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June 4, 2156
Bellamy lays with an arm over his head. “Seven years ago today my life changed forever and I didn’t even know it yet.”
My eyes burn with an ache for sleep as I pace our room – thankfully our new house has a separate room for the boys so Juliet’s crying doesn’t keep them awake – trying to be soothing and patient as I wait for her to fall asleep. I feel so stupid for thinking that August being easy would make all my future children easy. I haven’t properly slept in months and despite his earnest efforts to give me a break, she won’t let Bellamy put her to sleep. I could do without being the favorite. “Hello? Twenty-five years ago something else happened.”
He looks over at me, eyes narrowed. “I sang you happy birthday this morning.”
I furrow my brow. “You did?”
“Yeah. Then I took the kids on a walk and they picked flowers for you. Don’t you remember your own birthday?”
I try bouncing her a little but it only jolts her awake. The muscles in my arms burn from her weight and my feet don’t feel like they belong to me anymore. If I hold her wrong, she cries. If I stop moving, she cries. Abby insists she’ll definitely grow out of the colic by nine months, but she’s already seven, and she also told me she would most likely grow out of it by three. 6 PM brings on the terrors like clockwork. It’s nearing 9 PM now, and I just have to power through another hour and hopefully she’ll fall asleep. Hopefully. “I don’t remember the last seven months.”
“Please let me take her,” he begs. “You need to rest. You look like you’re about to fall apart.”
“No, I’m good,” I say, blinking quickly to keep myself awake. She doesn’t always fall asleep by ten. Last night I was up until after two. “I’ve got this.”
“You’re going to break.”
“No, I’m not!” I snap. “I can do this. Leave me alone.”
To his grace, he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me.
I close my eyes briefly, trying to rein it back in. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s just the other two weren’t like this and it’s getting on my last nerve. And for seven months? When does it end?”
“I know,” he says quietly. “It will end one day, I promise. She won’t be a teenager who starts screaming every night. Colic doesn’t last forever.” He crosses the room and pulls me in an awkward hug, barely touching me and definitely not touching Juliet. “It will end.”
As he pulls away his hand brushes her back and sends her screaming again, and this time I can’t take it anymore. I shove her in his arms and barely wait for him to catch her. “Let her scream. I’m done. I’ve got to have a break.”
The door slams behind me, louder than I intended, but not loud enough to drown at the noise of my wailing daughter.
The only unoccupied place I can think of to sleep is our old cabin, so I grab a blanket from the dropship and march towards the house, flinging it out across the floor and flopping down on it. I don’t even remember closing my eyes.
June 5, 2156
When I wake, it’s midmorning.
The first thing I notice, aside from the mud between my toes from not putting on shoes last night, is how sore and full my breasts are. I haven’t been engorged since my milk came in.
I step outside, my eyes adjusting to the bright sun, and look around camp for the rest of my family. I find them sitting at one of the outdoor picnic tables. The boys are digging with sticks in the mud – they tell me they’re mining, and by mining I mean leaving holes the size of craters all over camp. Bellamy has his back against a table, a plate of softly cooked venison cooling for Juliet.
Absolutely not.
Bellamy looks up. “What?”
“Absolutely not. Don’t give her that.” I march over to them and plop down next to him at the table, taking Juliet off his hands to nurse her.
He yawns, his eyes rimmed red. “Did you have a good sleep?”
“I honestly feel like I could run a marathon.” I nod to the suckling baby. “When she empties them anyway.”
“I worried about that and thought about waking you up, but then I figured you needed sleep more. You definitely needed it.” He pinches my cheek. "There's that smile again."
I swat him away. “I did. I should’ve listened to you before.”
Bellamy grins and eats a piece of the venison. “See? I know you better than you do.”
I elbow him in the side. “Shut up.”
I swear little boys can smell meat from a mile away. As soon as they see their dad eat a piece, they immediately drop the mining efforts and come barreling over, demanding for their share.
Bellamy holds the plate high above their heads. “I got this for your sister. Go. You’ve both been fed not two hours ago.”
Apollo huffs. “But she’s not even eating it!”
“Then it’s for Mom. She hasn’t had breakfast yet.”
“But Dad,” he whines. “I’m hungry.”
August doesn’t bother asking, he just turns into a monkey and starts climbing Bellamy to reach the plate.
