I wiped my eyes.
Then came the part I did not understand.
That is why I asked you to marry me.
I leaned closer.
Not because I wanted to correct 1970.
We cannot.
Not because you were supposed to be my wife instead of Joan. You weren’t. Joan was my wife, and Harold was your husband, and the lives we built with them were not mistakes made while waiting for each other.
I had to stop again.
Walter always did know exactly where I would be angry.
Then:
I asked because there was one choice taken from us when we were nineteen.
Before I died, I wanted to ask again.
This time with nobody standing on a porch between us.
My hand covered my mouth.
I needed to know that whatever your answer was—yes or no—it would finally be yours.
That was why.
Not money.
Not inheritance.
Not a legal trick.
