The Question

When Tom and I came back from our search for the woman who had been peering in the second-floor window, I found Mary asleep on the sofa in the living room, her head in Shirley’s lap. Shirley watched Tom climb the stairs, cross the loft, and vanish into the boys’ room.

“What’s up with him?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I stared down at Mary’s dark hair, spread as it was on Shirley’s lap. It was hypnotic, the movement Shirley’s fingers made through the dark strands, the way she started close to the scalp and moved ever so smoothly outward.

“Will you sit here with her for a little bit?” she asked. “I’m so tired.” She yawned to prove her point, then smiled.

“Go ahead,” I said. “We’ll be okay. I’ll make sure she gets to bed soon.”

Shirley slid out from under Mary the way a mother eases herself from a child’s bed, and I took her place, Mary’s head now on my lap. I took her in, didn’t even notice Shirley making her own way to bed. All I could see was Mary.

Have you ever examined someone so closely that you see their pores, the particular designs in their skin, the path of a single hair, the tiny wrinkles in their eyelids that make blinking possible, or the bundles of skin that form their lips? I watched Mary that way. What did she want out of life? What did she dream about? Who was this woman she kept seeing? I wished she would leave Mary alone. We had this whole future spread out in front of us, and it felt like this woman might be the only thing in the way.

Mary’s eyes slid open, and it was in that moment that I knew something.

There was a small twist tie from one of our bread bags. I took it and wrapped it around one of my fingers, making the most insignificant of rings.

“Mary,” I said. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, and her face was innocent, like a small child’s.

“Do you want to talk about what you saw?”

She shook her head this time.

“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay.” I stroked her hair, not the way I had seen Shirley doing it, like a comb, but smoothing it, pushing the small strands behind her ears. She closed her eyes, relaxed.

“Mary?”

She opened her eyes again.

“I don’t ever want to leave you.”

She smiled faintly.

“I mean it,” I said. “I don’t ever want to leave you. When I heard you screaming, I knew I always wanted to be close enough to help. Close enough to come running.”

Her eyes glazed over with tears, but none ran down her cheeks. “Oh, Paul,” she said, taking my hand.

“I’m serious, Mary. I always want to be with you. Would you marry me?” I held up the small wire ring, and she giggled.

“Paul!” she said, emotion in her voice, her eyes searching mine to see if I was serious.