“I, Gordon,” I said, and had to stop, and start again. “I take you, June. And I’m not letting go this time.”
“By the power vested in me,” Reverend Okonjo said, wiping his eyes openly now, “I pronounce you husband and wife.”
I bent down and kissed her. Her lips tasted like coral lipstick and lemon drops.
The nurses clapped. Desmond started the song. Hazel threw the daisies onto the blanket all at once, then looked worried she’d done it wrong.
And Wes, standing at the head of the bed, turned his face to the wall, his shoulders shaking without a sound.
Chapter 5: Five Days
For a few precious days, I was her husband.
I had never imagined that a hospital room could feel like a home. But it did. I brought my reading glasses and my Bible and the crossword from the Ketterly Ledger, and June bossed me through it from her pillows, insisting every answer was “ARIA” until it actually was.
