Page 104 of Feels Like Falling
“There has never been a more beautiful bride,” he said.
“Even though I’m all fat and pregnant?” I grinned at him. I was fishing for a compliment even though I’d never felt better.
“Diana Harrington, I am so in love with you that I can’t even see anybody else.”
I smiled. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for all of this, for giving a poor girl this fancy day.”
He kissed me. “Hey, Diana, I got a secret to tell you.”
“What?”
“You aren’t a poor girl anymore.”
I guessed that was true, and I thought maybe it would feel weird, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that me and Frank, we were as good as the same person now. It was only money, and that way he looked at me, I knew he’d give meanything I could ever imagine for the rest of my life. Good thing for him that the only thing I wanted was him.
Mary Ellen, Gray’s party-planner friend who she’d hired as our wedding gift, came flitting in. “Okay, kids. People are gathered for your first dance.”
Frank grinned. “You know, I don’t think I can wait any longer.”
Mary Ellen looked from Frank to me and said, “Well, I’m assuming you don’t mean to consummate the marriage.” She chuckled nervously.
“No,” he said. “I’ve just got to know what this baby is.”
He grabbed my hand and took off toward the stage where the band was playing. The singer stopped abruptly and handed the groom the microphone. “Thanks, everybody, for being here,” Frank said. “I can tell you right now that this is the best day of my entire life. I have loved this woman for as long as I can remember, and it feels like today, right now, all my dreams are coming true.” Everybody whistled and hollered. “Now, I think it’s pretty clear that Diana and I don’t care a whole lot about the proper order of things.” He pointed at my belly, and everybody laughed. “We know we should be doing a dance or something right now, but we’ve waited too long to find out what this baby is, and we are as ready as can be. So what do you say we have us some cake?”
Everybody clapped, and there was this rush of bodies over to that beautiful, towering wedding cake that held a big secret we were dying to know.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” I asked.
“Are you?”
I nodded. “Definitely.”
Frank took the knife, held his hand over mine, and we cut right into that cake. As we slipped the slice out, I saw pink right away. “It’s a girl!” I shouted.
Everyone applauded, and Frank kissed me. “I hope she’s just like her momma,” he said.
We fed each other and kissed again. All these people were standing around us. And the band was playing and the wine was flowing and the laughter was nearly deafening. But I realized that, even amidst the hustle and bustle and craziness of a wedding, Frank looked at me like I was the only woman in the world.
As Frank and I ran out the door, birdseed flying, I waited until we were past everybody and then I threw my bouquet high in the air. Not so somebody’d catch it. Just to celebrate. It felt like a victory; we’d done it. The wedding was over. Life could begin. What I didn’t know was that Gray, she was running behind me to tell me good-bye. And she caught the darn thing. We both doubled over, our arms around each other, a big puddle of laughter. “I told you I’m not ready to get married,” she said between her gasps for breath. “Can’t you just let it go?” It was the perfect end to a perfect night.
We’d decided to take our honeymoon in a few weeks because tomorrow was one of the other biggest days of my life. The Barnacle was opening—just for family and friends. But it was happening. It was starting. Momma was going to bringPhillip down, and he and I had practiced how he’d fix the baskets and then I’d hand them out the window. I was going to have something that was all mine, and I was going to be with Phillip again every day, just like I’d always dreamed.
There was no fancy trip Frank and I could have taken that could ever be that good. So Frank drove us back to our house, to that same place where we had spent so much time together as kids. As we walked down to the beach, down to our sand dune, Frank said, “Diana, it took some time, but, damn, babe. We made it, didn’t we?”
He didn’t mean because he’d just bought me a new car or my diamond was pretty flashy or we had a nice house on the beach. He meant because we had this right-now moment with this beautiful baby girl in my belly and the two of us together and all this love. And we had this beach with its millions of grains of sand, and in the scheme of it, we were so small. So very, very small. Feeling small, that didn’t hurt me like it used to. Instead, it made me feel blessed.
I reached over and took his hand, the one that was outstretched to me, that had been outstretched to me for more time than I liked to think about if I would have just reached over and taken it. “We have, sweetie. We’ve made it.”
I’d had to be brave sometimes, and I’d had to be strong. My life, it hadn’t been easy, and that was the God’s honest truth. But right then, I realized that if I’d had it easy, I would never have known how good it could be. I would’ve taken all this for granted.
This same sand dune. This pink sunset. This gentle breeze.This loving man. We’re always trying to move forward and keep going and make progress toward the next thing. But sitting on this dune, I realized that maybe I’d been wrong about all that. If this life—this simple, beautiful life—had taught me anything, it’s this:
Sometimes we get right where we need to be by ending up exactly where we started.
