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“Yeah,” she said. “I want to marry you. I’ve always wanted to marry you. I just . . . it never occurred to me that we could. That we didn’t need anyone’s approval.”
“We don’t,” I said.
“Then I do.”
I laughed and sat up in our bed. I turned on the light on my nightstand. Celia sat up, too. We faced each other and held hands.
“I think you should probably perform the ceremony,” she said.
“I suppose I have been in more weddings,” I joked.
She laughed, and I laughed with her. We were in our midfifties, giddy at the idea of finally doing what we should have done years ago.
“OK,” I said. “No more laughing. We’re gonna do it.”
“OK,” she said, smiling. “I’m ready.”
I breathed in. I looked at her. She had crow’s-feet around her eyes. She had laugh lines around her mouth. Her hair was mussed from the pillow. She was wearing an old New York Giants T-shirt with a hole in the shoulder. Convention be damned, she never looked more beautiful.
“Dearly beloved,” I said. “I suppose that’s just us.”
“OK,” Celia said. “I follow.”
“We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of . . . us.”
“Great.”
“Two people who come together to spend the rest of their lives with each other.”
“Agreed.”
“Do you, Celia, take me, Evelyn, to be your wedded wife? In sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, till death do us part, as long as we both shall live?”
She smiled at me. “I do.”
“And do I, Evelyn, take you, Celia, to be my wedded wife? In sickness and in health and all the other stuff? I do.” I realized there was a slight hiccup. “Wait, we don’t have rings.”
Celia looked around for something that might suffice. Without taking my hands from her, I checked the nightstand.
“Here,” Celia said, taking the hair tie from her head.
I laughed and took mine out of my ponytail.
“OK,” I said. “Celia, repeat after me. Evelyn, take this ring as a symbol of my never-ending love.”
“Evelyn, take this ring as a symbol of my never-ending love.”
Celia took the hair tie and wrapped it around my ring finger three times.
“Say, With this ring, I thee wed.”
“With this ring, I thee wed.”
“OK. Now I do it. Celia, take this ring as a symbol of my never-ending love. With this ring, I thee wed.” I put my hair tie on her finger. “Oh, I forgot vows. Should we do vows?”
“We can,” she said. “If you want to.”
“OK,” I said. “You think of what you want to say. I’ll think, too.”
