Mark knocked on Sarah’s back door. They’d started going for walks together after he got back from school. It was a good way to spend time together—and they both knew that even though they loved each other, they had a lot to learn about each other.

She came out in athletic tights and a light jacket. He’d been so ready to see her he was still in his teaching clothes.

“Are you ready to go?” She looked like she was ready to walk miles.

“I should probably at least change my shoes. I just…I wanted to see you.” He leaned in and risked a kiss on her forehead. The knot in his chest didn’t untangle, but it did relax a little.

She pirouetted. “Well, here I am.”

Her and her very nice ass. He added another jot to his mental post-marriage list and dashed back to his house to get his athletic shoes.

They ended up heading to the park with the walking track today. Sometimes they walked all over the neighborhood, and she filled him in on all the history and gossip from her grandmother’s days, but he didn’t want to take anything in today. He knew he had to get something out, and that track, with the ginkgo in the middle just starting to go yellow, would be the perfect place to walk it out.

He picked a rose from the bush at the north end of the track and handed it to Sarah. She smelled it.

“You’re always giving me flowers.”

“Well, you keep giving me vegetables, so I think we’re even.”

His school was miles away, but Sarah’s school they could see from the track. All those messy feelings came up again, the ones he’d been trying to ignore. She planned to teach at that school until she retired. He didn’t know what he was going to do at the end of the school year.

He huffed out a breath. He was so sick of himself getting frustrated over this. These feelings were so hard to unravel. He wasn’t mad at anyone. His students’ test scores continued to improve, so he wasn’t actually failing as a teacher. But he thought he would be making a difference, and he wasn’t.

“Mark, what’s with the sigh? Are you sick of vegetables?” Sarah turned to look at him.

“No, I’m just trying to figure out what to do with my life. I mean, for sure, you are my plan, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do besides you.” He realized what he said, and started laughing. “Sorry.”

“My beloved, we’ll figure it out. We’ve got a semester and a little bit before you can even do anything, right? There’s time.” Sarah wrapped her arms around him sideways and gave him a hug.

“I feel like a failure, though. I wanted to do something good, so I could feel good about myself. I jumped at the first chances to do it, without thinking through the consequences, and I haven’t changed anybody’s life, or made a difference.” He kicked at the empty beer can on the path.

“I don’t want to sound too much like Pastor Louis here, but your value is not in what you do. You are a beloved child of God, whether you are the best teacher ever or a bricklayer. You know this.” Sarah reached up to stroke his face, her fingers catching just a little on his afternoon stubble. “And you have changed a life. You changed mine.”

He stopped walking, and pulled her to face him. “Changed your life? You had a great life before me. All I did was see you for what you are.”

“Well,” she wrinkled up her nose in a grimace, “I know you think I’m cute when I’m grouchy. But I’ve been too angry. I was too angry at you, and I was too angry at everything and everybody this semester. But because of you, because of the way you listen to me, I’ve been having to explain to people constantly about the man in my life.” She broke off to swipe her arm over her nose as she sniffled.

“I told myself I was content, but I let resentment build up, I stopped talking to people who I thought wouldn’t understand about the stresses of my life. I tried to share enough that people thought they knew me, but I put up walls that nobody tried to climb over until you. And you opened the door from the inside…” She was sobbing by now. “And it’s just now all making sense to me, what you did, but my friends know me again. All of me. I would probably be headed towards a rage-y burnout without you.”

Mark’s knot of worry untwisted and sailed away as he wrapped Sarah up in his arms. If he had done this for her, it was enough. Maybe he would look into being a bricklayer. She sniffed a final sniff and pushed her arms around him, and they stood together, swaying, as dusk hit the park.