“It is. Some even look like real weddings. White dress, catering, the works.”
“Catering, huh.”
“Tons of it. Well, it looked exciting. Something my wife deserves. So I think, when the time is right, I’ll ask her if she’d want to renew her vows with me.”
I bite my lip, holding his face between my hands. “When the time is right?”
“Yes,” he says. “When she’ll say yes. I think I might even go down on one knee. But then again, perhaps she’ll find that corny.”
My heart is stuttering in my chest and I speak the next words against his lips. “No. She wouldn’t.”
Epilogue
Victor
The numbers on my computer screen bleed in front of my eyes, my mind drifting. It’s been doing that a lot lately. The work doesn’t hold my attention the way it once did, and try as I may, I can’t seem to find my way back to it.
The only business I like working on these days is Cecilia’s, and half the time, she doesn’t want my opinions. The thought makes me smile.
The autumn’s late sunlight streams in through the bay windows, tinted orange from the shifting leaves on the great trees. I look around my office, memories interposing on one another, a kaleidoscope of the past and present and future. Seeing my father and grandfather in here, arguing about trusts and investments. Myself, twelve and sullen, giving my grandfather the silent treatment. He’d been sitting in the chair I’m in. Or Cecilia and me in this room, newly married and unsure of one another, sorting through documents that tore my heart to shreds.
A small hand curls around the half-open door and pushes it open. Philippa’s ponytails are half-askew, her brown eyes curious. “Daddy?”
“I’m in here.”
“Whatcha doing?”
“Working. Did you just wake up from your nap?”
She shakes her head, but the imprint from her pillow marking her cheek give her away. I push back from the chair and open my arms. Philippa runs on legs that have too much energy to ever walk. I swing her up and put her on my knee.
Her little body is sturdy, and getting heavier by each passing month. The marvel of her hasn’t stopped knocking the breath out of my chest. How can a person be so tiny and still be a fully formed human being? When they’d placed her in my arms at the hospital, she’d been so small. Minuscule and infinitely precious, her head fitting in the palm of my hand.
Impossible. Incredible.
“Whatcha working on?”
“Numbers, lots and lots of numbers.”
She screws her face up and I laugh, pressing down on her button nose. Philippa has so many of her mother’s features, including the beautiful eyes, but her hair, as Cecilia likes to remind me, is all mine. As light blonde as mine had been at her age.
“I know you don’t understand it, honey.”
“Boring,” she says. “Daddy, let’s go outside.”
“You want to play?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it snack time?”
She shakes her head, eyes glittering. We both know it is.
I lift her up and walk out of the office, and Philippa sits content on my hip, happy to be carried. Cecilia keeps telling her that she needs to walk more, and that her mother is too far gone to carry her, but she knows she can still demand rides from her dad.
“Outside, outside, outside!” she sing-songs.
“Your playhouse?”