Page 27 of Independence Bae

“Let’s just say that seeing Ted—and hearing his fears about being a dad these past few weeks—I’d like to get married in a place that would be easy for my Dad to attend. I want that. My Dad. At my wedding I mean.”

He’d suffered a stroke when she was in high school and required twenty-four-hour care.

“You wish is my command Tillie Raven. Just tell me when and where to show up and if I’m wearing a tux or a vintage 88 GNR t-shirt and acid washed jeans.”

We’d been seven in nineteen eighty-eight, but I’m sure I could find one on the internet somewhere.

“If you show up in a vintage Guns and Roses t-shirt, I’ll marry you tomorrow—wherever you want to go. Can we do Vegas? I feel like that would be the perfect place for a little mullet, drive through wedding. Oh my God, the Ellises would literally expire.”

“If we leave now,” I tell her jokingly looking at my watch, “We could make Vegas by tomorrow night –driving straight through. Hell we could be married and expecting by the time we made it back home.”

Raven went to jovial and laughing to on the brink of tears in a nanosecond.

“Hey, tell me what I said wrong?”

Even in the dimness of the twinkle lights overhead, I could tell Raven had paled. Two seconds ago we’d just been joking about my folks, and now she looked like I’d just told her that her Dad died.

“Penn, we need to talk.” She led me by the hand to a two person swing hanging from one of the oversized trees.

If there was one thing Raven was, it was as direct as a bullet. She aimed and hit her verbal target with minimal effort, every time. So her fidgeting with the ring on her finger and appearing to desperately find words had be surfing the razor’s edge of panic.

“Tillie. Raven. Talk to me. What did I say?”

I tried to take her hand, but she pulled away from me, crossing them instead beneath her chest. While it was the dead of summer, beneath all these shade trees in the dark, the temperatures had become quite cool. In her strapless green dress I couldn’t tell if she was shivering because she was cold or nervous. I removed my jacket and put it around her shoulder, but she appeared so lost in her own thoughts it didn’t register in her conscious.

“Penn—before you marry me, you should probably know that I’m old. I’m going to be forty soon.”

“Technically, I’m going to be forty soon. You have another six months.”

“But forty for men doesn’t mean anything other than you suddenly become a super-hot silver fox as your temples start to gray and you get gray in your scruff. For me it means that there is a really high probability that we aren’t going to have kids.”

I couldn’t think of a single instance where Raven wasn’t the levelheaded one. She never lived in extremes like Marley did—allowing emotion and fear to infiltrate her head and heart, but at that moment, it appeared to be exactly what was happening. I watched in disbelief as Raven spiraled into a total emotional meltdown.

“I don’t want to be part of that group, Penn. But there’s this little voice inside of me that keeps telling me that I can’t have kids. I ignored it most of my twenties and in my thirties I was so busy moving up the ladder that I didn’t even care. But you...” She cried. Giant tears. It was so infrequently that I’d seen Raven cry, it shook me and all I could do was hold her and let her sob into my chest.

“You’re perfect. You’re the perfect partner to have kids with. And now I want them, Penn. I wanted them so bad with you, I never bothered to continue my hormone injections when I went to the doctor two months ago because I figured even if I did miraculously get pregnant right away—it was with you and that was all I ever wanted. I want them so bad with you and I never thought I’d ever say that. It kills me to know that you won’t ever get to be the dad I know you could be—if you marry me.”

If?If?When did she and I become an if?

“Matilda. You listen right fucking now. You and I have never been an if, and that won’t start now. Whatever happens, we face together. Period. I want to be withyou. I want to start a life with you and have kids with you—no matter what that looks like. Lots of women have babies over forty with the help of really awesome fertility doctors. And if that’s not a route you want to take—then we go to the state and find some scared little kid just like Ted was, and we love the shit out of that kid or kids. We pour everything we have into making sure those kids feel loved and adored every day that we are on this earth and able to do so. Got it?”

I felt her face move against my chest. I couldn’t tell if that was a nod or if she was wiping her tear-streaked face against my lapel—but I took it for a nod.

“In our house—we face fears together. We unburden them, and then together we figure shit out. No more of this holding things in and trying to face it solo, right?”

I kissed the top of her head, pulling her as close as I possibly could.

“This topic can be tabled for another time, don’t you think? We’re worrying unnecessarily until we know for sure from a doctor, right? If you stopped hormone injections two months ago—that’s nothing to your body. Especially if you’d been injecting yourself with hormones for over two decades I would think it will take more than just months to get back to normal.”

“You’re not mad I pulled the goalie without telling you?”

Surprisingly, I wasn’t. Not in the slightest. There was nothing I wanted in my life more—personally or professionally—than to start walking hand in hand with Raven. Forever.

“No Raven, I’m not. The second fate conspired to bring us back together—I knew I was holding on and never letting go. There was no way I’d let you slip out of my fingers a second time. You have always been my one and only. And now, I have the ring and an answer in the affirmative to make sure you and I never get separated again.”

In the distance we heard the tell-tale clinking of glassware. Ted and Marley had skipped the formalities of toasts and first dances and gone right into eating, but I hoped they would have space somewhere for my big surprise.

“What do you say we head back to the reception and tell Marley about her wedding present?”

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