Epilogue

Grant

It had been a very long ten months. And that cannot be overstated enough. I used to read about and see movies about couples who were getting married, complaining about all the organization that went into a wedding, and I always assumed that they were exaggerating. It couldn’t be that hard, I thought. Rent a space, invite a few friends around, and get married. Simple. Oh, how wrong I was.

Now, I know that it will all be worth it. I wanted to get married to Kendra more than anything. For that, I would literally walk through fire if I had to. It’s just that I had no idea how much preparation actually went into a wedding. As such, ten months after the proposal and I was all but ready to get the thing over and done with.

I just wanted to be married. I just wanted to be Mr. and Mrs. Marcus. Was that so hard? I wanted what was mine to be hers and vice versa. I wanted us to start a family and begin the rest of our lives together. I wanted everything, but I couldn’t get any of that until we were married. Except for perhaps one thing.

Ever since I had asked Kendra to move in with me, there was one thing that I had wanted to do more than anything else. It was something that perhaps should have waited until after we were married, but ten months in, and I had become impatient. So much so that I was all but prepared to drop the surprise on Kendra that very day.

And I would have, too, if it hadn’t been for Liz hanging around. Hanging around was something that Liz did a lot of. It was always under the guise of wedding preparations, but god dammit if it wasn’t a lot. I often felt like she was mine and Kendra’s thirty-five-year-old child, in need of daily feedings and burpings.

I hung up the phone from a call placed to ensure that the surprise was ready, and I could hear Liz yammering on in the living room. She was very loud.

“Oh my god!” she shrieked as I entered the living room, clapping her hands together manically. “Oh my god!”

“Hey, ladies,” I said, heading for Kendra who was sitting on the couch. The two of them were leafing through a couple of bridal gown magazines, an activity that had been taking place for the better part of the week. I planted a kiss on her forehead, falling in beside my wife to be.

“We’ve found it,” Liz continued. “I know you probably don’t care. If it’s not a three-piece Armani suit, you don’t give a damn. But your soon to be wife has just found her wedding dress.”

“Seriously?” I asked, surprised by this. The way that Liz had been carrying on the previous day, I thought that they were never going to find one. “Amazing. Can I take a look?”

I reached forward, going to take the magazine from Liz’s hands, only for her to pull it away from me. “I don’t think so. You take zero interest in helping us find it, and now you want to reap the rewards?”

“What rewards? Kendra, tell her to let me have a look.”

“I have no power over her, you know that,” she chuckled. “All I can do is point her in the right direction and hope that she doesn’t bite. She’s like a pitbull in that way.”

I rolled my eyes, turning back to face Liz. “Hey Liz, I know it’s early, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at me suspiciously. “You know that we can’t drop this on a whim. This stuff takes time. The wedding is a month away, and we still don’t have the dress for sure.”

“One day won’t make a difference, and I really need some alone time with my fiancé. I have a surprise for her that I’d rather give alone. No offense,” I added, seeing the offended look on Liz’s face.

“Surprise? What surprise?” Kendra asked, her eyebrow raised.

“Now what good would it be telling you? That would ruin the whole thing. So, Liz, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask you to hit the old dusty trail. And by that, I mean right now. And by that, I mean get out.”

Liz didn’t move right away, of course. She chose to eye me with more suspicion for a few moments, as if I was some prick at a club trying to coax her best friend away from her. But after a few more seconds, she leaped from her seat as if it had suddenly caught fire.

“Fine. I know when I’m not wanted. I’ve got to see a man about a penis anyway.” And with that, she was gone, scurrying across the room and out the door.

“Always a fun time.” I sighed as I fell back down onto the couch beside Kendra.

“So, are you going to tell me what this surprise is? Or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

“As much fun as that would be, trust me, you’re going to want to see it with your own eyes.”

“See it? Wait now, you didn’t buy me anything expensive, did you?” She crossed her arms over her breasts, pushing them up in a distracting way.

