by Claire Adams
“Ready to go?” she asked.
We started our walk down to the pier where our boat cruise was scheduled to leave. It was a fifteen-minute walk, but both Natalie and I loved walking the streets of Paris. On the way, Natalie kept getting distracted with all the little corner stalls and shops by the street side.
“Tommy would love that,” she said, pointing to an intricate model of an old-fashioned tricycle. “Let’s stop and get it for him.”
I glanced at my watch and smiled. “All right.” I nodded. “You have five minutes.”
Except five minutes was never five minutes with Natalie. She kept seeing more items she wanted to purchase, and soon I was following her around the cramped little shop trying to rush her along.
“What do you think about this?” she asked, dangling a pretty star-shaped necklace in front of my face.
“I think we’re going to be standing at the port, watching our dinner leave without us.”
She shot me a stare. “Don’t you think Sophie would love this necklace?”
“You’ve already bought Sophie a gift,” I reminded her. “And anyway, this is our anniversary trip. We’re not really expected to bring anyone presents.”
“I like getting everyone presents,” Natalie said, turning back to the arrangement of necklaces. “Besides, you know Tommy and Annie will expect something.”
“That’s because you spoil them,” I said.
She rolled her eyes and ignored me. “Annie’s birthday’s coming up, too… We have to get her something extra special.”
“See?” I said. “There you go again, spoiling them.”
“Tommy’s my only nephew, and Annie’s my only niece,” Natalie defended herself. “It’s my job to spoil them.”
I sighed. “Fine, how about this for her birthday?” I suggested, pointing to a large ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.
Natalie looked at me as if I’d gone crazy. “She’s turning four, not forty.”
I laughed. “I’m going to turn forty by the time you’re finished here.”
She laughed. “Okay, okay, I’m done,” she said, heading towards the counter to pay.
We got to our dinner cruise just in time and were ushered in by a waiter who led us to the private cabin we had requested. The moment we sat down, I felt myself relax. I remembered the first time we had sat down to a dinner like this. It was during that trip that I realized that I had just unwittingly fallen in love for the first time in my life.
I reached out for Natalie’s hand in the same moment she reached for mine, and I realized she was experiencing the same sentimental feelings I was.
“Do you remember the first time we were here?”
“Of course.” I nodded. “It was winter.”
“That was over five years ago,” she said, shaking her head. “I was only twenty-one. I can’t believe it sometimes… It feels like life’s been going by so fast there’s barely any time for me to sit back and savor it.”
“You haven’t been able to savor it?”
“Well…not as much as I would like to,” Natalie corrected herself. “It’s just that, after, I graduated we moved in together. Then we spent that summer traveling…you remember?”
“Like it was yesterday,” I nodded. “A week in Indonesia, Thailand, and China. Then it was Belarus, Finland, and Sweden.”
“That trip was so exhilarating. It was life-defining for me,” Natalie said.
“Was it?” I asked. “What about it was defining for you?”
“I suppose I realized that my life had just begun and even if I never got to travel again for as long as I lived, it wouldn’t matter. Because I’d have you.”
I smiled. “I never thought I’d love anything more than I loved traveling,” I nodded, understanding where she was coming from. “Then I met you.”
She smiled. “After that trip, we got back home and settled into domestic life.”
“You say that like it’s boring.”
“It wasn’t for me.”
“It wasn’t for me, either,” I assured her. “I had as much fun living a mundane life of repetition with you as I did hopping from one country to the next.”
“Really?” she asked, with one raised eyebrow.
“Really,” I nodded firmly.
“Even that first year when I went through three different jobs and kept having neurotic breakdowns because I thought I’d never find anything I enjoyed doing?”
“Even then,” I nodded.
“Even the second year when I went back to school for my masters?” she asked.
“Even then.”
“Even the third year when I started working at the university?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I was looking forward to working in the same place as you. It certainly made the commute a lot more interesting for me.”
“You’re sweet.”
“No, I’m honest.”
Natalie leaned forward and kissed my hand. “That was the year you proposed to me,” she reminded me, in a soft voice.
“I remember,” I said.
“Do you see?” she pointed out. “That’s why life went by so fast. We moved in together; we started traveling. When we got back, you started work, and I started hunting for jobs. Then I went back to school and immediately after, I started working at the university, too. You proposed to me that year and three months later we were married.”
