“It’s yours,” laughed Lendall, happy that Gayle wanted to keep it.

“Thank you.” And Gayle looked at all the love Lendall had given her. There seemed to be even more of it than when she looked at it seconds ago. And she wondered how she could have ever thought that Lendall didn’t love her.

And then Gayle took the ring out of the box. And admired it.

And then neither she nor Lendall quite knew what to do.

Because they had almost broken up. And now Gayle had an engagement ring. Which Lendall realized wasn’t on Gayle’s finger yet. So he did something very traditional. Or—since Lendall and Gayle weren’t very traditional—maybe it was actually quite radical: he got down on one knee, held out his left hand, and motioned for Gayle to place the ring in it. Which she did.

And then he took the ring and held it between his thumb and index finger.

And then he took Gayle’s left hand and held it in his.

And he put the ring on her ring finger.

And said, “Gayle Pulcifer: Will you marry me?”

And Gayle said, “Yes,” through a few tears.

And then Lendall helped his one and only up onto her feet.

And then he hugged her. And said, “I’m sorry,” while he did.

Gayle broke from the hug and looked into Lendall’s eyes. “For what?”

“For getting so quiet.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well…”

“It’s just—when you asked me what I thought about us getting married a couple weeks ago … well, you surprised me. And I just needed to figure some things out. And take care of a few things.”

The main thing Lendall needed to figure out was whether or not he still wanted to get married. He had long since given up on marrying the love of his life. So when Gayle asked him what he thought about getting married the Saturday before last, he was completely taken aback, and it took him a second to figure out what he thought about it—but only a second, because he had been wanting to marry Gayle pretty much since the day he had met her on a snowmobile excursion to Quebec City almost eleven years ago.

And once he had figured out what he thought about them getting married, he realized that he needed to take care of a few things—like meet up with Gayle’s dad and ask for his blessing. And call Gayle’s mom (she lived in Connecticut) and ask for her blessing.

And then he needed to get her a ring.

And then he needed to decide when he was going to give it to her.

But he didn’t tell Gayle what all he had needed to figure out or what all he had needed to take care of after he proposed to her on the night when all the extraordinary things did or didn’t happen. He could tell her all that another time. So instead he said, “And you know that I get quiet when I need to figure things out and when I have things I need to take care of.”