kissing her wet face.
“Not yet.” She dragged his shirt over his head.
Her skin slid along his. He thought her kiss had never been so sweet. Swore he had never sunk so deep into her body or known what the word wife truly meant until her hand came up to caress his face and his grandmother’s diamond caught the light.
“Will you marry me?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s all I think about.”
THE HOLIDAY SEASON ARRIVED and Erik fell into a state of celebration he hadn’t known since he was a child. It was Christmas. The world frosted with snow and outlined in white lights. Daisy busy with Nutcracker rehearsals. Carols in the background and the smell of wood smoke and pine in the crisp, thin air. Loved ones to shop for and the tree to decorate—together, as a couple. Cards to send with their engagement photo. Both their names on the return address:
Erik Fiskare & Daisy Bianco
Barbegazi
Stevens Road
Saint John, New Brunswick
“You look happy,” Daisy said, grating orange zest for pepparkakor, the Swedish spice cookies.
“I am.” Erik leaned on his elbows on the counter top, watching her, in love with his life again. “Do you think you’ll change your name?”
“To Fiskare? Do you want me to?”
He did, but at the same time, he respected how much investment she had in her maiden name. Thirty-five years as Daisy Bianco to her friends and loved ones. Her long stage career as Marguerite Bianco. And now Madame Bianco to her students. Erik knew the Madame was an earned honorific, not merely a French courtesy.
“Not professionally,” he said. “I would never ask that.”
“I actually like the sound of Madame Fiskare,” she said. “It sounds a little Russian.”
“Just marry me,” he said, reaching to flick a bit of orange zest off her diamond. “I don’t care what you do with your name.”
She leaned and kissed him, laughing. “Yes, you do.”
He smiled against her face and breathed in the scent of oranges. “Stop knowing me.”
They had three weeks off from work, then Erik was heading to Riverview with a car full of groceries and clean clothes. The engine of the old routine reluctantly turned over and coughed back to life. It chugged along, feeling old now. Reluctant and grouchy in the cold winter months. Worried about no end to the situation. Would they be living like this when they were married?
They gritted their teeth and dealt with the separation, laughing at it, crying over it or bashing through it. Erik got his union card. His set designs were pulling excellent reviews in local papers. The dinner theater broke even then started pulling in a profit, to the point where Erik did a double-take at his bank balance one day. The euphoria died when he remembered he had to file taxes in both the United States and Canada.
“Fucked two ways to Sunday,” he said to Will.
“Yeah, you’re both countries’ bitch now.”
In February, the Fredericton Playhouse called. They had just secured a $2 million grant to replace all their production equipment: sound, lighting, the works. With the new equipment, they’d be able to stage full-scale Broadway productions. The technical director was in desperate need of an assistant, preferably someone up-to-date with the latest technologies. Was Erik still interested?
“Let me call you back,” Erik said.
He hung up and texted Daisy: I’m coming home.
For all his hard work and dedication at the dinner theater, Erik had been careful not to make himself too indispensable. He’d groomed his crew well and one young tech in particular was more than ready to take over at this moment’s notice.
The dinner theater’s owner could only wish his young, exhausted friend well. Still, wanting to tie up all ends, Erik spent an insane month working in Moncton two days a week and Fredericton the other three. It was the only instance when Daisy got short with him for the hours he was clocking. And when he arrived home badly shaken one night, after nearly nodding off at the wheel, she lit into him like a dragon.
“I didn’t get through twelve goddamn years and the last six months only to have you flip your car into a ditch,” she yelled, seizing two fists of his jacket and twisting them up toward his chin. “I will kill you if you die on me.”
“I know,” he said, too freaked out to do anything but slide down the front door to sit on the floor, taking her with him. He put his head on his knees. “I’m sorry. I feel sick