A Happy Coincidence

Chapter 7

He keeps putting things aside, and then he pauses, his hand picking something up.

I stare at him.

He flips the small slip of paper over, reading it.

"Serendipity." He whispers. He pauses, lifting his shirt to look at the tattoo on his ribcage.

He stares at it for a long time.

"I think I remember something." He says.

"What is it?" I ask.

"We were in a room." He says. "And there was a lot of boxes everywhere, and a really big window, and a bed with a white blanket on it, and I think I tried to rip this."

"Yes." I whisper. "That was right after we got married. We just got back from our honeymoon. That was at the penthouse in Philadelphia."

He nods.

"I remember." He whispers. "The wedding. I remember the wedding. God, you looked so beautiful. Are there photos of that?"

"Yeah." I nod. "Let me get them."

"Okay." He looks confused, and frustrated.

I go into the library, getting the wedding album, and I go back downstairs. He's in the living room now, the firebox back.

"You put the fortune back?" I ask.

"Yeah." He nods.

"Okay." I say. I down, my legs crossed, handing him the wedding album.

He hesitates, and then he lays down, his head in my lap. He goes through the photos.

"Red velvet cake, right?" he asks.

"Yeah."

He smiles.

"We fought about that flavor for months." He laughs quietly. "I remember I wanted chocolate with buttercream frosting, and you wanted red velvet. I tried to get you to let us make it half and have, but you refused. I eventually gave in and gave you red velvet."

I smile.

"We compromised. Do you remember that?"

"Yeah." He nods. "If I let you get red velvet, we had to honeymoon in Australia. I remember everything before that." He looks up at me. "I remember I refused to go into the honeymoon house until you let me carry you over the threshold."

"Yeah." I smile. He keeps going through photos.

"We had so much se-" I put my hand over his mouth.

"The kids are in here." I remove my hand.

"Right." He says. "We have kids." He looks at them. "We got a house, and Delaney got pregnant with Cameron, and then you got pregnant. I remember. After you had Emily, we moved to Florida, right?"

"Yeah." I nod.

"And then Delaney pushed you off that dock." He whispers. "And you forgot everything. Oh dear god baby, I know exactly how you feel."

"It's okay." I whisper. He kisses my hand.

"That cop got shot on the beach a couple years later, after Ethan and Declan."

"Yes." I smile.

"And we moved back to New York, into the house we have now, and we got into the fight, the really bad one, and you left for weeks, and you were pregnant with the twins."

I run my fingers through his hair.

"We fixed it with a letter, right?"

"A list." I nod.