Bellamy pulls the toddler off him one handed and puts him on the ground. “Fine. You can each have a little, you hear me? A little.”
He pulls off minuscule shreds of meat and sends them on their way, which seems to satisfy them. It’s rarely about the food and more often about being included.
Bellamy pulls off a shred of meat and asks, “Do you want some?”
The smell has been tantalizing since the second I walked over. “Yes please.”
The three of us eat while the boys run wooden toy cars through the mud, hauling dirt from one place to another, and just generally making a mess, which they seem to thoroughly enjoy. When Juliet finishes eating I put her in the grass at my feet so she can work on learning to crawl. Long gone are the days of making sure my babies are clean all the time. Apollo runs a dirty wooden car over August’s back, making long muddy tracks over his shirt. Oh well. Dirt has yet to kill any of them, and children seem to exude some kind of stickiness anyway.
Bellamy leans over to me. “What do you think about a picnic today?”
I look over at the boys. “I can’t say I’m up to a hike in the woods with such filthy kids. Apollo may be able to walk the distance but someone will have to end up carrying August and just look at him.”
“Not a family picnic. Just us.”
I tilt my head. “Just us? We haven’t done anything ‘just us’ in well, ever.”
“An ‘I’m Sorry You Had Such A Terrible Birthday’ apology picnic.”
Juliet pulls on my boot laces, untying them as she inspects them. “Who’s going to watch the kids?”
“We’ll find someone. I’ll ask Octavia. She loves hanging out with the kids.”
“Octavia has never watched all three at once by herself,” I point out.
“She can divide and conquer with the others. Apollo thinks Raven hung the moon and she’s always working on something, so that’s him entertained right there.”
I pick up Juliet, bouncing her on my knee. “You make it sound like it’ll be a breeze. She doesn’t have any kids, remember. They’re a challenge for me, and I made them.”
“Which makes her the perfect babysitter. Besides, she owes me a favor.” He stands, holding out his hands to take Juliet off me. “Come on. Don’t you want a few hours to be just Morgan and not Mom?”
I stand up and hand him to her. “I don’t remember the last time I was just Morgan.” I laugh. “I almost forgot I had a name other than Mom.”
“Go get some picnic supplies and meet me outside the gate. I’ll line up some babysitters.”
A blanket and basket of food in hand, I wait with my back against the outer wall, looking out at the forest. I think back to the time after we landed, when we were hardly more than children ourselves, barely grown and thrown to the wolves to fend for ourselves, forced to find our own path very quickly. My role as a pharmacist led me to walking for hours on end each week and sometimes more often than that, trying to learn the ways of medicine on Earth. My hours of peace and silence as I would make my trek to TonDc seem like a dream now.
To my left are fifty-seven graves, most members of the hundred, others who died in landing when the adults came down, and a handful who have died in the years since. I don’t have to get close to know where my childhood heart lies asleep in death, his ultimate sacrifice allowing me to be called Mom. Suddenly the idea of being just Morgan for a few hours seems selfish.
Just as I turn to head back inside, Bellamy appears at the gate. “Where are you going?”
I hang my head. “I shouldn’t do this. Miller died for me to get to be a mother. I shouldn’t be trying to throw away my responsibility. I'm being ungrateful."
He puts his hands on my shoulders, holding me in place. “Throw it away? You’re not throwing it away.”
I look up at him. “I’m trying to avoid it, aren’t I? Pretend I don’t have kids, like they’re some kind of bother.” I shake my head. “They’re not a bother. I love them with everything I have. Why am I trying to run away from them? They’re a gift.”
“Of course you love them. I see that in everything you do.” He turns me around, back to the forest. “You’re recharging so you can be the best mother possible. There’s no shame in that. The kids need you to take care of yourself.” He nods to the grave. “Miller would want you to take care of yourself, too.” He takes the basket from me. “Come on. It’s just a for few hours, and then when we get back, you can go back to being Mom.”
I nod. “Okay. Just for a few hours. I don’t want to be away from them for too long.”
He holds his hand out to me and I take it, sharing a smile. “Just a few hours. I promise.”
The walk isn't long, and it's a walk I remember taking shortly after Apollo was born. A few minutes before we reach our destination, he insists on blindfolding me.
His hands over my eyes, I almost trip over a fallen tree branch. “Bellamy!”
“Just a few more steps.”
