Even so, I ignored my instincts.
I spent most of my life ignoring things that made me uncomfortable.
Then one afternoon, Thomas asked me to sit next to him.
His hand found mine on the blanket.
It felt light and cold.
—Nancy —he said—, I feel terrible asking you this.
Our conversations had become more affectionate as the days went by, but the seriousness in his voice frightened me.
“Ask me.”
“I have loved you all my life.”
Part 2:
My breath caught in my throat.
“I know I don’t have much time left,” he continued. “But there’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing.”
He looked me straight in the eyes.
“Will you marry me?”
For several seconds, the room disappeared.
Fifty-six years of questions, regrets, and imagined possibilities seemed to accumulate between us.
Part of me heard Raymond’s voice warning me that I was being foolish.
But another voice—the voice of the seventeen-year-old girl I had been—told me not to wander off again.