Choosing My Own Promise
Chapter 19 - Choosing My Own Promise
Jonah proposed eighteen months after the ruined wedding, but he did it in the most Jonah way imaginable: with a badly wrapped ring box hidden inside a peppermint candy tin.
We were sitting on the conservatory steps after a winter concert. Snow gathered on the hedges, and the building glowed gold against the dark.
"I've been practicing a speech," he admitted.
"How long?"
"Three weeks. It's terrible."
I laughed. "Then don't give a speech."
He took my hand. "I love building a life with you. I love your mother, even when she tells me my folding-chair system makes no sense. And I love the fact that you tell me when you disagree with me."
I felt tears rise.
"I don't want to manage you or rescue you," he continued. "I want to be beside you. Would you marry me?"
He opened the candy tin.
The ring was simple and beautiful.
I didn't answer immediately. Not because I doubted him, but because I wanted to feel the difference between choosing and yielding.
Then I smiled.
"Yes."
Jonah closed his eyes in relief. "Thank goodness. I was beginning to worry about the peppermint strategy."
We laughed so hard that Mom opened the cottage door to see what had happened.
When she spotted the ring, she covered her mouth. Then she came down the path in her slippers and pulled us into a hug.
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Nobody had to sign a property amendment. Nobody had to arrange a public spectacle. Nobody had to prove anything by making someone else feel small.
We simply loved one another and wanted to keep choosing it.