“I already know where we’re going,” I laugh. “I don’t see why you’re trying to –”
“Open!”
I turn around. “Did you forget you set up an entire picnic when you asked me to go gather supplies? Harper griped about having to dig out the travel containers.”
An orange supply depot blanket is spread out on the grass and two plates, cups, and silverware sit on it, ready to devour lunch. Despite the rising heat and lack of shade, the silence and peace of nature make the image in front of me seem like an oasis.
He motions for me to sit across from him. "I brought everything but the food.”
I sit in front of one of the plates and dig into the basket I gathered, looking for a thermos of cold water. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years on earth, it’s to never ever cease to appreciate the engineers who figured out how to make a solar powered refrigerator.
Bellamy looks through the basket, plating food for each of us, a combination of wild cherries and a cold sandwich, the bread burned around the edges.
I lean back on my hands, flinging a cherry seed into the grass. “I’m glad it was you. Of all the boys I could’ve celebrated my birthday with that night, I’m glad it was you.”
“Apollo made our lives infinitely harder, that’s for sure, but he brought us together,” he agrees. “Even if it did take months of you kicking and screaming for you to learn to like me.”
I throw a cherry at him, making him grin.
By the end of lunch, I am stuffed to the brim, never finding the time to eat at my own pace anymore. Despite my long sleep last night, I lie on the blanket, warmed by the sun, eyes drifting shut. Bellamy sits above me, playing with my hair, braiding it into many long braids and pulling them out and repeating the process, the relaxing repetition lulling me to sleep.
When I wake, the sun has started to set, the blue of the sky fading, replaced by an orange evening glow.
His arm stretched out above my head, Bellamy lies next to me, his cheeks pink from sleeping in the sun. I don’t need a mirror to feel the heat of sunburn on my skin.
I shove his shoulder. “Wake up. It’s almost sunset. We fell asleep.”
His eyes open slowly and he stretches, yawning his words. “It’s what?”
“It’s sunset.” I start grabbing the plates and cups and shoving them in the basket. “They’ll be wondering where we are.”
“No, no,” he grabs my arm, pulling me down to sit. “I told them we’d be gone all day. We’re fine.”
“An all-day picnic?”
“And nap,” he adds. “Although looking at the state of your poor skin, I think I should’ve brought some sun protection. Maybe I could’ve made a tent into a canopy or something.”
I put the cup down and turn my hand over, the skin on the back of my arms as red as the cherries we had for lunch. “Yeah, that would’ve been helpful.”
“Did you have any dreams?”
“Any dreams?” I furrow my brow. “Um, no. I didn’t.”
“Well I had one,” he says, sitting up. “It’s actually a reoccurring one. It’s very realistic.”
“Well,” I press, the vagueness irritating. “What was it?”
He reaches into his pocket and holds out his enclosed hand to me. “In this dream, you’re my wife.”
I roll my eyes. “Very funny. It’s been seven years and you’re still hanging onto that joke. Did anyone ever tell Lexa we’re not actually married?”
“No, I don’t think anyone ever did. It gets funnier every year we don’t get married, doesn’t it?” But he doesn’t laugh. He swallows. “But I’m not joking, I –” His voice falters.
I shake my head. “What? What’s with the weird behavior? What’s in your hand?”
He opens his hand, revealing a silver ring, a shining oval of amethyst quartz at the center. “I have to ask –”
I suck in a breath. “Where did you get that?”
“The ring is from the Ark, and the amethyst was a gift from Althea. She says it occurs naturally here, and I had Raven make a setting for it. None of the rings from the Ark had gemstones, and I thought it would make it special. Now, I want to –”
“Why did you do that?”
He huffs in frustration, closing his eyes. “Morgan, would you just let me ask?” He takes a deep breath, holding the ring, offering it up to me. “Will you make my dream come true? Will you marry me? For real this time?”
My voice cracks. “Bellamy.”
He looks nervous. “Is that a yes or a no?”’
I nod fervently. “It’s a yes. I’ll be your wife.” I choke on a laugh, remembering what foolish young people we were back then. We knew nothing of life, not real life, and certainly nothing of love. I hated the lie for a long time, and then it became funny, and referring to each other as husband and wife always produced a fun smile. But now, the idea of that being real, of being anchored to him forever - it feels like my heart has finally found its resting place. “For real this time.”
