by Zoe Kane
Annie flushed. "Oh," she said awkwardly. "Honey – it's too early to – we haven't – "
“Yes,” said Marcus. He was really very firm about it.
Annie turned and stared at him, eyes wide. Linnet and Vera grinned at each other conspiratorially, and even Michael smiled.
“You are?” said Sophia.
“You bet I am. Want to be a flower girl?”
“I want to! I want to!” shrieked Lucy.
“I want to too!” exclaimed Sophia.
“But she hasn’t said yes yet,” Isaac pointed out. “And you didn't get down on your knee. And you don't have a ring.”
“Right, right, and wrong,” said Marcus, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a small Tiffany box.
"Marcus, what is that?"
"It's exactly what you think it is."
"What, did you sneak off to go shopping while I was asleep?"
"No," he said. "It's been sitting in my coat pocket for months. Ever since the day Vera called me." He smiled at her. "You were faster than I was, is all."
Then he knelt down on the museum floor, right in front of the Triceratops, while everyone around them turned to whisper and pull out their cameras and stare.
“Marcus, what the hell are you doing?” Annie hissed.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re about to propose to me. In front of our entire family. And five hundred tourists. And a Triceratops. And Linnet.”
“Yeah, it went a little different when I rehearsed this,” he admitted, grinning, and opened a small Tiffany box to reveal a gleaming emerald on a silver band.
“Ooooooooh, Aunt Annie,” whispered Lucy reverently. Sophia hushed her. Marcus waved the children over to him.
“Okay, what do you guys think should I say?” he stage-whispered.
Isaac leaned down and said something quietly in his ear. “Good, Isaac, that’s good,” Marcus said approvingly, then cleared his throat. “Isaac thinks you're the prettiest woman in the world – ”
Isaac kicked him.
“What?” Marcus exclaimed in exaggerated surprise. “You said, 'Say I think--' “
“I meant you think,” he retorted, exasperated. He was totally ruining this.
He tried again. “I think you're the prettiest woman in the world.” He glanced at Isaac for confirmation, and he nodded his approval. Sophia leaned over and whispered something in Marcus’ other ear, and he nodded. “Also you're very nice and smart and I would like to marry you and make you happy forever.”
“Good job, Sophia,” whispered Lucy. Sophia beamed.
“And also, even though you drive me absolutely crazy,” he said, “I’ve never been more miserable in my entire life than these past months being back here without you. That wasn’t Sophia, by the way,” he added hastily, “that’s just me.”
“That was pretty good,” Sophia allowed.
“Thanks.”
“You’re a good influence,” said Linnet, as she and Sophia exchanged a solemn fist-bump while waiting to see what would happen next. Everyone suddenly realized that Annie still hadn’t spoken. She was still standing there, a Triceratops at her back and her family all watching her, staring down at Marcus Rey kneeling in front of her holding an emerald ring in a Tiffany box.
“I don't want them to learn the lesson that love only comes once,” Danny had said. “I don’t want them to learn that you can never start over.”
So Annie got down on her knees too, and took his other hand in hers. “It’s not just me anymore,” she said. “And it’s not just you. We’re not two people. We’re five people. Think about what you’re asking, Marcus, because you’re not just marrying me, you’re marrying all of us.”
“Not me, technically,” Linnet corrected her, and Vera silenced her with a smack on the head.
“First of all,” said Marcus without looking up, “one more word out of Linnet and I will call security and accuse her of trying to climb the Stegosaurus.” This sent the children into an explosion of wild giggles. “Second of all,” he said, smiling at Annie like no one had ever smiled at her in all her life, never, not even Danny Walter, “this is what I want. I want to have a family with you, Annie. I want PTA meetings and beach picnics and Thanksgiving dinners with all these people sitting around our table.”
“I think I have plans.”
“Linnet, so help me God –“ Marcus began, and Annie burst out laughing. She couldn’t stop herself. She felt a wild, bubbling joy flow throughout her whole body.
“Aunt Annie, you have to say yes or no,” whispered Sophia, and Annie turned to her.
“That depends,” she said. “What does Dolphin think?”
The children stared at each other. Aunt Annie had never consulted Dolphin before. This was new.
Sophia pulled him out of her backpack and they conferred briefly. “Dolphin thinks it’s a really good idea,” she said.
“Oh, he does, does he?” said Annie with a grin. "Well, Dolphin's usually right."
"Aunt Annie, you have to sayyyyyyyy it," groaned Isaac, exasperated.
"Yeah, Aunt Annie," said Marcus. "You have to say it."
“Yes, you idiot,” she laughed, and he slipped the ring onto her finger as she leaned in and kissed him while a museum full of strangers burst into wild applause.
Isaac and Sophia tactfully covered their eyes, but Lucy toddled over and put her arms around Marcus’ neck, and she looked at Annie and smiled, making Annie's heart turn over unexpectedly inside her chest.
Lucy would always have Danny’s blue eyes and crooked smile. She would always be a living, breathing reminder of her father. Annie had been so sure, at first, that it would always hurt.
But it didn’t. Not now. Not anymore.
Now it was just one more thing for Annie to love.
“Uncle Marcus, can we go look at the blossyrafters?” she whispered into his ear, and he laughed, and swung her up onto his shoulders.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Velociraptors it is. Let’s go.”
“I know where they are,” said Isaac importantly, “I looked at the map.”
“Well, you lead the way then,” said Marcus agreeably, and Isaac scampered ahead, Sophia at his side.
“They’re not always this cute,” said Michael to him, a little dubiously.
Marcus grinned at him. “Don’t I know it.”
“Neither is he,” muttered Linnet irrepressibly, earning another swat on the head from Aunt Vera.
Annie hung back for a moment and watched them as the whole cluster rounded the corner and the velociraptor skeletons came into view. She watched as Isaac grabbed Sophia’s hand and dragged her over to the skulls in the glass display case. She watched Marcus, tiny Lucy on his shoulders, stroll up behind them in friendly conversation with Michael. She watched Vera and Linnet, the self-satisfied matchmakers, who had lost all interest in the dinosaurs and were fully occupied with ogling what looked like an entire Scandinavian men’s soccer team near the T-Rex exhibit. Linnet said something under her breath and got swatted on the head again, but Vera was laughing.
All these people were hers. Hers to care for. Hers to belong to. It was incomprehensible how she had gotten so lucky, how out of the shadow of her deepest grief, all this bounty had come. But there they were.
Her family.
She watched them, tears in her eyes, heart aching with ferocious love.
You were right, Danny, she thought to herself, and smiled. You were right all along.
It's not too late to start over.
THE END
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