"See? See, Marcus? That's what I'm talking about. That's the good stuff. Kitchen was okay. Okay, this isโ" He wiped his eyes.
"Now this is a scene." "Dad, you're supposed to be resting your heart." "My heart's never felt better," Harold declared, and the monitor, as if in agreement, beeped along steadily and strong. Marcus came around the bed then, and he took Emily's face in both his hands. And for a long moment, he just looked at her.
This woman he'd met building a house for a ghost. This woman who pushed and argued and hid and finally, finally stopped hiding. "I'm scared too," he said quietly, so only she could really hear. "I need you to know that. I lost one person I loved, and it nearly killed me."
"Some part of me decided I'd never do that again. I built my own wall, Emily. Harold saw it before I did. So when I told you to take the job, part of that was noble, sure. But part of it was me giving myself a way out."
"A way to lose you on purpose so I'd never have to lose you by surprise." He shook his head. "I'm done with that. I don't want the way out anymore. I want the risk."
"I want you, and I want the terror of loving somebody I could lose, because the alternative is being safe and alone forever, and I've done safe and alone for 5 years, and it's no way to live." Emily put her hands over his utar. "We're both scared," she said. Marcus agreed. "Good," Emily whispered.
"Let's be scared together. That's the whole thing, right? That's what Dad's been trying to beat into both our thick skulls this whole time. You don't stop being scared. You just stop being scared alone."
And Marcus kissed her right there in the hospital room. And Harold whooped from the bed and immediately regretted it and grabbed his chest, and a nurse came running, and it was chaos and tears and laughter all at once. It was the best moment Marcus had felt in 5 years. Harold's procedure was 2 days later. Marcus took off work, didn't even think twice about it, and sat in the waiting room with Emily and Ava, whom he'd pulled out of school because she'd looked at him with her mother's eyes and said, "He's family, Dad. I'm coming."
And there was no arguing with that. The three of them sat in those hard hospital chairs for 4 hours. Ava fell asleep against Marcus's side around our two. Emily paced and sat and paced again, and Marcus caught her hand every time she passed and held it until she calmed enough to sit back down. "He's going to be fine," Marcus said for maybe the 10th time.
"You don't know that?" "No," Marcus admitted. "I don't, but I know Harold. And I know that man is too stubborn and too nosy to die before he sees how this all turns out. He's got too much matchmaking left to do."