I clicked the advance button, and the carousel rotated with a loud, mechanical clonk. On the sheet, a bright image of two nineteen-year-olds appeared, sitting on the grassy bank of Reeds Lake under a summer sun that had faded years ago.
“We looked so young,” Samantha said, her fingers stopping their movement on her ring for a brief second. “I forgot we ever took that trip to the pier.”
“That was the summer before I started at the drafting firm,” I said, sitting beside her on the cold wooden bench. “We had seventy-five dollars between us and a car with a broken alternator.”
We ate our pizza in the quiet yard, the hum of the projector the only constant sound against the occasional rustling of the dry leaves. The light from the slide cast our younger faces directly over our shadows on the sheet, blending the past with the present in a strange, glowing overlay.
I watched the slide change to an image of Samantha standing in front of our first apartment, her arms full of cardboard boxes and her hair blowing across her face.
“My father always said that a family legacy is like his gold pocket watch,” I said, my voice dropping as I adjusted my glasses again. “It only runs when it is wound perfectly every single morning. I have kept that watch in my drawer, waiting for the right moment to wind it again.”
Samantha turned her head to look at me, her eyes reflecting the yellow light of the projector lens.
“We spent sixteen years waiting for life to become easier, but I want to start our family now,” I said.
I reached into my coat pocket, my fingers closing around the soft, familiar fabric of the blue velvet box.
“Harry, please,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
She turned pale, the color draining from her cheeks as she pulled her gray cardigan even tighter around her chest, tucking her elbows against her ribs.
“Don’t do this,” she said.
She did not reach for her glass, nor did she look at the table. She simply sat there, staring down at the dry grass under her boots while the vintage projector cast our nineteen-year-old faces onto the cold white sheet in the dark.
