17
Dillon
“Hey, man. It’s me. I brought my girl with me. Her name is Faith, and you would’ve loved her. Probably a little too much for my liking. But she’s amazing, so it’s not like I would’ve been able to blame you.” She smiled up at me and nodded with encouragement. “I was just telling her how I wished you could’ve met her, but if you were here then she wouldn’t be alive. I owe you for that, bro. So fucking much.”
My chest heaved and my eyes clouded over with tears. Faith wrapped her arm around me, and I knew she was crying too because I felt her body shaking with her quiet sobs. We stood like that for a while, until we managed to pull ourselves together.
“Thank you,” Faith whispered before she moved forward to press a light kiss over his name on the headstone. I lost it again, crying harder than before.
“Sorry, honey,” she murmured against my chest as I held on to her through the worst of it.
“It’s okay, baby. It was just such a beautiful gesture.” I swept the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs. “And I needed this since I never really let myself cry back then. Declan deserves to be mourned.
“He does.” She nodded her head after searching my face with worried eyes. “Go ahead and do that however you want. I’ll be waiting for you in the car. Take all the time you need.”
She kissed my cheek and squeezed my hand before she walked away. I watched her progress, all the way to the SUV, to make sure she got inside okay. Then I turned back to Declan’s grave. “I told you she was amazing, and I wasn’t exaggerating. Not even a little bit.”
I stared at his headstone for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out the best way to start all of this. Now that I was alone, it didn’t feel as natural as it had with Faith at my side. But then I had an idea.
“I’m going to leave this with you because I don’t need it anymore.” I pulled the coin that gained me entry to Grant’s underground gambling rooms out of my pocket and set it on the bottom edge of the headstone, tucking it behind the flowers my mom had placed there. “When Mom comes back next time, be ready for her to either smile huge or bawl her eyes out when she sees it. I’m sure they still worry about the gambling, especially since we haven’t been as close as usual. Not since I found out the truth. It was hard for me to learn how to forgive myself. I had to focus on that for a little while before I could come to terms with the decisions they made. But I think I’ve managed to do that now. It took a lot of therapy.”
I chuckled softly, picturing how Declan would’ve reacted to the suggestion of seeing a shrink. It almost definitely would have involved lots of eye rolling and swear words. “Yeah, you heard that right. Things were bad enough that I agreed to talk to a therapist. But you would’ve liked Mrs. Crabtree. She’s damn good at her job. Easier to talk to than I expected. And she’s the one you have to thank for this visit because she suggested it. She convinced me that there were things left unsaid between us that I needed to get off my chest or else I’d never truly come to terms with your loss.”
My head dropped low, and I set my hand on top of the gravestone. “I feel like I need to start with an apology. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left it to you to be the responsible one all the time, even if you acted like it was fine. I know I’m not responsible for the accident, and that the outcome might’ve been the same if I’d been sober that night. Or it could’ve been me in the grave and you standing here talking to me. I’ll never know for sure, and I’ve learned to accept that. In part because I know it’s what you’d want me to do. Just like I know you’d want me to come to terms with all the decisions Mom and Dad made back then.”
I heaved a deep sigh and tilted my head back, staring up at the sky. “I think I’ve done that too. I can’t even imagine how hard it was for them to pick between two impossible choices—do nothing and almost definitely lose us both or pull the plug on you to try to save me. They had to have been out of their minds with grief, but they still thought about how they could help strangers and donated all of your organs. It wasn’t just my life you saved that day. And in a strange twist of fate, one of those strangers was Faith. Your kidney saved her life, and your heart saved mine. So you’ve gotta know a part of you will live on with us. Always.”
The wind swirled around me, and one of the light green petals from an orchid in the bouquet of flowers broke free. They were my mom’s favorite flower, something Declan and I had learned at a young age when we’d asked our dad why he brought them home so often. The petal drifted upwards in an odd pattern until it came to rest on my hand. I’d never been one to believe in the paranormal, but I got goosebumps the moment it touched my skin.
“So many strange twists of fate brought Faith to me.” I dropped the petal into the palm of my other hand to cup it there. “I guess it isn’t too much of a stretch to think this is your way of telling me you got the message. I shouldn’t be surprised since you were always the resourceful twin. You wouldn’t let a little thing like death stop you from helping me if you thought I needed it.”
I chuckled softly and shook my head as I tucked the petal into my pocket. “Thanks, bro. I love you, too.”
I was still smiling when I climbed into the driver’s seat of my SUV.
“You good?” Faith asked.
“Yeah.” In fact, I was better than good. I felt like a weight I’d been carrying for more than five years—one that’d gotten heavier when I’d learned the truth about Declan’s death and my heart transplant—had finally lifted. My twin was gone, and I missed him terribly. But I was still here, and I needed to live my life to the fullest. Which made me think about Faith’s conversation with Christine.
