Eric took Tami to the campus lake, which was coated in a tapestry of red and gold leaves. They had on their college sweatshirts, and Eric's arm was draped around her shoulders, his crutches tossed to one side, as the orange red hues dissolved into the water. He wanted to row her out in the middle of the lake, he told her later, but he figured he couldn't do it with the bum knee.

When Eric started fishing in his pocket, the soft starlight had begun to filter down through the tree branches. He held out the ring to her. "It was my mother's," he said. "I hope it's okay. I can buy you a new one someday, but I thought maybe we could use this for a few years, use the money I've saved up for tuition instead…so we don't have to start our life with so much debt."

"It's beautiful," she said. "But do you have a question for me?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry. I'd get down on one knee, but…my one knee's kind of shot and if I kneel on the other one I've still got to bend this one."

She laughed lightly. "That's okay."

"So…then…Will you marry me?" He took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. "If we get married in July, we can get married student housing starting in August, be together our senior year. Save some money."

"You know, I haven't actually said yes yet."

"Oh."

"You're awfully sure of yourself," Tami teased.

"I…uh…please?"

"Well, since you said please…I suppose I can't say no."

She loved his smile, the modest joy it expressed, that adorable look that said, "I'm happy, but I'm still not quite sure if I deserve to be. God, I hope this feeling lasts." She leaned in and kissed him. He reached around her and put a light hand on the back of her head, gently urging her into a deeper kiss.

When their lips parted, they sat leaning their foreheads against one another, his hands on either side of her head, submerged in her hair, her hands on his hips. "Let's not wait," she said.

He pulled a short distance away to search her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Let's just elope during winter break. I want to go to bed with you. I want to wake up with you. I don't want to sneak around the campus to have sex. I don't want to have it in your bedroom with Jake two doors down. I want to be able to have it on the kitchen counter if I want to."

He grinned.

"Not that I particularly want to. But if I want to."

"Okay, but…elope? I mean, it's only September. Winter break is still three months away. That's enough time to plan a wedding."

"I don't want a formal wedding."

"I…I thought every girl planned her wedding from the time she was ten."

Tami rolled her eyes. "Do I strike you as a conventional sort of girl?"

"Tami," he said deliberately, his hand on her shoulder, looking in her eyes, "you're more conventional than you think. We're having a formal wedding. You're gonna regret it one day if we don't. I know you a little bit by now."

She sighed. "But then my mom's going to want to be all involved and it's going to drive me crazy!"

"Well…you know…if we do winter…we rush it…you'll only have to endure her meddling for three months. It can be small, we'll keep it small – "

"Eric, you want a formal wedding. Don't you?"

"I, uh…" He laughs. "Well, I haven't been planning it since I was ten, or anything, but I always thought I'd get married in a church, you, know, before God and witnesses and…it's a big commitment. I mean it to be a lifelong commitment. I kind of want to make a point of it. And…I'd kind of like to see you in a wedding dress." She smiles. "We don't have to spend a lot. We can keep it small. And, uh…Shelley's gonna pitch a fit if we elope and she doesn't get to be your maid of honor."

"Okay. We'll do it. New Year's wedding? Then probably not a lot of people will come and we can definitely keep it small. And maybe we can do a honeymoon later, on summer vacation, after we save up a little money."

Mrs. Hayes was thrilled when Tami told her. "I'm so glad you're marrying a good Christian boy," she said. In fact, Eric could do no wrong in his mother-in-law's eyes, at least until that third Thanksgiving after they were married, when Tami's mom insulted Tami right in front of him, dropped some biting innuendo about her promiscuous past, and Eric scraped his chair back against the tile floor, stood up, and said, "I will not hear my wife spoken to like that in my presence ever again."

Eric's dad was less enamored by the announcement. He'd given Eric that ring after his mother died with the assumption he was going to use it to propose to Nicole. Mr. Taylor said, "If you're busy being married, how are you going to concentrate on getting past this injury and getting back on that field your senior year?" When Eric told him there was no way he was going to be able to get back on that field, that he was planning to coach instead of being a player, his father shook his head. His senior year, when Eric called to tell his Dad the TMU coach was letting him shadow him and even making him an "honorary assistant coach," his father told him he could have gone pro if he had just gotten back on that field, if only he had "pushed past it," if only he hadn't been such a quitter. Those were the exact words Eric's father had used, "If you hadn't been such a quitter."

Eric didn't speak to his father for a long time after that. Tami didn't quite understand Eric's silence. She understood what a jerk Eric's father had been to him, and how much his betrayal of Eric's mother had hurt him. But she didn't understand not talking to your father at all, especially if your father kept calling. Eric's father had been too critical a man, had pushed Eric too hard, but at least he had been there. He hadn't simply checked out.

Three months before Julie was born, Tami talked Eric into calling up his dad to let him know he was about to be a grandfather. Eric was glad she had because, to his surprise, the man said he was sorry for all the bitterness that had passed between them, that he was proud of his son, that even though Eric hadn't made it to the NFL, he'd accomplished the most important thing a man could accomplish - he'd honestly provided for his family. It was, Eric told Tami, the third time his father had ever said he was sorry, but the very first he could ever remember the man saying he was proud of him.

After that, they kept in touch, with brief monthly phone calls, and Eric's dad sent his granddaughters gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. That was the extent of their relationship. Tami knew Eric sometimes regretted the hatred he had once nursed for his father, regretted that they hadn't been closer, that Julie and Gracie had never had a grandparent as a regular and involved part of their lives. Yet it was probably for the best, Tami realized. The man's years of criticism had done a number on Eric, had ripped a hole in his self-confidence that Tami would spend years trying to fill. What if he turned that same criticism on the girls?

Eric and Tami spared their daughters their own parents, built their own secure nuclear nest away from Tami's mom and Eric's dad. They vowed to raise their children differently and prayed that their girls showed them more mercy than they had shown their own parents.

"Because we'll still probably screw them up," Eric said one day as he sat on the couch with an infant tucked up in one arm like a football. "No matter how hard we try, we'll still screw them up."

Tami settled her head against her husband's shoulder and kissed his cheek. "Yes, but at least we'll do it in a completely different way than our parents did."

And they laughed, and looked into each other's twinkling eyes, and were glad not to have to pretend.

THE END