He takes my hand, slipping the ring on my left ring finger, his touch lingering as he holds my hand, inspecting the purple gem. “To have found the great love of my life.” He smiles thoughtfully. “Earth was worth it.”
I wrap my arms around him, holding him tight. “It most certainly was.”
Part of me would’ve stayed in that meadow forever, baking in the June heat and watching my new ring sparkle in the sun, but the other part misses the kids and can’t wait to go home. We walk hand in hand the entire way home despite the heavy baskets, relishing in the giddiness of love that we were forced to speed through all those years ago.
“I know that look,” Murphy says, sitting by the fire, building ramps out of dirt and sticks for the boys’ cars. “That look usually comes with an announcement.”
Raven, cradling Juliet as she tries to rock her to sleep, nudges him sharply with her boot. “Leave them alone.”
“So,” he says, dusting his hands off and moving to sit on the log beside Raven. “Are we getting another Blake?”
Bellamy shares a sneaky grin with me. “We are.”
They do their best to look excited, but it’s obvious the idea of being dumped with a fourth kid, even for one day, sounds daunting.
I hold the suspense for a moment longer. “But the new Blake is me.”
Murphy’s eyebrows go up. “What?”
Raven looks pleased. “Show him my handiwork.”
I hold out my hand. He grabs it and it pulls it closer, looking it over and inspecting the ring, like what he’s seeing isn’t real. Finally he releases my hand and looks up at Bellamy, nodding approvingly. “It’s about time. She’s given birth to over half of the Blake family. I think it’s about time she gets the title too.”
“If she wants to,” Raven corrects him. “She can be just as married as a Leven.”
I look up at Bellamy. “I want to.”
Raven bounces Juliet on her knee, making her tiny body sway. Juliet squeals with delight. “So when’s the wedding, lovebirds?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. But I know I don’t want to wait very long. Life is too. . .” I look over my shoulder at the graveyard, “unpredictable.”
Bellamy crouches down, pulling me along with him, so we’re eye level with August and Apollo. “Guess what boys. Mom and I are getting married.”
Apollo stops playing and looks at him curiously. “What’s ‘married’?”
I think over how to explain it to a six-year-old. “It means we’re going to promise to love each other forever in front of all our friends.”
He looks unimpressed. “Don’t you do that already?”
I glance at Bellamy, unsure of what to say to that.
Bellamy stumbles over his words. “Well, yeah, we do, but this is like a big party for everyone.”
“Why would anyone want to go?” He sounds exasperated with us. “You do that all the time!”
I put my head in my hands, hiding my expression, trying to be serious because he’s being serious, but sometimes the things children say catch you wildly off guard.
“What if you were my best man?”
“But I’m just a kid. I’m not a man.”
He hangs his head and takes a breath. “You don’t have to be a man. It just means the person who will stand up there with me.”
Apollo shrugs and goes back to playing. “Okay.”
Bellamy looks at me, his eyes wide and his mouth half open, his expression saying the same thing I’m thinking. Did that really just come out of my child’s mouth?
I grin, shaking my head. Out of the mouths of babes.
August 21, 2156
“I have to say, this isn’t how I imagined my wedding day.”
Althea’s expert fingers do my hair in elaborate braids and twists while Harper dabs berry juice on my lips to stain them. “What did you dream this day would be like?”
“Well,” I think back, remembering the daydream of a preciously naive young girl. “I imagined it would take place on the little overlook above the solar fields. The sun would be behind me and the stars would circle the room. That room has the biggest window on the Ark – it covered the entire wall from top to bottom. I thought it would make me feel free. I imagined holding poppies – both because they match my hair and because they were the only flower we grew – and I would wear this beautiful, white, hand-me-down dress. Miller would give me away, and he would threaten the man just a little but not mean it, and he would hug me and pretend he wasn’t crying but he would be, and he would tell me he loved me, and then he would get absolutely wasted on moonshine at the reception. And I would go home with my new husband and I would finally, finally have a family of my own, even if it was just one other person. I hadn't had that in so long. And years later, if the population count was okay, we would have a kid, and I would be the best mom ever, and I wouldn’t abandon him or her, and I would stay, for everything.” I look down at Juliet, my third and final baby, the latter decision being of my own choice, suckling away, her fingers curled, resting on my chest contentedly. A full baby is a happy baby, and I’m trying to avoid meltdowns during the ceremony. “I also didn’t imagine I’d have a baby by then, much less three.”
