Emerson: Grand Combinations Christmas Eve

I ZIPPED MY COAT UP tighter to my chin, still shivering. The year-round warmth of LA had ruined me. But, also, it was just really, really cold. Maybe you never got used to something like this. “Kyle, honey,” I said to my boyfriend, who was digging in the sand. “I think it’s super sweet that you want to find a piece of staurolite for Carter, but she’s two. Maybe we can find one this summer and give it to her next year.” Why I even agreed to come on this inane errand with him, I wasn’t sure. I mean, yes, staurolite was important in our family. And it also got me out of the fever-pitch cooking, cleaning, and prepping that were going on over at Mom’s house. So I guessed I couldn’t complain too much.

But I had also been avoiding Kyle a little because, in the spirit of total honesty, I knew I had something to tell him.

“Babe,” I said. “Don’t get upset.”

He stood up, alarmed.

“I went to apologize to Mark today. I was only there for a second and—”

“That’s fine,” he said.

I opened my mouth, but then stopped. If he was fine, I should just roll with it, right? I had felt like a fool knocking on Mark’s door. But I knew I couldn’t run away from my mistakes. Letting how I had acted linger made it worse.

When he had opened the door, he just said, “Oh. It’s you.”

What a warm welcome. He had stepped aside so I could walk in.

I didn’t sit or anything. I just said, “I’m sorry, Mark. I totally overreacted, and I wanted to apologize.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Wow.”

I smirked. “This was hard, okay. Accept my apology and let’s move on.”

He shook his head. “Fine. I accept. And, you know, I’m sort of used to Emerson Murphy flying off the handle. I wasn’t that bothered.”

“Ha. Ha.” I tried to smile sweetly, but it didn’t quite take.

He looked a little sheepish as he said, “You know, Emerson, if I’m being honest, I wanted to hurt you just a little. You deserved to fly off the handle. And I’m sorry. I should have been better than that.”

I knew it! I felt very vindicated.

“Well, I’m happy you’re happy. I’m happy you’re moving on.”

He smiled at me. “We’re all grown-up, huh?”

I smiled for real this time. “I guess we are.” I stepped forward and hugged him, less awkwardly than before. “I wish you nothing but happiness. I mean it.”

“I want you to be happy too, Emerson. I really do.” He paused. “I always have.”

And that was it. Mark was leaving. I would always have those sweet, untainted memories of the kids we’d been in high school when we we’d fallen in love—or something like it—in Peachtree Bluff. But that chapter was closed and finished. Forever.

Now, on the beach, Kyle stood up and turned around to face me. He had a toboggan on, and he looked so darn cute I couldn’t help but kiss him. “Also in the spirit of honesty… I was here the other day,” he said. “I did paddleboard over with another woman.”

I gasped. He was becoming less cute by the moment. He took my hand, and I guessed I wasn’t that mad because I let him. “So did you bring me over here to tell me so I wouldn’t yell at you in front of the entire family?”

Caroline had been right. This was why you didn’t get married. When everything fell apart, there would be no messy paperwork.

“The woman I was with was your sister,” he said.

He didn’t let go of my hand and started walking down a path in the sand, one that I had only traveled once, but one that I remembered very well all the same. Kyle and his friends—with a little help from his grandfather—had built the most adorable ramshackle tree house on Starlite Island when he was younger and used to spend the summers here. I couldn’t believe it was still standing. I don’t know if none of the powers that be realized it was here or if it had simply become a part of this island’s history and lore like every other crazy thing.

“But I want you to know,” he continued, “that you would never have to worry about me being with another woman. Because you are a choice I made, Emerson. I know we didn’t have the most ordinary dating life, but I knew even before you got pregnant with Carter that you were the one for me.” He stopped walking and grinned. “And I’m grateful for her every day, not only because she is incredible, but also because I know that she is the reason you finally let your guard down and decided to be with me.”

As we reached the tree house, Kyle pointed to the ladder, and I started making my way up. “That’s not true, you know,” I said, the wind cutting through me and taking my breath away. “I was totally miserable without you.”

The last time I had been in this tree house was the day of Mom and Jack’s wedding, right here on Starlite Island, the day I was supposed to be marrying Mark. Kyle and I had snuck away, and I had finally made love to him in this tree house for the very first time. And gotten Carter. So it was a pretty special spot.

“I thought we could watch Starlite, Star Bright from up here,” he said.

I felt a tiny bit sad that Carter wouldn’t be here to watch with us, but it was too dangerous to bring a wriggling two-year-old up here in the dark and cold. It was truly, honestly, my favorite event in all of Peachtree Bluff every year. “But don’t we want to be in the boat?” I asked, pointing. “We don’t have our candles.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “We don’t need them.”

