“Wait,” I said. “Is that new English teacher having you read Marxist and feminist literary theory? In the eleventh grade?”
Willow smiled sheepishly. “No, I’ve just been doing it on my own for a while, dabbling, if you will. Those theorists try their damnedest to wring the romance out of Austen and Eliot, but do you know what? The romance is still there.”
Luka grinned, shook his head, and said, “‘Dabbling, if you will.’”
She elbowed him, and he kissed the side of her head.
“So why do the books end that way?” I asked her.
“Because of this.” The sweep of Willow’s arm took in the entire garden. “Because everyone is here!”
Everyone was.
And everyone was at their best, even Wilson, although even at his best, he was still Wilson.
He did not walk me down the aisle. I did not ask him to. My mother and Marcus did, one on either side of me.
At the reception, Wilson did not end up in a fatherly conversation with Marcus, although I did see him talking to Barbara’s oldest grandchild, who had just finished his freshman year at Brown in neuroscience. At one point, Wilson boomed, “Good man!,” and clapped him on the shoulder.
I spent the evening dancing with my husband, and Wilson did not cut in, which was fine by me. Willow spent the evening dancing with Luka, and Wilson did not cut in there, either, which was even finer.
Trillium spent the evening dancing with Mr. Ransom.
“I think your dad’s in love with Trillium,” I told Ben.
“Who isn’t?” said Ben. “I think Trillium’s in love with my dad.”
“Who isn’t?” I said.
Marcus spent the evening dancing with everyone, especially Ben’s mom, who cut a rug in her electric wheelchair like nobody’s business. When he wasn’t dancing, he talked to Caro, and I’m almost positive he wasn’t even hitting on her.
Of course, everyone was there. I could not have had it any other way, and neither could Ben.
When you say those wedding vows at eighteen, you are committing yourselves—with all that you are and all that you have—to only each other because you are young and wreathed in glory and take up all the space there is.
When you say them at thirty-five, you are signing on for something wider: a whole garden full of people to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, in wheelchairs and sleepwalking and heart attacks, in arrogance and graciousness, stubbornness and forgiveness, stumbling and wisdom, in meanness and in kindness that falls like snow and shines brighter than the Dog Star.
To love and to cherish, yes. Like a tiger. A hurricane. A family. Relentlessly.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am so grateful to the following people:
Jennifer Carlson, wonder-agent, guardian angel, cherished friend;
Jennifer Brehl, my editor, whose honesty and laser-beam brilliance make my writing so much better;
the incredible William Morrow team, especially Liate Stehlik, Tavia Kowalchuk, Kelly O’Connor, Rebecca Lucash, Ashley Marudas, and the ever-dazzling Sharyn Rosenblum;
Kristina de los Santos, Susan Davis, Dan Fertel, and Annie Pilson, for their generous early reading and steadfast faith in my books;
the Fiction Writers Co-Op, writers who cheer each other on, lift each other up, and from whom I have learned so very much;
my family of friends and fellow swim parents;
Finny and Huxley, who are not exactly people but who are true friends all the same, and who abide with me (on my lap, at my feet) during those long, long hours of writing;
my parents, who are far away and also always with me;
Charles and Annabel, my own precious ones, who make me fiercely glad to be living this life and no other;
and David Teague, the smartest man I know, who talks me down and through and sometimes into, and whom I love relentlessly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PHOTO BY TISA DELLA-VOLPE
A New York Times bestselling author and award-winning poet with a PhD in literature and creative writing, MARISA DE LOS SANTOS lives in Wilmington, Delaware, with her family.
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ALSO BY MARISA DE LOS SANTOS
Falling Together
Belong to Me
Love Walked In
CREDITS
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE PRECIOUS ONE. Copyright © 2015 by Marisa de los Santos. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-167089-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-239072-1 (international edition)
EPub Edition March 2015 ISBN: 9780062323804
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