Smitten

I wipe my eyes. “I love you, too. I’ve loved every minute of this life with you.”

Fish wipes at my cheek with his thumb, but he doesn’t speak. By now, my husband knows I often cry when I’m happy—when I’m too overwhelmed with happiness to contain it.

He kisses my salty cheek and asks me if I’m okay. When I say I am, that I’m wonderful, he says, “Good. It’s almost time for the sunset. You want to open that champagne now?”

“Absolutely.”

We throw on soft clothes and head onto our balcony. Fish opens the bottle and pours and we sit on our love seat with our bubbly, cuddled up, and watch the sky turning spectacular shades of orange and pink above the glittering ocean.

“Happy anniversary, love,” my husband says to me, tapping my glass. “I wouldn’t change a thing about our life. Not a single minute.”

“Neither would I. Not a single minute.” I snuggle closer, and whisper-sing, “You’re my first, my last, my best, my only . . .”

And, of course, my husband, my best friend, my lover doesn’t leave me hanging. Right on cue, he whisper-sings the final word of the refrain we wrote together so many years ago. The word that’s every bit as powerful and true today, as it was back then. Even more so.

“Love.”