The ring arrived the next morning.
Not a ring box placed dramatically on a table. Not a kneeling proposal with candles and orchestrated witnesses. That was not how Dante Romano did things.
What happened was that I woke up at six to Charlotte's early morning sounds — the specific pre-cry communication of someone who had decided that six AM was a reasonable time to demand breakfast — and I fed her and sat in the nursing chair in the botanical green nursery with the Miami morning coming through the curtains and when I came back to the bedroom Dante was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed with a small box in his hand.
He looked at me.
I looked at the box.
"I had it made three weeks ago," he said. "I was waiting for the right moment."
"Three weeks ago," I said. "Charlotte was three w