The reason for her reservation was a pact that we had first made when we got engaged. As she had with that new job and had stopped me from giving her bonuses, she also made me promise not to blow all my money on gifts for her, like things she would have bought with the bonus money. Although with this surprise, I had technically transgressed the pact, I felt like she would end up forgiving me.

“It’s a bit of a drive, so we better get going,” I said, ducking the question as I headed for the front door. And although she tried to coax it out of me on the way to the car, I could not be budged. She was just going to have to wait.

--

The drive was exactly one hour upstate. Upstate New York was the complete opposite of what most people thought of when they pictured New York. There were no skyscrapers, or lanes of traffic, or drunk homeless people yelling end of the world prophecies at you as you walked down the street. It was suburbia, and as quiet and picturesque as any suburban scene in any middle class neighborhood.

It was this quiet that I loved the most. It was amazing to me that I could close my eyes and not hear a single beeping horn or screaming pedestrian. It was the kind of place that I had always dreamed of one day moving to when I had a wife and hopefully a family of my own. I just hoped that Kendra was of the same mindset.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked as she wriggled in her seat. “My butt’s falling asleep.”

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there. And when we are, I’ll help you wake it up.” I smirked, keeping my eyes on the road.

To this, she offered me a very confused look. “Where the heck are we going?”

Her question was answered ten minutes later as I pulled up out the front of a very nice suburban home. It was a two-story affair with a white picket fence, blue shutters on the windows, white wooden paneling on the walls, and a front lawn made up of thick green grass. It was the quintessential American suburban house.

“What do you think?” I asked as the car came to a stop.

“Yeah, it’s really nice,” she said, absentmindedly. “Who lives here?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” I leaped from the car, positively bursting with excitement at that point. She wasn’t in quite the same league as me, strolling around the car toward the front gate. Seeing how slow she was going, I grabbed her by the hand and led her along the front walkway, right up to the front door.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” she said as I pulled her along. “Wait, don’t you have to knock?” she asked as I pushed the door open and led her inside.

The house was empty. And by that, I don’t mean that the residents weren’t home. I mean that there was literally nothing inside of it. The hardwood floors were bare, as were the walls. There were no curtains, zero pieces of furniture, and not a sign of inhabitance in the entire house.

“Okay, I give up. Whose house is this?” She asked as I led her into the empty living room.

“It’s ours,” I finally revealed, unable to keep the big goofy smile from my face any longer. “What do you think?”

At first, I assume that she thought I was kidding. She let out a short bark of a laugh, slapping me on the chest as if expecting me to join in on the fun. When I didn’t, she suddenly became serious, looking at me for a sign that I was lying. And when that didn’t come, she scrunched her face up in confusion.

“You’re joking, right?”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life. Except when I asked you to marry me. So, this is number two, really.”

“But what about our agreement?”

“I figured that we could set up some sort of plan for you to start paying me back. If you’re that insistent. And besides, I really don’t think there is any rush. We have the rest of our lives to get around to that.”

“So this,” she began, starting to clue in. “This is where you see us moving? Once we’re married?”

“Yes,” I said, walking forward and around the living room, as if observing it for the first time. “To be honest, I just don’t see how we can be expected to raise a family in that tiny little apartment back in the city. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

“A family?”

“Yeah. I was thinking at least two, maybe even three kids. What do you think?”

She didn’t respond right away, and I could see her working to hide a tremendous smile that was slowly spreading across her face. But it didn’t last long. Before I knew it, she was beaming at me, and a second later, she was sprinting across the room and throwing herself in my arms.

“I take it that’s a yes?”

“I can’t imagine anyone I would rather start a family with,” she said, wrapping herself in my arms.

For a moment, we both stood in silence, content to hold each other. There was no need to talk. It was getting hard to track the best moments of my life, as there had been so many of late, but that one right there had to rank in the top three at least. And if it didn’t, what Kendra said next was sure to propel it.

“So, where’s the bedroom?” she asked.

“Upstairs. Why?”

“Oh, I figured that maybe we could get started on that family? Never too early to start.” She took my hand, leading me across the room and toward the stairs. And I let her. I would have let that woman lead me anywhere.