In the last five seconds, I’ve debated how to react to him. How to receive him. To be cold and professional, or to be warm and apologetic. For all my thinking, it’s my heart that makes the decision in the end. The moment he gets within range of my arms, I bring him and for a hug and a kiss.
Before he can say anything about the baby I’m carrying, or where I went or why, I ask for his forgiveness. Practically beg for it, feeling tears spilling out of me. “I’m sorry for leaving like that. I’m sorry for not telling you where I was going. I’m sorry for not telling you about the pregnancy.” I hug him tightly, feeling him pull off his fancy jacket and throw it over my shoulders. Just like he did the night we met, except it’s not his windbreaker, it’s his uniform-approved jacket. With all his awards and pins on it. “I was afraid,” I admit, sobbing pitifully. “You didn’t seem to want kids, so I thought if you found out about the baby, you’d ask me to leave anyway. You’d be upset with me, so I decided to make it easy on you.” I hiccup on my sadness, letting about three months’ worth of tears and snot flow out onto his shoulder. “I didn’t want to leave you, but then when I saw you downtown with your friends, after you said that you would be late getting home from work, I thought you must really hate me or something. That you must really not like having me around, so I decided to leave for that reason, too.”
Brandon just hugged me. Kisses me all over. Lets me feel the few tears he is shedding. But I only feel them as wet spots on my neck and part of my shoulder. “Oh, Juliet. Oh, my baby,” he says, “I’m sorry you thought I didn’t want a baby. I’m sorry you thought I would be angry because of it.” He squeezes me tightly to him, kissing me more and more. “That’s not true at all. I wouldn’t have been angry with that kind of news. I had a hand in what happened, anyway. Not being careful and everything.” Here he looks into my face. Sweeps back the hair I’ve decided to cut and color since he saw me last. He kisses me on the lips. “I know I didn’t sound excited about kids when we talked about it earlier, but that’s not the same as not wanting them. I’m happy for a baby. I want one.”
I give a sad smile, bringing his hand down to my belly.
For a moment, he marvels silently at the new life in me.
Then he says, “To be honest with you, the moment I saw you today, and the moment I saw you had a belly on you, I started thinking about getting that little one a sibling.” He smiles sheepishly, but, believe it or not, I’m feeling similarly.
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Good,” he says, kissing me. Wrapping the jacket more tightly around me. “Because I want us to start over. I want us to get to know each other again.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that,” I say, feeling legitimately relieved. If not for that, I would be stuck in Albuquerque with nowhere to go, and no special person to spend the rest of my life with. No way to make good memories, which I’m determined to do, to balance out all the bad. All the loss.
“And if you want to know what I was doing downtown with my friends,” he says, awkwardly getting down on his knees and fishing for something in his pocket. He does so, not caring that he is knocked over a few chairs, and then more than a few people are staring at him and us. Some even have their cell phones out, prepared to capture some scandalous moment or other. Some news bit of the century, I guess. “I was getting their opinions on this” — he reveals what he’s been holding in his hand, what he fished out of a pocket — “how this would look on you.”
“This” is an engagement ring. A big shiny thing. It’s even got small diamonds in the band, along with one giant one in the middle.
“Oh my God, Brandon!” All the other women in the room have started to see the sparkly ring and react similarly to me. Tears. Gasps. Eager pointing. Grabbing of their husbands and boyfriends. So it wasn’t about deceiving me at all! It wasn’t because he hated me or wanted me to get the “hint” and move out of his house! It wasn’t any of that! It’s because he wanted to make sure his engagement ring was up to snuff! Big, wet tears roll out of my eyes at this. Had I not run away without thinking the way I did, I would’ve been engaged. I would’ve known how he really felt about me. But instead I made up a story about him. About how he didn’t want me or my baby, no matter the circumstances. No matter his equal responsibility.
And now I know none of that is true. It never was, and never will be.
Brandon’s just started to say, “Juliet, will you…”
I don’t even let him finish. “Yes.” I cry hard here, wipe my face and nose. “Yes, I will.” I let him put the ring on my finger, as a few cell phones moving to take pictures. As a few surrounding women squeal and moan with emotion. “Whenever, wherever, I will marry you, Brandon.”
This time, I’m the one who leans forward to kiss him. To wrap him up in all the love and trust I can muster.
When we finally come up for air, I say, “And I wouldn’t mind getting started on baby number two.” I whisper this. Nibble on his ear. “You’ll just have to wait a few months for me to make room.”