Immediate Family (29 page)

Franny’s eyes filled with tears and she whispered, “How am I supposed to top that?”

The vows she’d written suddenly seemed inadequate. How could words alone express what Jay meant to her or sum up all the experiences they’d shared through the years? All the laughter and the tears; the sentences one of them would start and the other would finish; the long talks that had sometimes gone well into the night; the collective gallons of chicken soup she’d taken him when he was sick and the countless french fries he’d let her cadge off his plate; the chick flicks he’d endured for her sake and the football games she’d sat through with him; the bedcovers he let her hog and the toilet seat he always remembered to put down; the countless times he’d gotten up in the middle of the night with Ruth.

Jay squeezed her hand, whispering back, “You already have.”

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