Althea ties off a braid. “As much as I wish I could’ve seen floor to ceiling windows, from what you’ve told me, this is better.”
I nod, running my finger down Juliet’s chubby cheek. “It is. If Miller were here, I’d never look back on that idea of perfect.”
“He is here,” Harper says, swirling the berry juice. “In our hearts.”
“Yeah,” I agree, forcing myself to speak around the knot in my throat. “No knife can take that away. He’s always with me.”
Iris steps into the tent with a large bag hanging over a hanger. “I’ve got it, Nomi.”
“Thanks, Iris.” She nods to the side. “Just hang it up over there.”
Iris flops down on the grass in the corner of the tent. “I wish I got to live in space.”
“Some parts were pretty,” I tell her. “But some were not.”
“There,” Harper says. “All done.”
I look up at her. “Do I look like I’ve eaten a thousand berries now?”
She grins. “You look gorgeous.”
Althea wraps a final piece of white ribbon around the last braid in my hair. “There. Now it’s time for your dress.”
I clap my hands. “I’m so excited to see it.”
“I know you said to surprise you,” Althea says, her hands hovering over the bag in an achingly long pause, “so I hope you like it.”
On the hanger is a long dress with thin straps made of light blue fabric, so light it’s the color you imagine air is, with off the shoulder cap sleeves just for elegance. The dress is cut low in the chest and the back features more drapery. I turn the dress over on the hanger, feeling the fabric, light as the breeze. “Althea,” I whisper.
“Do you like it? I wanted to keep it flowy because I only had the one set of measurements and August tends to be hot and –”
“It’s stunning. You have a real talent, you know that?”
She smiles. “Thanks. I also made something else,” she winks. She pulls something off the middle bar of the hanger and unfolds it, revealing a ridiculously frilly and scant pair of underwear.
I snatch them from her, embarrassed to even look at them. “Are you joking?”
She gives me a sly smirk. “You know parts of you are good for things other than having babies, right?”
Iris covers her ears in disgust. “Nomi!”
“How do you think you got here, Iris?”
“NOMI.”
“Go,” she shoos her out. “You have to go get dressed anyway.”
I shake my head. “Althea. These are practically see-through.”
“They’re sheer.” She holds them up to the dress, made from the same pale blue fabric as the top layer of the dress. “And they match.”
“He’s going to laugh at me in these.” My children have written their history all over my body in stretch marks and sagging skin. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but then I remember that I’m only 25, and compared to the other girls, I just don’t look the same. “I don’t – maybe if I hadn’t had three kids –”
“Oh, he’s not going to be laughing.”
“Harper!” If I wasn’t blushing before, I am now.
“I would bet he thinks you’re lovely in anything you wear. It’s like you said, you have three kids.” Althea shoves the panties in my hand, trading them for Juliet, not taking no for an answer, and slips out of the tent, pulling Harper along. “Now get dressed!”
I look down at the panties in my hand. They are ridiculous, but this is a special occasion, and at least there’s no holes in them. Why not? I’ll already have him locked down by then.
Once dressed, I step out of the tent, taking in the beautiful sight. We wanted the entire day to speak of our lives together, so the wedding was chosen to be hosted in the yarrow field, the plant that saved my life the day Apollo was born, and on the day I broke the news to him. Without either of those, we likely wouldn’t be here today.
Raven and Monty (and Apollo of course) built an arch for us to stand under and Harper and Clarke decorated it with flowers. Barrels and mismatched chairs are set up in two sections, leaving a path in the middle for us to walk down. The rover is parked at the edge of the woods, packed with food in ice boxes and drinks for everyone afterwards, as well as Jasper’s music player and a pair of speakers. There are blankets for the children and even pillows, should they get tired or sick of the stiff grass poking them.
The people of Arkadia begin to gather together and find their seats, some questioning the safety of the more rickety chairs. Just behind me, I hear a familiar voice, though it’s been years since he’s spoken to me.
“You look beautiful.”
I turn around, afraid of what nasty remarks I’ll have to listen to after such a sweet opening line. But David, Miller’s father, seems bothered only by the heat of the evening sun. He squints in the light, his hand half covering his face, and locks eyes with me. I try a small smile, attempting to be friendly, but I’m not sure how convincing it comes out with the fear of well-placed hatred ruining my day of love. “Thank you.”
