Maybe it was the clothes, maybe it was because it was Christmas, or maybe it was because Frank was sick of doing things the proper way, but he picked up a flowerpot from the porch and threw it through the glass of the door, then reached inside and opened the lock.
“Get out!” Miranda said when he was inside. “Or I’ll call the police.”
He caught her before she reached the telephone. He was sure there were words he should say, but he couldn’t think of them. All he could think of was how glad he was to see her again. He grabbed her in his arms and kissed her. When he stopped and she started to speak, he kissed her again.
When he stopped kissing her, Miranda was leaning against him, her full weight borne by him. “Now listen to me, Miranda Stowe, I may not know how to be a hero out of a book, but I know that I love you.”
“Our lives . . .” she whispered.
“I know,” Frank said, “but if you’d read my letters, you’d know how hard I’ve worked to change things so we’re more alike.”
“Are you referring to my boring, middle-class life?”
“Yes,” he said. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her. “I am going back to who I am, to my family. I realized that what I want is what I once had.”
“I heard what Julian said.” It was hard to think with his arms around her. “I don’t fit in your life. I doubt if they make designer ball gowns in a size twelve.”
Frank laughed. “I have missed you. When Eli—”
This time, she did pull away from him. “You and Eli again did this?”
“Mom!” Eli said as he jumped up. “He loves you, he told me so.”
“I don’t think this—”
Frank caught her hand. “I want you to listen to me. I love you and I love Eli, and I have for a long time. I may not be any good at being a father or a husband, but I’ll do my best and that’s all I can promise. And I—”
Suddenly all the bravado left him, and he held her hand. There were tears in his eyes. “Marry me, Miranda. Please, please marry me. I’m sorry for how I acted when I first met you. Sorry for what I said later. The truth is that I thought I could forget you, that maybe it was all due to the moonlight and the trees and your strawberry pancakes.”
“What was it?”
“You made me see what I was missing and what I truly wanted.”
Before Miranda could say a word, Eli yelled, “Yes! Yes, she’ll marry you. Yes, yes, yes.”
“I can’t—” Miranda began, but Eli, behind her back, started kissing the back of his own hand. Frank was so fascinated with this pantomime that he almost didn’t understand what the boy was trying to tell him to do. He took the boy’s suggestion and didn’t let Miranda say another word but kissed her again. “Think of your son,” he said.
“But I’m not sure this could work between us. Our lives are so different.”
He kissed her again. “I’m changing mine and I love you. Don’t you love me some?”
Miranda smiled. “Yes, I do. You don’t deserve it, but I do.” She leaned back away from him. “What about Julian? You weren’t very nice to him.”
“I think that was my first taste of jealousy. You smiled at him too much. He was bored to death after weeks without me, so I hired him back at half again his salary. But now he likes me even less than he did. Miranda, please marry me.”
At that moment a siren went off in the next block and scared the horse, which ran inside the house for safety. It collided with Frank, Miranda, and Eli, who all tumbled into a startled heap on the couch.
“Stupid animal,” Frank muttered as the horse nudged his pockets, looking for apples.
“Whose idea was the horse?” Miranda asked.
“Mine,” the two males said in unison.
And it was that unison that made Miranda know what to do. From the beginning Frank had reminded her of someone, and now she knew who it was: Eli.
“Yes,” she said, her arms going around his neck. “But I think I should tell you that I’m going to have a baby.”
“Oh,” Frank said. The horse was pushing at him.