciao!" it screeches again. "Ciao! Ciao!"
"That's the only word he knows," a lady says as she approaches me. "You here to adopt or are you here for supplies?"
I hold up my greasy hands. "Neither. I'm hoping you have a sink."
The woman points me in the direction of the restroom. I make my way through the store, pausing to look at all the various animals in their cages. There are rabbits and turtles and kittens and guinea pigs. But when I make it to the back of the store, near the restroom, I pause in my tracks and suck in a breath.
I stare at him for a moment because he's staring right back at me. Two big brown eyes, looking at me like I'm the fiftieth person to walk past him today. But he still somehow has hope in those eyes--like maybe I'll be the first one to actually consider adopting him. I step closer to his cage, which is flanked by several empty cages. He's the only dog in the whole store.
"Hey, buddy," I whisper. I read the note at the bottom left corner of his cage. Beneath the Italian description is a description written in English.
German Shepherd
Male
Seven we
eks old
Available for adoption
I stare at the note for a moment and then force myself to walk to the bathroom. I scrub my hands as fast as I can, because I can't stand for that puppy to think I'm just another one of the dozens of people who walked past him today and didn't want to take him home.
I've never been much of a dog person, because I've never had a dog before. I honestly thought I'd never own a dog, but I have a feeling I'm not walking out of this store without this puppy. Before I leave the bathroom, I pull my phone from my pocket and shoot Graham a text.
Come inside to the back of the store. Hurry.
I walk out of the bathroom, and when the puppy sees me again, his ears perk up. He lifts a paw and presses it against the cage as I come closer. He's sitting on his hind legs, but I can see his tail twitching, like he wants my attention but he's scared it'll just be fleeting and he'll be spending another night in this cage.
I slip my fingers between the bars of his cage, and he sniffs them, then licks me. I feel a tightening in my chest every time we make eye contact, because seeing him so full of hope but so scared of disappointment makes me sad. This puppy reminds me of me. Of how I used to feel.
I hear someone walking up behind me, so I spin around to see Graham staring at the puppy. He walks up to the cage and tilts his head. The puppy looks from me to Graham and then finally stands up, unable to stop his tail from wagging.
I don't even have to say anything. Graham just nods his head and says, "Hey, little guy. You want to come home with us?"
* * *
"It's been three days," Ava says. "That poor puppy needs a name."
She's clearing off the table, preparing to go home. Reid left with Max about an hour ago to put him to bed. We all try to eat dinner together a few times a week, but we usually go to their house, since Max goes to bed early. But now we're the ones with a new baby, and even though that new baby is a puppy, he naps and pees and poops as much as a human newborn.
"It's so hard coming up with a good name, though," I groan. "I want to give him a name that'll mean something, but we've tossed out every idea we've had."
"You're being too picky."