I was pretty sure she didn’t know I’d listened to the tail end of it, shamelessly eavesdropping like Mrs. Crabtree always did. Hearing her say that she’d thought about marrying me, having my kids, almost knocked me over. But it’d felt like the wrong time to talk about it, considering we were in our therapist’s office and our next stop was a cemetery. It was probably still wrong since we hadn’t left the cemetery. But now that the idea was in my head, I couldn’t get it out.
I wasn’t in the least bit prepared. We were in the least romantic spot possible. And it’d been an incredibly emotional day. But that didn’t stop me from asking, “Will you marry me?”
“Will I—what?” she sputtered.
I gathered her hands in mine and pressed a gentle kiss against her lips. “I know to anyone else this proposal would be all wrong because to them it would be horribly unromantic. But they’re not us.”
“I—I—” she stammered, and I kissed her again to stop the flow of words, assuming she would’ve regained the ability to speak.
When her lips stopped moving, I pulled away and whispered, “I’ll give you the big romantic proposal later, with me down on one knee with a ring if that’s what you want. But I needed to do this here and now. While I feel closer to Declan than I have in five years. Where maybe he could witness me asking the tough girl who stole my heart if she’d do me the honor of being my wife. If she’d spend the rest of her life with me, because she makes me happier than I’ve ever been before. I already know we’ll love each other through sickness and health, in good times and bad. But I’d still like to make it official. Give you my last name. Make you a Montgomery officially, even though you’re already one in every other way that matters.”
“Yes,” she gasped, with tears streaming down her cheeks. Happy ones this time.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you. I don’t need the big romantic proposal later. Or you down on one knee. Or even the ring.” She cupped my cheeks with her palms and pressed her forehead against mine. “All I need is you to make me happy. Through sickness and health. Good times and bad. Just like you said.”
“So I didn’t fuck this up?”
“No, honey. Not even close. I understand why you wanted to do it this way. Weddings are supposed to be about family.”
And ours would be. The tension between my parents
and me had taken its toll on Faith as well. She’d grown close to them, especially my mom, but she’d felt like she needed to take my side while we worked through everything. So she’d kept her distance because that’s what I’d been doing. But we didn’t need to do that. Not anymore.
18
Dillon
“You’re right. Weddings are about family, which is why we should head over to my parents’ house and share the news with them.”
She jerked back and stared at me with wide eyes. “What? Really? Is that what you want to do?”
“Yeah, baby. It’s exactly what I want.”
Her smile was all I needed to see to confirm it was the right thing to do for both of us. “Are they even home right now?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” I turned on the engine and hit the button on the in-dash screen to pull up the phone app. “Call Dad.”
I confirmed that’s what I wanted it to do, and then the phone was ringing through the speaker system. He picked up on the second one. “Dillon?”
"Hey, Dad.”
“It’s good to hear your voice, son.”
“I’ve got Faith with me.”
“Hey, Faith. You guys okay?”
“Yeah, Dad. It’s better than okay.” Faith and I shared a secret smile. “We’re in the car, and we were calling to see if you and Mom were at home. We wanted to stop by if you guys were available.”
“Yeah, we’re home.” He cleared his throat roughly. “And we’re always available to you and Faith. Any time. Day or night.”
“Can we come over now?” Faith asked.
“Now definitely works for us.”
“Tell Mom to break open a bottle of champagne, will you?”
I knew he’d catch the hint and realize we were coming over for a good reason. Just like my mom used hot chocolate for bad times, champagne was for celebrating. She’d even let Declan and me have it during the bigger occasions, but she mixed it with juice when we were teenagers.
“I’ll do that, son.”
When we pulled up in front of their house, my parents were already waiting for us at the door. After I parked the car, I led Faith up the steps. Then I dropped my hand from her back and moved to my mom, wrapping my arms around her. “Hey, Mom.”
“Oh, Dillon,” she cried. She hugged me back, her hands gripping me tightly.
When she finally let go and stepped back, there were tears on her cheeks, but she was smiling. I turned and found Faith standing with my dad’s arm around her shoulders, but she quickly moved forward to give my mom a hug too. My dad did the same with me.
“It’s great to see you two,” he said as he ushered us into the house.
“And your dad said something about needing bubbly?” my mom asked, her eyes filled with excitement as they darted between Faith and me. When she glanced at Faith’s belly, I groaned.
“Yeah, Mom. But not for that reason.”
“That reason?” Faith echoed. “What’d I miss?”
“If I had to guess, Mom thought maybe we wanted to celebrate me knocking you up,” I murmured in her ear.
“I’m not pregnant!” she gasped, her cheeks filling with pink.
“I know, but my mom is baby crazy,” I whispered. “So now that we’re engaged, be prepared for her to repeatedly ask when we’re going to give her a grandbaby.”
“She’s going to have to wait for that,” Faith whispered back. “I have a master’s degree to earn first, and with my health issues getting pregnant probably won’t be easy.”
“I had assumed you had told your dad to have me break out the champagne because you had good news, but with the way you two are whispering back and forth I’m starting to wonder.” The happiness that’d been in my mom’s eyes out on the front porch had dimmed, and now she looked worried.
