Page 31
Harlee
Five Years Later
“You sure?” I asked my husband.
He nodded, “Totally fucking sure. Spent thirty-eight years not having everything. Finally, fucking have it. I don’t want something to happen to me and leave you holding the cards.
So yeah, I’m retiring. Besides,” he winked, then tossed me a plastic bag, “I wanna be here to experience everything as you round with my child, and I wanna be here for it all.”
If my husband said something, he meant it.
And yes, he busted his ass to prove to me, unnecessarily, I might add, that he was worthy of me.
He didn’t need to prove anything to me.
He had done that a million and one times infinity over the years.
And I knew he would never stop.
He was there when we welcomed our second son, Zaden Nathaniel Griggs.
The same with our daughter, Lola Ella Griggs.
And with our last child, our daughter, Hattie Elouise Griggs.
When we told our parents about their middle names, they had been ecstatic.
Lola was named after Misty.
Hattie was named after my mother.
***
Fifty Years Later
Carter
I sat in my Adirondack chair, as I rubbed my wife’s feet.
Her blonde hair had turned to silver; her skin wasn’t as tight as it used to be.
But she was still the most beautiful thing in this world to me.
Her mossy-oak-colored eyes she had passed down to all of her kids sparkled as she asked, “Do you feel it now?”
I lifted a brow, “Feel what, baby?”
“That you made it?” she asked softly.
She was referring to the day that we brought our first son into the world
I looked up at the night sky, then at my wife, and winked, “Fuck yeah, baby.”
She smiled back, that smile I’d fight wars over.
One I did fight, just so I could be there by her side, my feet planted on this earth... for her.
And fifty years later, she’s still my light in the darkness.
My Incandescent.