Chapter 12: Ask Me Again

I found him at the end of the old stone breakwater, sitting with his boots over the edge.

It was after sunset, and the wind was up.

I had walked a mile out along the wet granite in my work shoes.

I sat down next to him.

He did not look at me.

"I'm not here to fight," I said.

"Good."

"I'm here to say the thing I should have said five years ago."

He turned his head.

"I'm sorry, Theo."

"Dee."

"Let me finish. You told me, and now I'm telling you."

I made myself look straight at him.

"I said no in year two before you finished asking.

"You were never the one who made me choose. I chose, every year, by staying quiet.

"You carried that for years. You never said a word."

"I didn't want to make you choose."

"You shouldn't have had to. I should have chosen you in the first place."

The sea slapped the rocks below.

"This morning I sat in my grandfather's chair and said the word to my father in front of thirty people," I said.

"I finally knew what I was angry about. It was never the weddings.

"It was you, standing there, waiting. Five years. And me letting you."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"The lease," he said. "I'll call the landlord in the morning and cancel it."

"Don't."

"Dee?"

"Keep it. I want to see the water from the second bedroom."

"You'd move to Portland?"

"Not alone, and not without being asked." I took his hand in both of mine. "Start by asking me again."

"Ask you what?"

"Year two. The courthouse in Rockland. Midnight. Ask me."

He was quiet.

His thumb moved across my knuckles.

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