“We do have good news,” I reassured her. “But before I share it with you, I wanted to let you both know that I appreciate the time you’ve given me to come to terms with what happened. You backed off and gave me the time I needed, and I know that couldn’t have been easy for either of you.”
My mom reached out for my dad’s hand, and they held on tight to each other while they listened.
“The therapist I’ve been seeing has helped me work through my feelings about what happened with Declan. To understand it was an accident, and I wasn’t at fault for what happened. And that you guys did the best you could in a horrible situation.”
“Dillon,” my mom gasped. “Does that mean you forgive us?”
“Of course I do, Mom. But only for lying to me about it for so long,” I added. “Because you never needed my forgiveness about the decision you had to make. For that, you have my gratitude because you saved my life.”
My mom and dad rushed forward to hug Faith and me again.
“I’m proud of you, son. Your forgiveness and acceptance is more than I expected and in less time than I anticipated.” My dad patted me on the back before letting go. "Someday, God willing, you'll have children of your own. Then you’ll understand how hard our decision was, and how much your understanding means to us.”
“It wasn’t easy, but you taught me to not give up when the going gets hard. Especially when you’re fighting for something important, and family is everything.”
He clapped me on the back again. “I can’t tell you how good it is to hear you say that, Dillon. Seeing you in the office these past weeks and knowing you were in pain; it’s been difficult not being able to do anything about it.”
“It wasn’t easy for me, either.” I’d always been close to my dad, and I hadn’t been sure how to act around him with the distance between us—even though it’d been at my request. “But it means a lot that you trusted me to figure it out on my own.”
“There’s a time in every parent’s life when they’ve got to let go and trust in the fact that they raised their children right. Your mom and I are lucky because even with all the challenges over the past five years, you turned out so well.”
“So very well,” my mom added, giving me another hug.
When Faith moved to my side and laced her fingers through mine, I realized we’d gotten sidetracked and I still hadn’t given them the big news. “You also have my thanks for saving my fiancée’s life.”
“Fiancée? You’re engaged?” my mom shrieked. Her gaze dropped down to Faith’s hand, and she frowned when she didn’t spot a diamond on her finger. “No ring?”
Faith shook her head and answered for me. “Not yet.”
“Dillon! Did your father teach you nothing about being romantic?” my mom admonished me.
“Actually,” I drawled, looking at my dad. “I was hoping you’d let me have Grandma’s engagement ring. I think Faith would love it, and it’s an heirloom which makes it even more perfect because she’s already family.”
“Dillon! No, you don’t have to do that. We can go pick out a ring or something. I’m not even used to wearing jewelry. It doesn’t have to be something fancy,” Faith protested.
“Oh, sweetie.” My mom’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s going to change if I have anything to do with it.”
“My son’s right,” Dad added. “My mother’s engagement ring would be perfect for you, and it might just be big enough for Dillon to be satisfied. It’s in the safe in my office. I’ll go get it.”
“Big enough?” Faith echoed softly.
“Yeah, baby. To warn off other guys,” I explained.
“Don’t blame Dillon. He comes by it naturally.” My mom held her left hand out and laughed. “It took years for me to get accustomed to the weight of wearing this every day, and I was already a big fan of jewelry so I had a head start on you.”
Faith pointed at my mom’s ring and stared up at me with wide eyes. “Your mom’s ring is huge. I noticed it when we first met, and I never pay attention to jewelry. Please tell me your grandma’s engagement ring isn’t that big.”
“Well,” I laughed. My mom burst into a fit of giggles. They were just dying down
when my dad came back in the room. “Get ready to crack open that bottle of champagne, honey. We get to see our boy put my mom’s ring on our girl.”
To anyone else, his choice of phrasing might’ve sounded odd; like incest or something since he’d called me their boy and Faith their girl. But for Faith, I knew it sounded like exactly what it was—unconditional acceptance. Or in one word...family. Something she’d never experienced before. But I could give her that.
My dad gave me the jewelry box, and I flipped it open. I remembered my grandma telling me about her engagement ring when I’d asked her if the stone was dirty since it was yellow. I was only six at the time, but her lesson about canary yellow diamonds stuck with me. At five karats, the stone in the ring was big, even by my mom’s standards. I figured that the only reason I was able to get it on Faith’s finger without her freaking out was because her vision was clouded by tears at what my dad had said. But that was fine by me. It was on there, and it was never coming off.
Epilogue
Dillon
7 Years Later
“Dillon!” I felt the jab of an elbow in my side before I heard Faith panting my name. “Wake up!”
I’d had a long week at the office, trying to get caught up on all my work. I wanted to be ready to hand off any projects I wouldn’t be able to finish so I wouldn’t have anything distracting me during my leave of absence. Then it’d been an even longer weekend since we’d been at a gymnastics meet from Friday afternoon through Sunday night.
“What?” I asked groggily.
She jabbed me in the side again. “I’m in labor. You need to call your parents, wake Cynthia up, and grab my overnight bag. We have to get to the hospital because they’re already coming closer together.”
“You’re in labor?” I yelped, jumping out of bed to toss on clothes.
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