Chapter 41
He did not propose on a rooftop with a ring hidden in a dessert. He was not built for that kind of theater, and Nia would have been suspicious of any evening that was too deliberately composed.
He proposed on a Sunday morning, in the kitchen of the apartment they had started spending most of their time in which was technically his but had gradually accumulated evidence of her: books and drawing tubes and a jar of particular coffee from a market she liked.
He made breakfast. She was at the table with her laptop and her notebook, working on the Trench Town proposal, the particular focused quiet of someone deep in a problem. He put coffee in front of her and sat down across from her and waited until she looked up.
'What?' she said.
'I want to ask you something.'
She closed the laptop. She looked at him with the full precision of her attention, which was the thing about Nia that he had loved from the beginning: when she looked at you, she was completely present.
'I know we haven't talked about this formally,' he said. 'And I know you have views about formal things, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't. But I need to say something that is true and ask a question that matters.'
She waited.
'I love you,' he said. 'I love who you are and how you think and the fact that you are wrong about pimento berries and right about almost everything else. I love that you came back when you could have stayed away. I love that you see what other people miss. I want to build something with you. A proper life. Here, in this city, together. And I want to know if you want that too.'
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: 'Is that a proposal?'
'Yes.'
'Without a ring.'
'I have a ring,' he said. He produced it from his pocket simple, gold, not elaborate, something he had chosen with his mother's help and that was exactly what Nia would want. 'But I wanted to ask first. Because you're someone you ask before you present.'
She looked at the ring.
Then she looked at him.
'Yes,' she said. 'Obviously yes.'
He told his mother by sitting down across from her at the small table by the window and saying: 'Nia said yes.'
She set down her needle and thread and folded her hands on the table and looked at him with that unguarded smile that changed her whole face.
'Good,' she said.
He called Leroy from the doorway.
'I heard,' Leroy said, before Marcus could speak.
'How could you have heard? I just'
'I just know,' Leroy said. 'It's done, isn't it?'
'It's done,' Marcus said.
Leroy made a sound that was pure, uncomplicated joy.
'About time,' he said. 'About time.