Lydia had baked them specially so the newlyweds would have something decent to eat after all the running around. Andrew held Marianne on that same sofa where he had sat not long before, overwhelmed and unsure where to look. Then he asked the question that had clearly been bothering him.
“What would you have done if I’d failed your test? If I’d gotten jealous, resentful, or—God forbid—asked you for money? What then?”
Marianne turned in his arms and looked at him with a long, warm gaze. She kissed his temple lightly, the way you kiss someone who is truly yours. “Then you’d be driving back to your side of town alone in that old Polo.”
“And I’d be sitting here with a glass of wine, looking out the window, thinking, ‘Well, at least I found out in time.’ But you didn’t fail, Andrew. You stayed the same decent man who once bought me a hot snack from a little stand.”
“You were the one who sincerely told me I was beautiful without makeup and in that worn-out jacket.” He laughed and pulled her closer, as if he still couldn’t quite believe she was there. “So we’re equals now, right?”
“You make five times what I do. What exactly does that mean for us?” he asked with a smile. Marianne shrugged gracefully and gave him the same smile that still made his knees weak. “It means you make the best soup in the world and can fix a leaky faucet without turning it into a production.”
“It means you always know when I just need to sit quietly with someone beside me. And your mother’s rolls are their own category of happiness. So I’d say things are perfectly fair between us.”
They both laughed then—openly, easily, like two people who had finally been given permission to be exactly who they were.
And almost exactly a year later, they welcomed a baby girl. They named her Sophie after Andrew’s grandmother. Throughout Marianne’s pregnancy, Lydia kept showing up with jars of pickles and homemade soup, fussing in that loving way of hers.
“Eat, sweetheart, eat. You’re feeding two now, so don’t be shy.” The day Marianne came home from the hospital, Lydia was already standing at the apartment door with two oversized bags…
