Page 98 of The Soul Never Forgets

“They were never bored.”

“When you went there the last time, you had nothing to wake up for. I can see why you stayed three months. Their life together was beautiful.”

Dawsey is the only person in this world who understands this. “Tell me what else was going on. How old were they? How are the kids?”

“It was Rebecca Caroline and Atticus’s wedding day. Frank and Gussy had just come home and were alone at their house for the first time.”

“That was a magical time in their lives––free of children and still young enough to have fun.”

“You and I won’t be like them. They had four children by the time they were our age. We’re a little behind.”

“You have to remember that times were different then. We’re not behind by today’s standards.”

“I’m thirty-one. If you got pregnant right now, had the baby next year and then a baby every two years, I’m thirty-eight when the last one is born. That means I’m fifty-six when he graduates from high school and sixty when he graduates from college with a four-year degree. I’m not even going to factor in graduate school right now or fertility problems or having them three years apart because we’re not coming out of this as young empty nesters.”

“You’re sixty when the last one finishes a four-year college?”

“Yeah, and that’s if you push one out every two years starting next year. We’ll be too old to have sex on the hood of our car at our house in Pascagoula by the time all of them are gone. And kill me now if one of them lives at home as long as my brother did with my parents.”

This is a fun little game. I think I’ll keep it rolling. “I’ve got an idea. Maybe there will be some twins in there and we can shave off some production time. But why settle for twins when we could shoot for triplets or quadruplets? We can get quadruplets out of the house by the time we’re in our early fifties. That leaves us plenty of time for having sex on the hood of a car. Except it won’t matter if we’re still young because we’ll be so worn out from raising quadruplets that we’ll be too tired to do anything after they leave.”

“Good point. We’ll stick to the original plan and hope we don’t throw our backs out trying to have hot sex on the hood of my midlife-crisis convertible.”

“It’s all about keeping ourselves conditioned, baby. A couch potato doesn’t suddenly run a 10K.”

“Okay. We’ll keep ourselves sexually conditioned, and we’ll fool around on the hood of the car with our gray locks blowing in the wind.”

We both burst into laughter at the same time. I’m so glad we can be silly and have a good laugh together.

“Caroline Wescott,” he says. “It has a nice sound to it.”

This is happening. “We’re engaged and getting married soon and having serious conversations about our future.”

“We need to pick a date and start planning the wedding.”

The thought of planning a wedding gives me anxiety. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m not sure I want a big wedding. In fact, I’m not sure I want a wedding at all. I don’t have a lot of friends and family. But I wouldn’t want to take that away from you if it’s what you want.”

“You want a courthouse wedding?”

“It was good enough for Frank and Augustina. And I think it would be sweet and romantic to just do it without a lot of thought and then tell everyone.”

“Are you saying you want to elope?”

I don’t need time to think about it. I want to marry him as soon as possible without hearing anyone’s objection or argument about why we shouldn’t. “I want to elope… unless you don’t want to. I’ll plan a big wedding and invite hundreds of guests and wear a long white dress and veil if that’s what you want.”

Dawsey reaches for my hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing my ring. “Marry me tomorrow. Just you and me.”

Being married to Dawsey as soon as possible just feels right. “Let’s do it. Let’s get married tomorrow. Here in Pascagoula at the courthouse just like Frank and Gussy did.”

“We’ll stay here another night. I’m sure it’s available, and we’ll go to the courthouse in the morning.”

“Is it that easy? I mean isn’t there some kind of waiting period or blood test or something?”

“I guess we should check marriage law requirements for Mississippi before we get ahead of ourselves.”

Dawsey reaches for his phone, thumbs in the search, and reads off the requirements. “Both parties must be twenty-one years of age to get married in Mississippi.”

“Check,” I say.

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