years.
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Sammy said.
“You really don’t have to.”
“I think we do,” Rose said. “Anyway. Logan was cooking dinner tonight, and I really hate to squander a good opportunity to be waited on hand and foot.”
“Ryder might heat up a frozen pizza. But honestly, I wouldn’t eat his cooking if he offered.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Ryder.”
“He means well,” Sammy said. “And is very accomplished in other rooms.”
“Gross,” Rose and Iris said together.
“Goodbye, Griffin,” Sammy said. “It was nice to get to see you again.”
“You too.”
And that left just the two of them, standing there in the empty bakery, again.
“You know, the concert just started,” he said. “You want to walk up to the top of the hill over there and see if we can hear some of it?”
“I... Sure.”
They had a couple of concert baskets left over, and she grabbed them and the two of them walked out of the shop. She locked the door behind them, and Griffin took the boxes from her, and then grabbed hold of her hand.
Her heart squeezed tight as he walked her down the sidewalk, their fingers laced together in the way that she had sort of hoped he might do just a week ago when they’d gone to the Gold Valley Saloon.
Had that only been a week ago? It was so difficult to imagine her life before this. Before him.
And that made her heart stutter just a little bit.
They walked away from the main street, up the hill that went toward the amphitheater and then off a little path that led to a grassy hill. The sky was purple, the air hanging warm and low around them. She could smell the grass, the crickets, the smell coming up from the food trucks at the venue. And the music from an old country duo filtered through that summer air, adding to the magic.
“I don’t know why I never do this,” she said. “It’s really nice.”
“It’s easy to take for granted the things you have around you. The things in your hometown.”
“I suppose so.”
He opened up the first box, and took out a cake and offered it to her. She took it gladly.
“There have been all kinds of things I took for granted in my life,” he said. “It occurred to me that you may not know this. I feel like you lost the assurance that things would be all right very young.”
She nodded slowly, chewing the cake thoughtfully. “Yes. I did. I never assume anything. I never just assumed...”
“I did. My whole life. My parents had money, and I assumed that I would go to school. My father was successful in business, so I assumed that I would be. I was surrounded by people who made successes of themselves, and as a result it seemed pretty damn easy. I always assumed that a wife and kids would be out there somewhere. And when I met the woman that I wanted to marry, all those choices seemed easy. Love felt like something pretty easily won. We planned on having a daughter, and we did. And that all just seemed like how it was supposed to be. Until everything wasn’t. Until I found myself in a position that’s not natural any way you look at it. Until I was forced to bury my wife. Until I had to bury my child. And that was when I realized... Every good thing in life is a minor miracle. If not a major one. You can’t just assume that you’ll have anything. Or keep it. Not really.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“And I also thought... I was sure... I was sure that losing that meant I was never going to have anything like it ever again. That was just done for me. Just like I assumed that I’d have it, I assumed that having it once meant... That was it.”
“Of course.” His words made her chest get tight.
“I was wrong, though,” he said, his words steady and sure. “And it’s sort of a miracle, the biggest one I can think of, to realize that I can have these feelings. And it doesn’t feel like having them again, it feels like something completely different.”
“Griffin...”
“No, listen to me. It feels like something entirely different to be able to care again when you didn’t assume that you could. To be able to care about the world again when you were absolutely certain that you couldn’t. To be able to think ahead to a time where I want to share my life