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This morning, I told Hazel I wanted to be with her for a long, long time.
The truth is, I want to be with her for the rest of my life.
I want to marry her. I want to start a family with her.
I’m sure of that, in the same way Brett was sure when he dated Corinne. I remember being in my late teens when he told me about his plan to propose. He’d just hit twenty at the time. We were out in his motorboat on the only lake in Moab. The man-made reservoir was higher than usual, and the water pushed us up against a dam of rocks.
He was getting all worked up about how close we were to the rocks. I remember telling him to chill out and that he could repair it if it got a little knocked up. “It’d just cost a couple hundred,” I told him.
“I don’t have a couple hundred,” he fired back.
“What are you talking about, dude?” I asked him. “You have savings. I know you do. You scrimp every penny.”
“I spent it all. On a ring.”
I knew what he was talking about that instant. The only ring my brother would spend his entire savings account on was an engagement ring. I remember protesting, with something about how he was young, and he couldn’t know for sure Corinne was ‘the one.’
“When you know, you know,” he said. He cracked a big grin at me, then jumped out of the boat even though he was in long Carhartts. He saved the boat from bumping up against the jagged rocks, and the next day, he proposed to Corinne.
When you know, you know.
For a long time, I thought that was his own deal. His own unique destiny.
But now, I get to have that feeling.
It’s incredible, this certainty.
I know that Hazel is the woman for me. I can feel it in my bones, and in my heart, and in every cell of my body.
Once she's back on her feet, she aims her cell phone at the sea turtle pair and snaps a photo. “For Ophelia and Jasmine,” she says with a smile.
Her arms circle my waist, and she lays her head on my chest. Around us, people are clapping and urging the turtles on. An elderly woman plays an actual tune on the penny whistle, and a teenage boy beside her improvises on the drum.
Everyone’s so happy.
So excited.
These turtles are getting quite the sendoff.
“They’re gonna love that,” I tell her.
“Look at how different Chester looks out here on the sand,” Hazel says.
I watch the turtle swipe at the sand so he can scoot forward. “He does look different now that he’s moved out of the cozy lagoon.”
“Good luck, Chester!” Hazel tells him as he inches past.
“Thanks for everything, buddy,” I add.
Chester swivels his head toward us. He does that bobby nod of his, though it’s probably more about his efforts to move than acknowledging us.
It’s cool, though, to see him nod like that. It's almost like he’s thanking us, too.
I mean, Hazel did give him a lot of carrots.
I snuggle Hazel closer to me. We fit perfectly together when we stand like this. I love the feel of her cheek resting against the fabric of my shirt, right over my beating heart.
Hazel and I took a while to find each other. We needed to go through all the lessons we had to learn to get to where we are in our lives.
