That summer, Marcus asked Emily to marry him. I didn't do it in some grand, showy way. That wasn't either of them. He did it in the garden house on an ordinary evening with Harold and Ava conveniently busy in the main house. Though Marcus was fairly sure Harold had orchestrated the whole thing because the old man had been suspiciously insistent about needing Ava's help with a jigsaw puzzle at that exact moment.
Marcus and Emily were sitting in the two rocking chairs they'd put in the garden house. One of them, the very chair Ruth had wanted for watching the morning birds. And the evening was quiet, and Marcus took a breath and reached into his pocket. "Emily," he said. She looked over, and she saw his face, and she saw his hand, and her breath caught.
"Marcus—" "Let me get through it," he said, "because I practiced, and if you interrupt me, I'll lose it." He managed a shaky smile. "Two years ago, I turned left instead of right on a road I never drove. And I've thought a lot about that turn, about how close I came to just going home, how tired I was, how many reasons I had to keep driving."
He shook his head. "For 5 years before that, I was so sure my story was already written. That I'd loved somebody and lost her, and that was the whole chapter. That the rest of my life was just standing up alone at 4:45 and getting my daughter raised, and that was it. That was all I was going to get."
Emily's eyes were already filling. "And then your crazy father dropped some boards on the side of the road," Marcus said. "And you argued with me about a level, and you showed up at every hard moment of my life since. And somewhere along the way, you taught me that the story wasn't over. That I hadn't already read the last page."
"That there were whole chapters I hadn't even gotten to yet." His voice thickened. "You're the chapter I didn't know I still had, Emily. You and this whole family we somehow built out here in a dead woman's garden. And I don't want to read the rest of it without you."
He opened the little box. "Marry me," he said. "Be Ava's—be whatever Ava wants to call you. Be my partner. Let's stand up together every morning for the rest of it."
"Marry me." Emily was crying too hard to speak for a moment. She just nodded fast, and then she managed to get it out. "Yes. God. Yes."
"Of course. Yes." And Marcus slid the ring onto her finger and kissed her. And from the main house came a sudden eruption of noise because Harold and Ava had absolutely been watching through the window the entire time and could contain themselves no longer. They came pouring out into the yard.
Ava first, running full speed, shrieking with joy, and she crashed into both of them at once, and they scooped her up between them. "Is she going to be my mom?" Ava demanded, looking back and forth between them. "Is that what this means? Is Emily going to be my mom?" Marcus and Emily looked at each other over their daughter's head.
"That's—that's up to you, baby," Marcus said carefully. "Emily is not going to replace your mom. Nobody could ever do that. Your mom will always be your mom. But if you wanted, Emily could be—"
"You could be my Emily," Ava decided, throwing her arms around Emily's neck. "You don't have to be my mom. You can just be my Emily. That's a whole different job, and you're already really good at it." Emily made a sound that was half laugh and half sobb and held the little girl tight.
"I would be honored," she said into Ava's hair, "to be your Emily. That's the best job anybody ever offered me. Better than Chicago." Harold reached them last, slower than the rest. His heart healed, but still an old man's careful pace.
He stood there looking at the three of them, Marcus, Emily, Ava, tangled together in the garden his wife had dreamed of, and for a moment he couldn't speak at all. "Harold," Marcus said. "You okay?" "I'm—" Harold's voice broke completely. "I'm better than okay. I'm—"
He stopped and gathered himself, and when he spoke again it came out as barely more than a whisper. "Two years ago, I was a lonely old man who thought the best of his life was already behind him. I thought all I had left to do was finish one house for a woman who couldn't see it. And then I'd just run out the clock alone." He shook his head, tears running freely now.
"And now look at me. I've got a son. I've got a granddaughter. I've got my girl home and happy and getting married in the garden her mother dreamed up. I've got—"
His voice failed. "I've got a family. At 77 years old, when I was sure I was all done, I've got a whole family." Marcus stepped forward and pulled the old man into an embrace, and Harold clung to him. "You gave me this," Harold said into his shoulder.
"You know that? You stopped on a road when nobody else would, and you gave a lonely old man his whole life back. I'll never, as long as I live, son, I'll never be able to tell you what that's worth." "You gave it right back," Marcus said, his own voice wrecked. "You listed me as your emergency contact after 2 months, Harold. You gave me a family too."
"We gave it to each other. That's how it works." They were married in the fall in the backyard with the finished garden house standing behind them like a witness. It was a small wedding. Emily's colleagues, Marcus's crew, a handful of Harold's old friends who'd known Ruth.
Ava was the flower girl and took the job with the gravity of a Supreme Court justice, walking so slowly and scattering pedals so carefully that the ceremony started nearly 10 minutes late, and nobody minded at all. Harold walked Emily down the aisle. He'd been terrified he wouldn't be strong enough, but he was. And he did it with his back straight and his chin up. And when he handed his daughter to Marcus, he said something quiet that only the three of them heard.
"Her mother made me promise I'd take care of her," Harold said. "And I've done my best for 37 years, but I think it's time I handed that job to somebody with a stronger back." He put Emily's hand in Marcus's. "Take care of my girl." "With my life," Marcus said.
"I know you will," Harold said. "I knew it the day you hit the brakes." The years after that were good ones. Not perfect. Real life isn't perfect, and Marcus had never once promised anybody it would be.