His voice is hoarse and when he turns his head for a moment, I see tears glisten in his eyes. “Nate should be here.”
I look down, nodding, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
He puts his hands in his pockets. “I should apologize for my silence all these years.”
“Why? I don’t blame you for hating me. I would hate me. I do hate me.”
“What happened to my son hurts me deeply. It always will. But me and him were too much alike. Holding hatred in my heart for you doesn’t help either of us.” He shifts his weight and squinches up his face, as though the words are hard for him to admit. “I forgive you. I know it doesn’t look like I mean it because it’s taking every ounce of strength I have to say it, but I do, Morgan. I forgive you.”
I shake my head. “But why? I should be sorry for what happened and I am, but,” I look over at him, standing across the field, carefully trying to fix his little brother’s hair with that look of seriousness I love so much, and my voice cracks, tears threatening to spill over, “but how can I be? How can I look at Apollo’s face and say, ‘I wish you weren’t here and my friend was’?”
He steps forward and touches my arm comfortingly. “I’m not asking you to because I know,” his voice is thick, “I know what it is like to love a little boy with every bone in your body. I love Nate still, and I will never stop for as long as I live. I love him most for that beautiful heart of his that made him love so strongly. He wasn’t a father, but I like to imagine I loved him well enough that he knew a parent’s love. He gave you a gift, and,” his voice quiets, “and I know he doesn’t regret it, so I shouldn’t either.”
My lip quivers. “I still wish I could give him back to you. I can’t imagine what you must feel. The thought of any one of my children dying just . . .” I can’t finish the sentence. David pulls me into his arms and holds me, the closest thing I’ve had to a parent in years. I’ve been so obsessed with trying to raise my own sons and daughter that I forgot I’m someone’s child too, and suddenly I’m five-years-old again, terrified and crawling into my parents’ bed, seeking comfort.
“I know, I know,” he shushes me, running a hand over my hair. “Neither of us can change what happened. But we can be there for each other.”
I pull back, sniffling, trying to pull myself together. “Yeah. We can.”
He looks over at the field, a wistful smile on his face. “Who’s walking you down the aisle?”
“No one. Just me.” I wipe my nose and try to dry my eyes. “When I was little, it was my dad. And then it was Miller, and now,” I shrug. “Just me.”
“The Ark may have had a one-child policy, but I’ve always considered you my daughter. Would you allow me to walk you down the aisle?”
There I go with the tears again. “Would you really?”
“Of course.” He lends an elbow and I hook my arm through it, and we walk together to line up for the ceremony. “I know we don’t share biology, or even looks,” he chuckles, earning a laugh out of me, “but I’ll be your dad today, and you’ll always be my family.”
I lean my head against his arm and take a deep breath. “That means so much to me.”
Althea appears at my side, holding out a bouquet of wildflowers, just gathered. “For the bride.”
I look at the flowers, a beautiful mix of colors, a familiar white flower mixed in among them. “Is that yarrow?”
“It’s important to your history.” She nods forward to the altar. “And it gave you your future.”
At the front of the line, I can see the back of Bellamy’s curls, and just to the side of him is Apollo, all dressed up in a fancy white shirt and (mostly) clean shorts. Bellamy’s hand rests on Apollo’s shoulder, trying to make him patient until it’s their turn. I remember the days when his hand would cover Apollo’s entire back. They grow so fast.
“Is this thing on?” At the altar, Murphy taps his microphone, eliciting loud feedback from the speakers and a grouchy look from Raven, which he returns with a wink. “There. Are we ready, folks?”
Bellamy calls back at Murphy. “I’ve been ready for six years!”
“Impatient, impatient,” he mumbles, swiping through to his speech on his data pad. He straightens his twine bow tie, an accessory he insisted on, which just flops against his shirt, given the lack of structure. He turns to Raven. “Cue the music.”
Some sort of pretty piano music plays, and the procession begins. Bellamy and Apollo are first, walking side by side. Apollo looks more and more like a little man every day, and seeing him walk as an equal with his father. . . my heart can’t take it.
Next is August, our ring bearer, who walks with Octavia, who shouldn’t have even bothered trying to walk with him, because as soon as she tells him to go, he runs down the aisle to his dad’s outstretched arms, earning a laugh from the audience.
