Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
We matched. Perfectly imperfect. Equally deserving of this.
The point I’d made to Sam the previous week kept rattling around in my head—if I deserved love and grace, so did he. I couldn’t call myself undeserving in the same heartbeat where I knew Sam deserved everything wonderful and good. Neither of us needed to be perfect to deserve the other.
I’d been burdened by my perfectionism my whole life, and with Sam, I could finally let it go. I was enough. We both were. My best was good enough for Sam, good enough for me.
And good enough to earn us the support of a whole town.
A town that should have turned its back on me but hadn’t.
And now, a good percentage of the town was here to share in our miracle. I continued to stand in amazement that we’d found our way to each other, that Sam had believed so strongly in me even when I couldn’t believe in myself. And now I believed in us, believed in the course we were on, believed in the family we’d make, the future we’d hold.
“Worth.” Sam breathed as he approached where I stood. I held out my hands as he released his mom’s arm, and he grabbed on like he, too, had knees about to give out. Not with fear or nervousness but rather pure giddy excitement. “We’re really doing this.”
“We are.” I smiled at him, whole heart in my throat.
“Dearly beloved…” Sam’s father began in his familiar baritone voice. He said some wonderful things about love, about Sam, about me, and about the power of family created through bonds of love. But in all honesty, the service was a blur.
The choir sang, “Be Thou My Vision,” as it had at hundreds of other weddings in this very church. The song was appropriate as I had eyes only for Sam. My sole prayer was for a lifetime with Sam. A long lifetime. Good years. Challenges. Crises. Celebrations. Blessings. I wanted it all, and I wanted it with Sam.
Doctor Washington stunned with a love song in a performance worthy of any Hollywood diva. I hadn’t heard the song before, but its message of finding meaning in another person deeply resonated.
Sam was the reason. The reason I was still here. The reason I kept going. And yes, I’d done the work, and I owed a fair bit to modern medicine, but Sam was my reason, the meaning that underscored everything else in this life I was rebuilding.
Then came the vows, and I’d never been quicker to say, “I do.” Sam, however, looked stunned into silence, eyes wide, mouth slack.
I didn’t doubt though. He’d already said yes, and this whole thing seemed inevitable on so many levels. That it would be him who saved me, that it would be him who showed me myself, perhaps for the first time.
“Sam,” I whispered, squeezing his hand tightly. “Your turn.”
The people in the front rows tittered, but I waited.
For Sam.
I’d wait forever for him, but luckily, he didn’t make me wait more than a few long seconds before making a startled noise.
“Oh. Oops. Never done this before.” That got an even bigger laugh from the congregation. “I do. I really do.”
“Good. I do too,” I said even before Sam’s dad prompted us for the rest of the vows.
“And now the rings.”
Heck. As the person who’d proposed, I probably should have handled this, but like Sam, this was all new to me.
“Do we have rings?” I whispered urgently to Sam. “I knew we’d forget something.”
“Buttercup, you’re up.” Sam bent low to retrieve something from the wreath of flowers around Buttercup’s neck. “This one was my grandfather’s.” He slid a plain gold band onto my finger. A little loose, but that was fixable. Perfectly imperfect. Like us.
“I love it.” My voice was as shaky as my hand. “But I don’t have one for you.”
“Yes, you do.” Sam nodded toward his mother, who approached us to press something into my palm.
“Your grandfather,” she signed.
“Mom found it at the estate sale in an envelope of other things of his, like some medals and letters home,” Sam explained. “She always intended to return it to you when you were ready.”
“I’m ready.” I didn’t bother swiping at my tears. “I think I have hazy memories of him. Nice guy, deep voice, smelled like coffee.”
“Winning combo.” Sam laughed as I slid the too-big ring on his hand, and so did everyone else in earshot, so loudly that I almost missed Sam’s dad speaking again.
“You may kiss.”
I hardly needed permission, and neither did Sam, who gave me a very unchurch-like kiss that made my toes curl in my dress shoes.
We were still kissing as Sam’s dad pronounced us husbands and the recessional started playing.
“Come on.” Sam pulled away long enough to take my hand again. “We’ve got a whole future waiting for us. And cake.”