The Woman I Love (TWIL) had been traveling on business for five days (Switzerland) and planned a day off on the Friday after she returned. I love it when she goes away. I relish the run of the house. And I missed her. It's always like that.
We got up late on that Friday and sloped over to her favorite place to eat her favorite meal. Joseph's is a family restaurant, which is to say, families love it because it makes no demands on your wardrobe or ego. And the pancakes are great.
"What's that?" says TWIL, asking about the box I'm carrying in a shopping bag.
"You always bring me something when you travel," I say. "It's just a surprise I found for you while you were away."
And she buys it; she trusts me. That's one of the reasons we've gotten this far together. Last year I spent ten months working in Baton Rouge. I thought I'd be away four days a week for about four months. The absence was unwelcome; the interesting work wasn't. But the gig stretched, and as it did, the travel began to shred my nerves. We made twice-monthly visits. I couldn't bear the longing and leaving. She suffered silently for the most part. We talked every other day, at least, and traded email. But I'm not a stone, even though that's the view in some quarters because of my lifelong distaste for marriage. But a long steamy summer and two fast flights from hurricanes changed my chemistry fundamentally.
Joseph's is dark with paneling, but the curtains printed with coffee pots were bright that morning. TWIL opened the box and found a smaller box inside. Then she popped the question.
"You got me jewelry?"
Of course she was surprised. Two years ago, TWIL began working for an Austrian crystal company that sells, among other things, jewelry. She's a brand supporter, fashion fan, and bargain hunter, so rings and necklaces have flowed into our house as they once did into Grace Kelly's Monaco mansion. I gave up giving jewelry. She opened the little box to find an antique topaz set on pink gold that my father had given my mother before they were married. It's uncertain provenance stretches back two more generations in our family.
"Oh, it's beautiful!" she says, and puts it onto her right ring finger. "Is it supposed to mean something?"
"Yes. It's on the wrong hand," I say. She looks at me. She traded the ring to her left hand. She looked at me. The coffee in my stomach splashed over painfully, my eyes bugged out, my didn't heart rate spiked. She didn't.... She doesn't...! Oh, my god! She doesn't get it.
"Oh, for God's sake, will you marry me!" Right here, emotion clouds memory. She said yes. For sure. She said she couldn't believe it. I must have, should have, said something like that, because I felt as good as I had hoped. For weeks, I'd been trying to decide when and how to ask. I could have waited six weeks until our self-declared August anniversary. But the thought of asking TWIL to marry me made me so happy that I didn't want to wait anymore. We both cried a little and kissed.
"Is it someone's birthday?" the waitress asked.
"He just asked me to marry him," TWIL said.
"Awwwww. Really? Congratulations!" she said, and looked for the ring.
"It's a family ring," TWIL said, to head off the "that's it?" eye.
"Awwww. Did you meet here?" she asked, pouring coffee.
"No, we just love the breakfast."
The waitress congratulated us again and went back to the kitchen. And then a cry of, "Awwwww, really! That's so sweet." from the kitchen.
