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“You. Right here. Singing while you were baking. Or putting your feet up and relaxing with a cup of tea. You, out there, on a Sunday, surrounded by people you love. Being loud.” He pauses. “I’ve never wanted that in my life, Galana. Not once. Not a house, not a family. I didn’t think I was built for it.”

“And now?”

“Now I want all of it. As long as it’s with you.”

I can’t speak. I just look up at him, at that hard, serious face, at the gray eyes that never stop watching. They’re watching me now like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing.

“You said you didn’t know if you wanted a dog,” I whisper.

“I don’t.”

“We’d have to have a dog.”

The corner of his mouth moves. “Then we’ll have a dog,” he says.

I turn back to the window. I look at the bare terrace, the oak tree, the smooth place on the branch where the swing used to hang. And for the first time since Viktor read my name out in this office, I don’t feel like I’m being handed to someone.

I feel like I’m being handed something.

Papa left me a husband in his will, the way he left Arina his business and Milana his car. A thing to be signed for. A condition to be met.

But standing in this empty kitchen, with Caleb’s hands on my shoulders, I start to think he might have left me something else.

The thing I’ve wanted most for my whole life, and never once dared to ask for.

CALEB

Iasked her in that kitchen, with the plastic curls from the range knobs still on the counter beside her.

I’d been carrying the ring since Monday. I bought it on the way back from Ivor’s, from a jeweler on Oak Street who know what I meant when I described what I was looking for. A single oval diamond on a plain gold band, small enough not to catch on a mixing bowl.

I didn’t get down on one knee. She’d have hated that.

I just took it out of my pocket and held it out on my palm between us, and I said, “Marry me. Not because of the deadline. Not because of your father. Marry me because I’m asking.”

She looked at the ring for a long time. Then she looked up at me.

“Ask me again,” she said. “Properly. With my name.”

“Galana Maximova. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said.

She chooses the chapel at St. Nicholas.

It’s small and old, with a gold dome that needs repainting. The pews are polished smooth by eighty years of widows. She’s cooked lunch in the hall next door every Tuesday for five years, and the priest, Father Iestyn, has known her since she was baptized.

“He’ll do it tomorrow,” she tells me. “If we can get the license.”

“Tomorrow.”

“You said you didn’t want to wait.” A pause. “Was that a lie?”

“No.”

“Then tomorrow,” she says, and kisses me.

So it’s tomorrow. Friday, the fourteenth day after the funeral and the sixth after meeting me. I pull several strings, including calling Ivor for the family lawyers details, and he spends ten whole minutes laughing between giving me the information. We manage to complete the license eight minutes before the courthouse closes.