I was about to protest as I stepped into the tree house. I gasped again, this time forgetting how cold it was—and realizing that I didn’t need any candles. Kyle’s rudimentary childhood tree house had been transformed. The entire perimeter was lined with huge vases full of flowers and lit by sparkling candles, their flames dancing in the breeze. “If this is your way of saying you want another baby,” I said as Kyle stepped inside too, “it is entirely too cold out here for all that.”

He laughed, pulling me close to him and kissing me. “This is magical,” I said. “Truly, spectacularly beautiful.”

Maybe I’m slow, but that was the moment that it all started to add up. Caroline being here with Kyle, my sisters and Mom not wanting me to ask Kyle to marry me. Kyle had been planning this beautiful Christmas Eve proposal, and I had almost ruined it. He stepped back and pulled me over to the tiny balcony on the outside of the tree house where I had kissed him three years earlier. The sun was setting in the most beautiful pink and blue sky, fiery and wild, passionate and free. Hundreds of small vessels were beginning to fill the waterway in these last moments before the world fell dark and quiet.

“Em, this night up here with you was the best night of my life,” Kyle said. “It was a confirmation that you felt what I felt, that maybe you could love me the way that I loved you one day.”

I smiled, suddenly feeling warm. “I think it’s safe to say that that has happened.”

“I know that marriage is scary to you. It was scary to me too for a long, long time. But now I see the appeal. Because I want to be legally bound to you, Emerson. I want to share a family with you, to make your people my people. I don’t ever want to be apart from you for a single moment. I love living with you and our little girl. I love our life together. But I want more, Emerson. I want it all.”

I leaned up and kissed him. He was so sweet. And—it really couldn’t be said enough—so hot.

He got down on one knee and opened the small box that women wait their entire lives for. “Emmy, will you marry me?”

I could tell that he was holding his breath. We had been down this road before. Maybe not quite this elaborately. But every single time he had brought up the idea of our getting married, I had shot him down.

As the sun finished setting, the waterway sparkled and shone, and it was as if the heavens had opened and the angels began singing.

“Kyle, I did not know that men like you existed, that anyone so generous, so patient, so kind, and so damn good-looking could ever come into my life. I absolutely want to marry you.”

I took my glove off and reached my left hand out to him. He slid the most beautiful three-stone diamond ring on my hand, which I could still see a little because of all the candlelight. Past, present, and future. Isn’t that what those cheesy commercials said? But wasn’t it true too? Because right here and right now, my past, present, and future were all swirling into one, combining into my life. With Kyle. And Carter. And, with any luck, more babies in our future.

He stood up and pulled me up with him, wrapping me in his arms. Just as I said, “I will love you forever,” it was as if the sky opened up.

As he leaned down to kiss me, snow—practically Halley’s Comet in Peachtree Bluff—poured down from the sky. As we pulled back, we both started laughing.

“Snow!” Kyle said. “Can you believe it?”

“Did you and Caroline make this happen?” I joked.

Kyle nodded very seriously. Then he thought for a second. “Come to think of it, knowing Caroline, she did make it snow.”

We stepped back inside the tree house, which was only vaguely warmer. I could finally really take in the beauty of the huge arrangements of greenery, pine, and magnolia juxtaposed by the most delicate ranunculus, peonies, and hydrangeas, all draped around the tree house. Kyle began blowing out the candles, which was going to take a while. There were hundreds of them. “We should have just gotten married right here,” I said. “The flowers, the sunset on the water, the snow. What could be better?”

Back on the beach, a light layer of white was already blanketing everything. Snow on sand was one of Mother Nature’s grandest combinations, if you asked me. I stood there, awestruck, for just a moment, taking it all in. “You know what?”

“What?” Kyle asked.

“I was going to propose to you.”

He laughed. “You were?”

I nodded. “Caroline talked me out of it.” I pointed up to the tree house. “Which makes a whole lot of sense now.” I paused. “Mom said I’d be stealing your thunder. Would you have been upset?”

Kyle put his arm around me. “Babe, I don’t care who does the asking, just as long as I get to marry you.”

He always said the perfect thing. I kissed Kyle again as we stepped into the little canoe we had brought over to the island. He began paddling across the sound, back to Mom’s, a little to the left of the hundreds of kayaks and canoes that were making their way back to the town dock. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you,” I said.

And, really, in true Murphy fashion, I couldn’t wait to tell my family.

I smiled at Kyle, thinking about all the perfect moments we had spent in this very town—and the many, many more to come. I was, more than I would like, known for not being able to make decisions, for waffling, for choosing too late, for regretting. Now, as the knowledge washed over me that I was getting married, I felt like maybe I was right on time. As Kyle’s paddles sliced through the water, as he grinned at me, making me feel the golden glow that only he could, I realized it: of all the times I’d changed my mind, this might be my very favorite.