There was a little pocket on the front of the sweater, right on the snowman’s belly, like a kangaroo pouch. I hadn’t noticed it before.
There was something small and hard in it.
I looked at Ethan.
He wasn’t laughing anymore. He was looking at me very seriously. His hands were shaking.
I looked at Lily. She’d stopped jingling. She had both hands pressed over her mouth, and her eyes were enormous.
I looked at Dad. He was holding his camera, but he’d lowered it. He was crying. Of course he was crying.
I reached into the snowman’s pocket.
It was a ring box. A small dark blue velvet one.
Ethan got down on one knee on my father’s living room rug. It was the same rug Mike had knocked a wine glass over a year ago.
“Claire,” he said. His voice was shaking. “I bought this ring two and a half years ago. It’s been sitting in my sock drawer behind my running socks this whole time. I’m not going to pretend that’s okay. It’s not. It should have been on your finger a long time ago.”
He took a breath.
“I don’t have any secrets left,” he said. “None. You know everything. You know I was a coward. You know I lied to you. You know I let Megan’s calls go to voicemail. You know the worst things about me. And you came back anyway.”
He opened the ring box. It was a simple silver band with one small diamond. Nothing fancy. Exactly what I would have picked.
“I’m not asking you to marry the man I pretended to be,” Ethan said. “I’m asking you to marry the man I actually am. Who burns pancakes on one side. Who’s scared a lot. Who’s going to tell you every single time he’s scared, for the rest of our lives.”
