Hazak, Hazak, Venithazek.
Be strong, be very strong, and we will strengthen each other.
The prospect that we finally could live that out, that we could finally be partners for the rest of our lives and fulfill the promises we made in the shade of that tree, brings me to tears.
“Don’t cry.” Ezra brushes at my cheeks but can’t stem the flow. “Tru, I—”
“Yes,” I manage to whisper, barely able to see him through a scrim of tears. “I will marry you again.”
He had to know I’d say yes, that I could never refuse him, but he looks shaken, a long sigh of relief rushing from his chest. He slowly pulls the tab from its velvet bed. It’s bigger than a soda tab, but still barely fits when I extend a trembling hand, and he slips it as far as it will go onto my ring finger.
“Guess we’ll have to get a replacement, fast.” He chuckles.
There has never been a race, an election, a campaign, a win that has made me feel this way. It’s the kind of contentment only found when you stand still. When you stop running long enough to run into yourself—to collide with your future and release the past. The path to this moment is paved with a million “ifs.” If our parents had never argued, never fallen out. If the Sterns had never moved. If Ezra and I had found each other sooner. But every possibility changes this moment—shifts the path that has made us who we are at this very second. And I can’t help but think when we were born on the same day, when we were made together, our path was set, even with its delays, detours and disillusions. We are made of choices and losses and triumphs and, yes, some happenstance. Ezra and I were made for this moment, made for each other exactly as we are now.
And looking into his eyes, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Epilogue
Ezra
One Year Later
“Study your queen so you can give her what she wants without asking.”
Nipsey Hussle,
Musician, Activist, Entrepreneur
Christmas at the Sterns’ is an unusual affair.
A cohesion of traditions and religions and families. There’s a Christmas tree that almost reaches the ceiling and stockings hanging over the fireplace. A menorah resides in the window and a mezuzah scroll guards nearly every door, courtesy of my mother. For dinner, we ate turkey and stuffing and macaroni and cheese and collard greens. Mrs. Allen’s fried chicken made peace with Mom’s fish and challah bread. Potato latkes, steamed rice and dumplings rounded out the meal, a hodgepodge of dishes to satisfy any palette. Chopsticks nestled between the forks and spoons.
Seated around our table? Three grandmothers- one Jewish, one Vietnamese, one black. All those nationalities convene in Noah and his little sister Mai, who squirmed the whole time to get away from the table so she could see her new puppy. Aiko sat with Chaz and Mama Tran, who added her legendary pho to our holiday menu. Mom and Stanley actually left New York. It’s Stanley’s first time in Atlanta, and he wants to see the King Center and have chicken and waffles before he leaves. As Atlanta sight-seeing goes, that’s a pretty low bar that we can easily clear. Remarkably, as soon as Mrs. Allen and Mom saw each other, it was like old times. Not…secret affair old times, but talking in the kitchen while cooking, cackling over memories, sharing photos of grandchildren and catching up with the changes twenty-five years have wrought in their lives.
They’ve both lost their husbands. My mother has a new one. So much has changed since that first night when they bathed their babies together. After dinner, they insisted on cleaning up, and their incessant chatter, their laughter and reminiscing drifts through the house as we settle into board games and dessert. Our mothers even threatened to throw together a game of mah-jongg.
“Well, we survived our first Christmas,” Kimba says, walking up beside me at the fireplace, taking my hand. “I mean, I’m not sure you can call it just Christmas when there’s Baptists, Buddhists and Jews, but you know what I mean. The holidays.”
“It’s not the holiday we have in common.” I look at our family, full of varying religions and practices. “It’s each other. We’re what brought us together.”
Kimba nods, a contented smile on her face. Hard-earned contentment. We have taken a journey that would break most couples, but we aren’t most.
We’re soul mates.
As fanciful as that may sound, I believe it. Religion, politics, beliefs—all the things that form a person’s worldview—none of them are as strong as what binds me to her: the connective tissue of our souls.
“Everyone’s occupied,” I whisper. “Let’s go up to the roof.”
She looks at me, one brow raised. “Should we sneak off when we have a full house?”
“We should sneak off because we have a full house.” I bend to her ear. “I’ve barely kissed you all day in this asylum. These people are crazy.”
She laughs, her lips, bare and pretty and full, spread into a smile. Hand in hand, we climb the two stories to reach the roof. The view from here is what sold me on this house. The Atlanta skyline, light-speckled buildings glittering at night like diamonds on a bed of black satin. A line of skyscrapers reaching for the stars, as aspirational as the people who live here. Kimba turns on the fairy lights. I light the firepit, pull out two champagne glasses and a bottle from the ice bucket behind the bar.
“You planned this, huh? Having your way with me on the roof?” She grins, nods to the bottle. “And you know I can’t have that.”
I turn the bottle so she can see the label. “It’s sparkling cider, and yes, I’ve been fantasizing about having my way with you on the roof all day.”