Althea, Iris, and Juliet follow. Iris, our true flower girl, spreads petals along the walkway, a task she seems beside herself to get to do. But I couldn’t involve my boys and not my little girl, so Althea carries her and her own basket of flowers, which Althea actually does the tossing of.
And then it's me.
“You picked a wonderful man,” David whispers in my ear as we walk a painfully slow walk to my future husband, the idea of that word still making me giddy. “Miller would approve.”
I look over at him, smiling. “Yeah. He would.”
I turn my attention forward, to the only person here who really matters.
He tries to keep his expression serious, but he can’t seem to stop smiling. Octavia stands behind him with the boys, watching her brother, just as happy as he is. I see her say something to him, but I’m too far away to hear or the world has gone silent, I’m not sure. He kisses her temple in response and she turns him around just as I reach the altar.
Murphy glances down at his speech. “Who gives this woman to this man?” He leans the microphone over for David to speak into.
“Her own self,” he answers, making everyone laugh. “She has always been a beautiful, intelligent young woman, and I don’t believe her judgment fails her now.” He releases my arm and kisses my cheek. “Take his hand yourself.”
After David takes his seat, I take Bellamy’s shaky hands, giving them a squeeze of reassurance.
Murphy clears his throat. “There is no one true path. Life throws curveballs at all of us. Sometimes they’re minor, and we can easily navigate them. Sometimes they’re major, like every adult you’ve ever known deciding you’re not worth keeping so they launch you into space to die on a presumably uninhabited, radiation soaked planet." He glances up at the audience. "Don't look at me like that. You know it's true." He continues. "And sometimes they’re eight pounds and three ounces. Sometimes all three hit you at once during the same week.
“Life may be unpredictable, but it doesn’t stop for anyone. Time marches forward, and if we don’t try to eek out a life in even the most miserable circumstances, happiness will evade us all our days. Every day we are faced with choices, and each choice we make begins to shape us, define us. Some will be bad choices. Each of the hundred – along Bellamy and Raven – have a criminal charge stamped on our foreheads, and for some people, that’s all they can see. Does that make us bad people? Are we only the choice we made as teenagers or young adults that sent us down here? Or are we more than that?
“People are deep, complex creatures, with dark and light sides. Somehow, despite time and circumstance, we always end up finding each other, and even in the darkest and most difficult of times, we find love. That’s what these two people here, Morgan Leven and Bellamy Blake, have done. When faced with a challenge, they did not butt heads and work against each other, instead –”
“Yes we did,” I object. Bellamy chuckles, remembering all the fights along the way, especially in the early days. “We very much did.”
“Anyway,” Murphy says louder, drowning out the objection. “Eventually they chose to work together, and in drawing together, they have found love and family among each other. Today they chose to stick together, to remember the choices that brought them here. Today, they choose to love each other for eternity. I ask now that we hear those choices. Morgan?"
I unfold the paper with shaky hands. I bite my lip, trying to turn my focus onto something else. It doesn’t make a difference. The world around me fades and we might as well be the only two people on the entire face of the Earth, because the world does not exist beyond the pair of brown eyes in front of me. I take a deep breath.
“Today, I am your wife. For real this time, not in that stupid running joke,” I laugh, the noise choked. I force down a knot in my throat. “A lot has happened to us in the last seven years – three children, two houses, a new planet. I am not the girl you met all those years ago, nor are you the man I knew then. I have struggled with impulsivity all my life, and I have paid dearly for it.” Corbin. Miller. The flamekeeper. All deaths on my hands because I refused to stop and think.
My voice is thick, barely holding back tears. “Your patience inspires me to be a better person, and maybe if I am a better person, my mistakes will be forgiven by the world. But you forgive me over and over again, long before I’ve done anything to deserve it. Love is patient, and it is kind, and it forgives – and that is you. You are not only the great love of my life, you are love itself.”
He presses his lips together and closes his eyes for a moment, turning his head away. When he opens his eyes again, they’re watering. “I wasn’t expecting you to hit me that hard.”
I manage a grin. “I’m never lighthearted about you.”
He lets out a shaky breath. “There you go again.”
Murphy looks over at him. “Bellamy?”
