Page 348 of A Matter of Time

I was stunned. “You’re not going to yell at me?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want me to yell at you?”

“No,” I said quickly.

“Okay, so while I was gone, I thought a lot about you and what my life would be like if I had never met you and—what? Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“’Cause you’re really not going to yell at me.”

“Can we get off that, please? I have something to say.”

I put up my hands. “Sorry, go ahead.”

“Okay.”

I waited.

He stared at me.

“Sam?”

“When this is all over, I want us to fly up to Ontario, Canada, with everybody and get married.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I want to marry you. And I know it won’t be legal here—we’ll have a domestic partnership here, and a durable power of attorney for healthcare, for all the medical stuff—but there, we’ll be legal.” He was smiling at me. “I want that with you, if you’ll have me.”

I couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Will you have me?”

“Listen, I love you. I don’t need you to prove anything to me. We don’t need to⁠—”

“Who said anything about proving something? I want to be married. I always have. I wanna wear a ring. I want you to wear a ring. I wanna stand up in front of my family and your family and our friends and make a commitment to you, because I don’t ever plan to leave you, and I want everyone to know that. And I want strangers to see a ring on your finger and know that you’re taken. It’s important to me.”

“I can see that,” I said, because it was all over his face.

“I went down and picked up a domestic partnership agreement, but we gotta both sign it and have it notarized and then we can go on the registry, and God, what?” he asked, exasperated. “Can you stop lookin’ at me like I’m crazy?”

“Sorry. I’m just a bit stunned is all.”

“Why?”

“I never expected this.”

“You’re looking at me like I grew another head.”

“Sam, that domestic partnership agreement and going on the registry is a big⁠—”

“Yeah?”

“Sam, if you do that, then everyone will know that⁠—”

“I know!” He raised his voice. “That’s what I want.”