This time it was him bringing his chair right next to mine. He reached for my hand and kissed the back of it. Instead of letting it go after, he held it against his thigh, our fingers locked.
“I want you to tell me when I’m doing something wrong,” he started, his voice low, his piercing blue eyes on mine. “I want you to let me know when I’m acting distant or distracted, because I can already assure you that it’s not you. It can’t be you. It’ll never be you.”
I nodded. “I’ll tell you. I want to grow old with you.”
He cupped my cheek and rested his forehead against mine. “Yes.” His voice had been low and it was just one simple word, but the emotion I could see in his eyes, the emotion I could feel behind the word—I knew it was a promise he intended to keep.
“Remind me why we didn’t do these negotiations at home?” I asked with a sigh when we had to separate.
“Your idea.”
“Okay. Fine. What else do you want from me?”
“Everything you’re willing to give me.”
I cleared my throat and his hand tightened around mine. “We’re not going to lie to each other. No matter how hard the truth is, we’re not going to do it. Promise me.”
“I won’t risk losing you. We will not lie to each other,” he agreed easily.
“We are going to make a conscious effort to work on our marriage no matter what’s going on in our lives. We will keep working on it, always. I want to make you happy, and you have to talk to me.”
“You won’t ever find someone who’ll try as hard as I will to make you happy. Every time you need to get an MRI, I’ll always come in with you. I will always make sure you know I’m there. I will watch every movie you want me to watch, no matter how cheesy or how horrible—”
I raised my hand and stopped him before he could go on with his sentence. “Wait a minute, if you’re telling me you think Titanic or You’ve Got Mail was cheesy, we have a problem.”
“Just listen. I’ll always let you steal my French fries whenever you finish the ones on your own plate. I’ll always let you have a bite of my dessert. I’ll cook for you when you’re sick and when you’re too hungry to do anything but glower. I’ll feed you from my own plate and kiss you after each bite. I’ll make sacrifices for you just like I know you’ll make sacrifices for me along the way. I’ll never be rude to the people you love and care about. I’ll never take your smile for granted, and I’ll make you smile every day, even on the days when you’re the most annoyed with me. I’ll talk for hours, telling you everything you want to know about me, about anything, if that’s what you want from me.”
“Jack,” I whispered, my hands trembling. “Jack, I know your heart. You don’t need to speak all the time. Even your quiet I love.”
He leaned forward and gently pressed a kiss on my lips then kept talking.
“I will kiss you every time you start to worry about your health and get lost in your own fears. I will kiss you every morning, every night and whenever I can in between. I will always text you back whenever you text me, even if I’m only one room away from you. But on the days I want to hear your voice, I’ll call you back instead of texting you. I’ll always help you when you ask for it. I’ll help you even when you don’t ask for my help because I’ll always be there. I’ll eat and drink whatever you put in front of me simply because your hands cooked it, baked it, or made it. I’ll try to learn to understand when you want me to make love to you but are too embarrassed to ask for it. I’ll work hard to make you happy, to make this the marriage you always wanted to have, and I will never—I promise you, Rose, I will never make you feel unloved. I will never take you for granted. You will always have someone to lean on whenever you need it. I’ll always be there even when you don’t need me to be, but more importantly…”
He reached out and brushed a tear off of my cheek before lifting my hand up and kissing it again. When had I even started crying?
“I will always love you.” he continued before I could catch my breath. “Even when you’re annoyed with me, even when I do something you don’t like and you have no idea why you decided to keep me, I will always love you.”
“You don’t talk. For days and weeks, I do everything to make you talk, and then you go and do this to me.” I got up from my seat, my eyes never leaving his beautiful blues, and I sat down on his lap sideways. I cupped his face with my hands and just stared at him.