Christian taps a spoon against a champagne glass, and all our guests quiet down. I stand next to him at the top of my steps, my arm around his waist. “Thank you so much for coming today and for joining us as we tie the knot again,” he says.
Our friends and family cheer, and the ceremony begins. There is no aisle to walk down, no flower girls tossing petals, no string quartet playing tunes. This is a simple ceremony, but already it’s my favorite one.
Because everyone who matters is here. Gathered in my small front yard, which blooms with August’s soft pink and pale-yellow snapdragons, are all the people who matter most to us. Joy holds hands with Griffin, Erik stands next to Veronica, Oliver is here too, my family is gathered close, and Christian’s mom is here as well as his father and his wife. Christian’s not close to his dad, but it still feels right that he’s present.
The officiant clears his throat and marries us once again. This ceremony is nearly as fast as our first one, but it’s better because we can finally say out loud how we feel.
“I promise to love you, cherish you, and adore you for as long as we both shall live,” I tell him, and Christian says the same words to me.
“Kiss the bride, finally, will ya?”
Christian laughs at his brother’s directive, then says to me, “I’ll keep doing that for the rest of my life.”
He kisses me under the twilight sky on our street, in front of my home, where we now live together.
I loop my hands around his neck, and I’m still holding a bouquet of flowers, tied together with a slim rope. It’s a true hodgepodge, with a few roses, some stargazer lilies, a couple of daisies, and some zinnias. This melting pot of petals is courtesy of my new blog readers, the ones who follow my occasional posts about flowers. They didn’t send me a perfume bottle, and I didn’t want one. Instead they chose the flowers for my bouquet. Lilies for beauty, daisies for innocence, roses for love, and zinnias for lasting affection. I love that it’s completely haphazard and completely meaningful in a whole new way.
Most of all, I love that the promise of the zinnias feels possible as I kiss my husband once more.
Later that night, we all go out to dinner down the road, where we pretty much take over the five-table bistro, toasting with endless glasses of champagne and wine. At one point, Christian grabs me as I walk by and pulls me into his lap. He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles my neck. “At last. I can finally be a kept man.”
I laugh and drop a kiss to the end of his nose. “You know what that means, if you really want to be my trophy husband?”
“What does it mean?”
“It means you have to service my needs, any night, any time I request.”
He puffs out his chest. “I believe I do that already.”
“And I think you’re pretty damn good at it.”
Christian is anything but a kept man. He’s his own man, carving out the life he wants, picking up the jobs he wants, whether it’s talking all day for dignitaries or businessmen, or advising top companies on entering new markets. He makes his own choices, and most of all, he doesn’t let it demand all his attention, like he did in his twenties. He’s learned how to take in work at a pace that makes him happy.
As for me, I’m still working hard, and hope to for a long time, since I love my job and taking care of my employees. Most of all, I love having the kind of relationship that consumes me at night and brings me peace during the day.
I suppose it was fate that brought Christian into my life one fine summer day on a boat tour, but it’s not going to be fate that keeps him in it.
It’s going to be me, loving this man, and giving him my heart all the days of my life.
ANOTHER EPILOGUE
Christian
“I have one final question.”
“Hit me up with it,” I say as I walk along the avenue with today’s translation client. I expect the Swedish DJ to ask me the fastest route to a new underground club or how to find an out-of-the-way record store.
“Would you happen to know where the best sweet shop is in Paris?” He cups the side of his mouth as if what he’s sharing is oh-so-secret. “I want to pick up a little gift for the lovely lady.”
I laugh because do I ever know the answer to that. “Fortunately, I know exactly where to send you.”
I point him in the direction of Veronica’s nearby shop, and he thanks me, then nabs a taxi.
He was a fun client, an interesting guy with a toddler back home in Stockholm, and a wife he couldn’t stop talking about. As I shuffled him from meeting to meeting with French music execs, he showed me pictures of the little blond tyke and his equally blonde mum.
Weirdly, I didn’t mind looking at kid pictures, and that’s never been my thing, per se.
After I dart to Le Marais for a quick meeting, I’m finished for the day, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about sweets.
It’s not that I have a sweet tooth. But I do have a wife who loves to shower me with gifts, and thus I like to shower her with them too.
I head to our neighborhood then stroll through the winding streets of Montmartre as the sun dips low in the sky. I duck into Veronica’s candy shop, ready to nab a small bag of something sweet and tarty for my little mermaid, but I jerk my head back, startled to see someone I know.
Someone I know quite well.
My brother.
He’s tapping his fingers along the counter as he chats animatedly with Veronica, smiling as he tells her some sort of story about a funny incident down by the Seine involving a cyclist, a police officer, and a loaf of bread.
She laughs from her post at the counter, her eyes twinkling then widening when she spots me.
She covers her mouth and gives Erik a pointed look.
He turns to me, startled. “Oh, hiii.”
“Well, hello,” I say, with a wide grin. “Fancy meeting you here.” I’m curious if the glances exchanged between them at my wedding last month might have turned into a little something more. “Anything interesting happening here?”
