"Are you out of your mind? The fruit's right there on the branch and you won't pick it! What kind of game are you playing? By the time you decide you want to get married, she might not want you anymore!"
I let out a quiet laugh.
"What if she's the one who doesn't want to get married? To me?"
My mother went silent for a beat, then her scolding came back twice as fierce.
"Then you clearly did something wrong! Swallow your pride and sweet-talk her. You've spent years building her up from nothing. Don't tell me you're going to walk away with nothing to show for it!"
Eight years with Carrie. She always said the same thing: career first, family later.
But when she finally made it, the family she wanted wasn't with me.
It wasn't that I hadn't tried. Trying just didn't matter.
For eight years, I'd shelved my own dreams to help build hers. When we lived in that basement apartment, she ate instant noodles while I filled up on the broth.
I'd proposed more times than I could count, all for the chance to call her my wife.
She'd gotten pregnant three times without telling me, and three times she'd ended it. I'd swallowed that too.