“Right.” He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolds it, the words trembling in his hands. “I wish I had taken notice of you the day we met. I wish I had taken notice when I saw you handle the surprise of Apollo with strength and dignity and grace. But the truth is, I didn’t truly take notice of you until the day you yelled at me for two straight hours because I came to check on you. All I thought was, ‘How can this woman manage to keep up such a heat about something so minor?’ I didn’t know it then, but it was not minor, and I commend you for trying so hard to protect someone you love. When it comes to the people you love, you commit with all your heart, at any cost. I saw your commitment to Apollo as soon as you knew about him, many months before he was born, long before I was ready to jump into parenthood. You have not wavered from loving and protecting our children with all your heart, and because I know you, I know you never will. That’s how I know that the commitment made today will last for the rest of our lives. Your love is a forcefield. It is a privilege to be counted within it.”
Murphy turns to me. “Morgan Leven, do you take Bellamy Blake to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?”
I squeeze his hands. “I do.”
He turns to Bellamy. “And do you, Bellam–”
He cuts him off. “I do.”
Murphy takes a step back. “Then ladies and gentleman, I present to you, the new Mr. and Mrs. Blake!”
In my head I know there must be shouts of joy and laughter because the air around me vibrates, but I am only truly aware of the gentle hand caressing my face, and his sweet kiss on my lips.
The reception was a whirlwind I wish I could capture and live in every day.
Alone in the house without the kids for the first time since they were born, the night is sweeter.
Tired and hungry from the long day, Bellamy sits down beside me in front of the fireplace, candles lit on the hearth, with that old china tea set and a slice of apple pie, with cooked apples finely cut to spell out the words ‘Just Married’ along the edge of the plate. “Fork?”
I take one from him. “Who did the writing?”
He grins, the warm glow from the fire illuminating his face. “That would be yours truly. Your husband.”
I spear the J with a fork. “Well your wife thinks it’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen.”
He looks at me solemnly, the kind of look I sometimes catch him giving me when he doesn’t think I’m looking, the kind that holds a deep love and respect, the kind that used to frighten me because I didn’t understand where it came from, the kind that now fills my heart with a warm, relaxing heat, because in that look I am wanted, cared for, and loved. I am home. “My wife,” he echoes.
My eyes cling to the silver band around his left ring finger, and then down to the silver band encircling mine. It still doesn’t feel real. I twist it absentmindedly. “Seven years ago today you were a complete jerk to me when I told you about Apollo. And now,” I look up at him. “Now I don’t want to live a single day without you.”
"Now you never have to." He wraps an arm around me and pulls me into his side, a feeling that no longer makes me feel trapped, only protected and safe. “I love you. Have I told you that today?”
I giggle. “Only a few times.”
He tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “Well, I still love you.”
I lean my head into his chest. “I love you, too.”
We sit like that for a moment, relishing in the day’s events, at the thousands of choices that brought us here, and then he says, “Guess what.”
I turn to look at him. “What?”
He reaches into his pocket and produces a folded piece of paper.
“She finished it already?”
“She spent most of the evening on it. Said she wanted to make the day complete.”
I unfold the paper, and there we are, a sacred kiss forever engraved on the page. The last three drawings had captured a scene, an emotion in the room, the greatest moments of our lives in all their glory. This one is different. The image is intimate, a stolen moment. Delicate and bold lines are interwoven, laced so intricately they cannot be separated, and in those lines dance impulsivity and patience, anxiety and reassurance. In the drawings of our children’s births, excitement and joy could be felt even by a stranger. But this drawing holds a tender affection in the charcoal, a love not shared with anyone but each other.
It stirs an ache in my chest.
“What do you say we put it up there with the others, hm?”
I trace my fingers over the thick paper, the emotion in the picture so strong it feels like it should be tangible. “Yeah.”
He places it on the mantle, and between the pictures, I see ourselves age. Not quite so obviously physically, but I can see our expressions change over time as we grow stronger and closer together. He steps back, admiring the four most important moments of our life. “There. Our story is complete.”
Looking at the photos, each drawn in charcoal and preserved in a handmade frame, I settle on one thing. It is not the choices that sent me to Lock Up, or to Earth, or to the graveyard with an aching heart that define me. It is the choices of persistence, of forgiveness, and of love that make me who I am. It is the choices that beg for another bedtime story, and the choice that kisses my forehead at night and calls me his wife. These are the choices that matter.