“Do you regret not having a longer engagement?” I asked. “Or a bigger wedding?”
“Not for a second,” she assured me. “I always wanted a small wedding, and once you proposed to me, all I wanted was to be your wife. I remember feeling those three months like they were years.”
“I felt the same way,” I nodded. “If it weren’t for the fact that our families would have been devastated, I would have just suggested we elope.”
Natalie laughed. “My parents would never have forgiven us. And neither would Sophie and the kids.”
“True,” I nodded. “Still, it was a good wedding.”
“It was perfect,” she smiled, and I could tell from her eyes that she was seeing that day unfold. “I looked through our wedding album just before we left for the airport.”
“I should look through it when we get back,” I said. “To be honest, that day is a blur to me now. There’s only one thing I remember with perfect clarity.”
“The food?” Natalie teased.
“You.” I smiled.
“Me?” she said, pretending to blush. “Was I really that beautiful?”
“More than beautiful,” I said. “I can still see you, walking down that wooden aisle towards me on the beach. That dress made you look like some ethereal creature from my dreams, and I realized just how lucky I was at that moment.”
She leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips. “I’ve never really thanked you,” she said.
“Thanked me?” I said, with a confused frown. “For what?”
“For the life you’ve given me,” Natalie said simply. “It’s more than I ever imagined it would be. It’s bigger and brighter and happier than anything I could have achieved alone. I was born to be your wife, and every year we’re together, that becomes more and more apparent.”
I took her hand and kissed it tenderly. “I should be the one thanking you,” I said. “Before you, I had adventure but there was no meaning tied to it. But now… Now, I have a purpose. My life, my work, and my travels all have a purpose because you’re standing next to me.”
She smiled. “I feel the same way.”
“Good.” I nodded. “Because there’s something I wanted to discuss with you.”
Natalie’s eyebrows rose curiously. “This sounds serious.”
“I suppose it is.”
“Should I be worried?”
I laughed nervously. “I don’t know… I don’t think you should be.”
“Okay,” she said. “Now I really am nervous.”
“Don’t be,” I said, reaching across the table and taking both
her hands in mine. “I’m just trying to introduce a new adventure to our lives.”
“A new adventure?” she repeated. “You want to plan another trip?”
“Uh… not exactly.”
Natalie smiled. “Darling, am I mistaken or do you actually look a little flushed?”
“I never thought I’d want this,” I admitted. “I always thought I was too…rigid and selfish to choose that kind of life.”
“What kind of life?”
“Sorry.” I laughed. “I know I’m talking in riddles.”
She smiled encouragingly at me. “Just come out and say it,” she said. “What do you want?”
I took a deep breath. “I think… I think I want children.”
Natalie’s eyes widened for a moment. There were a few seconds of shocked silence before she burst out laughing.
“Why is that funny?” I asked, joining in her laughter.
“It’s not,” she said. “I just… I didn’t expect that. I thought you were going to suggest something scary.”
“Well… I consider having children to be scary.”
“We’ve never really talked about kids,” Natalie said, as her tone softened into seriousness.
“No, we haven’t.”
“At one point, I was content to be a two-person family, traveling the world till we were too old to board a plane, no pets, no children, nothing to keep us tied to one place.”
“I thought that, too, at one point,” I admitted.
“What made you change your mind?”
“You did,” I told her. “Almost every single change of heart I’ve had in the last five years is linked to you. You make me feel safe and brave. You make me want things I never even realized I wanted. The only reason I want children is because you are my wife. I’ll have the best partner in the world to raise those kids with.”
“We won’t be able to travel as much when they’re young,” Natalie pointed out.
“No,” I agreed. “But having kids won’t be any less of an adventure.”
She smiled. “Well then… I suppose we should get to work as soon as possible. Making babies takes time.”
“You mean, you’re in?”
“I am completely, totally, and one hundred percent in,” she said excitedly. “Apparently, I wasn’t just born to be your wife. I was born to be the mother of your children, too.”
I was so overwhelmed that I grabbed Natalie and pulled her onto my lap. We sealed the deal with a passionate kiss and the unspoken promise that no matter what, our life together would always be an adventure.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Claire Adams