Chapter Twenty-Nine

Karrie

I walk up the front steps, the grocery bag hitting my knees. Turning the knob and having it closed makes my arm ache. “Fuck,” I say out loud, dropping the bag on the ground while I reach into my purse, pulling out my keys. “Where the hell is Matthew?” I ask myself. He was here when I left. It’s Valentine’s Day and for some reason we are not playing or traveling tonight. Unlocking the door, I pick the bag up, walking in. The lights are off in the whole house, except the glow from tea candles that are lining a path of red roses. I drop the bag and my purse with my keys on the floor, walking to the living room, which is where the roses lead to.

Walking into the room, my breath hitches, my hand going to my mouth. Candles are lit all over the room. The couches and table are pushed to one side of the room. In the middle of the room, kneeling on one knee is Matthew. Candles in the shape of a heart are lit, and the room is filled with rose petals.

“From the first moment I saw you, you took my breath away. I kicked myself for letting you go into your hotel room without asking you for your name. The next day I called your room, but there was no answer.” He surprises me with that information. “But then I walked into that room and there you were. It was a sign that you were mine.”

“Matthew,” I whisper, walking into the room and right into the middle of the heart straight to him.

“My whole life I was afraid to let my guard down, afraid to give love and not get it back. But with you I didn’t even stand a chance. The day you put your hand in mine, my heart just knew you were the one.” He reaches out to grab my hand. “I promise to love you till my last dying breath, or at least as long as you let me live. I promise to be the best father I can be. I want to walk holding your hand today, tomorrow, and always. I want to go to bed with you and kiss you goodnight. I want to watch our kids take their first step. I want to watch our kids drive us crazy. I want to walk our daughter down the aisle, watch you dance with our son on his wedding day. But most of all I want to be the reason you smile, the one who wipes your tears away, and the one who holds you up when you need me to. Let me be that man. Let me give you all that, but more importantly, I want you to say yes and give me the world.”

The tears are streaming down my face while he opens the black box that he pulled from his pocket. When he shows it to me, my tears come even more. “I couldn’t do this without asking your father’s permission. So when I did he asked me for one thing and that was to be able to give you your mother’s ring. It was her wish for you to wear it when you finally found someone who merited it.”

No matter how many diamond rings my father bought for my mother, she never ever took off the one he gave her the night he proposed. It was a one-carat round diamond, back then the only thing he could afford. They ate ramen noodles for a year after that, but she didn’t care because she had my father. When he made his first million, he took her ring and replaced it. She had a fit and refused to let him in the house till he brought her back her ring. Till the bitter end it’s the only jewelry she wore. I asked her once while I held her hand at the end why she just didn’t get another ring. Her answer was simple.

“He promised to love me forever with this ring. He looked me in the eye while he slipped this ring on my finger and promised to give me the life I deserved to always put me before him. And he did that every single day since then. When you find love, Karrie, you hold on to it, you cherish it, and then you love with your whole heart because loving and being loved is something you can’t buy no matter how many diamonds come your way.”

“I love you,” I finally tell him. “I love you with my whole heart. I love when you are kind, I love when you are soft, I even love you, although a little less, when you're neurotic. So my answer is yes, yes to everything. Yes to being your wife, yes to being the mother of your children, yes to being your partner in crime. Yes to growing old with you.” I lean down, grabbing his face in my hands, while my thumbs wipe away the tears that are falling on his face.

His smile lights up the room. He takes the ring out of the box, grabbing my hand from his face and sliding it on my finger. The minute he does that I feel a shiver wash over me. It’s the weirdest thing, but what’s more is that I feel something in my stomach. I think it’s indigestion when it happens again.

“I think the baby just kicked.” I look at him with wide eyes while my hand moves to my stomach that I can’t hide anymore. Grabbing his hand, I place it on my stomach to exactly where I felt it before, the little flutters.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Matthew says to me, but the movement makes him stop talking because he looks up at me, his eyes wide with excitement. “Holy shit.” He places his other hand on my stomach, covering it now. Leaning in, he puts his lips close to my stomach. “She said yes.” He kisses my stomach, but his child must get it because he kicks me again. “He really likes the sound of my voice.”

I roll my eyes at Matthew. He leans in, continuing to talk to the baby while the baby continues to kick, my hand going on top of his head and my ring getting a glimmer of light. Yup, hold onto it, forever.

“You're my perfect,” he says to me. I smile at him, kissing his lips. “Something so perfect.”