Page 68 of The Fundamentals

“Who?” he demanded.

“Your newest son-in-law,” Aubin told him acidly. “And yes, Sissy got a scholarship because she was really good.”

“I didn’t know you thought that about me,” I said. I got tears in my eyes. “Really, you do?”

“Sissy, everyone thought so, and wasn’t just an opinion,” she answered, rolling her eyes and huffing. “You don’t get a chance to compete in a program like that unless you actually are good. But she didn’t go. She didn’t take it,” she told Bowie. “She had too many problems here that she was trying to manage so she just blew it off.”

“I didn’t blow it off!” I protested. “I thanked them a lot, and I apologized to the coach for wasting their time on recruiting me. I wrote to some of the girls on the team who had reached out, too, and explained that I was sorry but that I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave.”

There was silence at the table but Aubin was staring hard at our dad. He took a bite from his plate and chewed methodically without looking back at her.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Bowie suggested, and we did. He reminded his parents of some of the crazy and/or dumb things he’d done as a kid, which got them more involved in the conversation. When I responded normally, they did in return and we got along a lot better, too. Aubin and my dad, however, stayed quiet, and that was unusual for both of them. Normally, she had a lot to say about herself and her activities, and he had a lot of complaints.

But the food was amazing and so was the cake (when we finally cut it) and Aubin took her job as photographer seriously. She even had a real camera and the pictures she showed us had turned out great.

“I’m going to put them together in an album,” she said. “What’s your favorite color, Sissy?”

“Wait, let me guess.” Bowie tilted his head and looked at me. “Pink, like that pretty flower. You know the one I mean. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” I agreed, and I did know the flower he meant. “Peony pink.” I smiled at my sister. “I used to pick everything in that color because you did, but then I realized that I really love it, too.”

My sister looked at me for a moment, and then she hugged me. Like, she grabbed me and crushed me to herself and I could feel her shaking. “Aubin?” I asked, my voice muffled in her collarbone. “I’m afraid I’m getting makeup on your dress. Aubin? Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m great.” She let me go and for just a moment, I swore that I could see the glimmer of tears in her eyes again. “You guys need to get out of here. Wedding night,” she reminded me.

“It’s not, not really,” Bowie said as he helped me into his truck. It was really hard in this gown, which didn’t have the poof and circumstance of Aubin’s wedding dress, but it was certainly more than the leggings I usually lived in. “I mean,” he continued as he got into the driver’s side, “it’s not what your sister was hinting at.”

It wasn’t going to produce the grandchildren that his dad had hinted at, either. No, it hadn’t been a hint because he’d come right out and asked, “Are you thinking of starting a family soon?” When I’d stared at him silently, he’d mentioned, “Bowie was a big, big baby.” His mother had actually put her hand over her stomach and winced as if she remembered.

“We’ll go to the hotel and relax for the night, and then tomorrow we’re back to normal,” Bowie said.

Normal. Except we were married. I started to feel like the wedding gown was a little tight across the chest, even though Aubin had inspected it carefully and then given her seal of approval on the alterations. “Can you unzip my dress for me?”

“That almost sounded dirty, Miss Frazier. Very dirty.” He paused. “I guess it’s Mrs. Bowman, now. Or is it? We didn’t talk about that.”

“Bowie, unzip it. Right now!” Because I couldn’t breathe at all. Air wheezed out of me like a leaking balloon and I couldn’t suck any back into my lungs.

“Lissa, it’s ok.” He slowed to a stop at the end of the road and tugged apart the sides of my dress, but then he left his palm on my back. “Breathe, honey. It’s ok.” He continued to soothe like that, rubbing gently over my bare skin and telling me that everything was fine. It didn’t take too long before I felt better.

“Sorry,” I told him. “I don’t usually get hysterical.”

“That wasn’t hysteria. Hysteria is me, when I see a rat. I think we talked about—”

“I don’t want to hear anything about dripping rodent saliva right now, thank you,” I interrupted. “I meant that I don’t usually get overwhelmed.”

“This is a lot,” he said.

“For you, too?” I flipped around so I could see his face as he put the truck back into drive and we started off again.

“Sure, it’s huge for me. Now I have a wife. It used to be just me, alone, with no responsibilities.”

“Except that you take care of your parents and you watch over your brothers. You’ve been watching over me, too. And you’re serious about your obligations to your teammates and coaches, and you deal with of all your bills on time, and you baby this truck like it’s a human infant.”

“Besides that, I had no responsibilities,” he said, and grinned at me before looking at the road again. “It’s different now. I’ll still take care of those things, but you’ll come first.”

When he said things like that…

“Oh, Bowie. I don’t know,” I said, and my voice faltered. “Was this the right thing to do?”

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