“I do have time. It’s here. It’s happening, and I know it. What else do we get? I’ll die, yes, but I’ll die knowing I finally did learn how to love one person. You know why? Because you’ve shown me what to love in a person. That’ll be the most important thing, what you’ve given me. I mean, I look at you and I just … Oh, Myra, don’t you know that you have so much to offer someone? Can’t you believe me? Goddamn it, will you just believe me?”

It takes a long time; the water is wide, but finally, in a voice that does not sound like my own, I say, “I believe you.”

“Ah. Thank you.” He kisses my forehead. “You know what I think? I think we met up with each other again so that we could help each other. If I were going to live, Myra, I would ask you to marry me.”

I laugh.

“I would!”

“Well, it’s easy to say that now.”

“It’s not that easy, actually. But it’s true.” He gets up off the bench and kneels before me. “What the hell. Myra Lipinski, I love you. And your little dog, too. Will you marry me?”

I say nothing. My throat aches. “Don’t. This isn’t funny.”

He stops smiling, reaches out, and puts his hand to the side of my face. “Myra,” he whispers. “Say yes.”

The night air is so soft around us. The trees look like lace. You can hear the water from the fountain, the small irregularities in the flow. I think, Don’t ever let me forget one thing about this moment. And then I say yes.

He stands. “All right. And now, as is the custom, I’m going to present you with a big rock.”

He starts off down the path.

“Chip.”

“Stay there,” he says. And then, bending over, “Here’s a good one.”

He comes back and hands me a rock—a small, round, smooth one. I lay it over my left ring finger. “Beautiful.”

He sits on the bench next to me again, puts his arm around me. Pointing up to the sky, he says, “Look at that. Look how bright.”

I locate the star he’s pointing to. “I wonder how far away it is.”

“Well, Arcturus, which is a bright star, is 36 light-years away, if I remember correctly. That’s 216 trillion miles. But we can actually see stars that are 10,000 light-years away.” He looks over at me, smiles.