Marry Me?

Misremember.

She stood in those soft pants, oversized sweater, fluffy slippers. Inscrutable. At least for tonight, you forced onto the calamity. Her slender hand was limp and precious in your beseeching, testing ones. Her hand was cold, though yours were colder. You kneeled in her dark lobby, your backpack strewn beside you. You wore a wet, gifted coat; your hair was wet too. She said nothing and came closer until your face pressed against fragrant, warm wool. Her fingers were through your hair, grace on your scalp, unbothered by Antwerp’s rain soaking it. She was gentle, as she always had been, right?

Antosha.

Before I go. Your eyes closed—remained closed. Things welled up in the delirium. You trembled and selfishly grasped her insubstantial form.

I will.

You hugged tighter, then released. You reached into your breast pocket and felt for the cloth. Out it came, velvet and pink, and from within tumbled gold. Between the rustles you think you could hear her halting breath but did not look. Her hand was still limp as you took hold of it once more, and, with correct finger confirmed, on went the gold. Slight. A touch ill-fitting and loose. You stood transformed. Husband, then.

The rain, it—

It’s okay, said your wife, though it wasn’t. She accepted your embrace, the grave kiss to her temple.

Shoulder against the wall, you processed the dark until finally the door opened with light and out she came, cloaked as you. She walked briskly past, and you managed to stop the lobby door before it swung shut. You were both out on Kammenstraat—misted by rain’s remains. You caught up to her. She led, though slowed her pace and allowed you to hold her hand.

When is your train? Her breath plumed in the cold.

23:00. Where are we going? Ida? That she could hear you was clear. You no longer insisted on an answer—were resigned to be led. The direction seemed to be toward the grand cathedral.

So you don’t have a lot of time left. Will you take an Uber to the station?

Yeah. I think.

She pulled at you to rush across a road, to keep you from harm’s way. Your wife’s eyes were determined and fixed forward, while you could hardly look away from her. Scatterbrained. Spring and summery remember-whens came to mind, though you dared not voice them. The cathedral before you sprawled upward, carved from night in streaks of golden light. Ornate stood the cathedral’s tower; untwinned. You, newlyweds, turned left toward the river Scheldt.

You should order it now. You’ll be late.

Ida, stop. Wait a second, just a moment. You let go of her hand, hoping to compel reckoning, though she continued. Ida… To stand and test her was useless, so you conceded. You jogged to her, and she accepted your hand anew. You spoke once more. I wanted us to talk, not just walk like this.

Your wife let go of your hand this time and you noticed her adjusting the ring, lest it slip. She turned off the sidewalk toward the black pier and its viscous chill, familiar from two years prior. There she stood, relented, and looked at you, dear husband. Antosha, please order the Uber. You can’t miss the plane.

You stood still before her and forgot yourself when she reached for your pocket, your phone. You intercepted your wife’s skeletal hand. It was bone-freezing. Okay, okay.

She was by the railing then, where beyond crawled the flat, shimmering mass of the Scheldt. You’ve never been on the other side. You took off your backpack and approached to hold her from behind, one hand going into her coat, palm to abdomen. You could not smell her lovely hair; much too cold. The driver’s on the way. But I can get a different flight later. God, Idachka, you’ll catch a cold, we should go home.

Anton, I fear there's something inside me you don't like, she said, unforgettably.

You stood silent a while longer, tracing it.

Your wife stirred then, hugged fiercely, like before, and the ring was pressed into your palm, dispelling husband and wife. As Ida handed it, she uttered here with the weakness of breakage and the power of you were, and would have been, my all, and you knew forevermore that no word would be spoken with greater sorrow. Footsteps sounded her escape from the pier, and she became unchaseable. You, the dread, did not yet recover; you roiled in the pose of emptied embrace with weighted hand. The Scheldt flowed before you and its mercy took the ring. A car horn blared, blared in the night.

Dream it happened this way. This way, in lieu of the unexpectedly final hour in the airport, where her eyes shone with tears and your face remained dry to project strength; where between your disengaging hug stretched brittle hope for a future, to flake, then break, from afar; where beastly grief tore into each, ravenous, devouring in despair and out of sync. And in the fitting Scheldt’s stead, another, less deserving river took a forlorn ring.

No, it really did happen this way, you will come to learn, over days, weeks, and years. A slow insistence; expunge and replace, overwrite and embrace. Reread, retrace. This way, and no other, because nothing else would make sense, in any case.

So, remember the way you asked her, the way you definitely kneeled and asked her:

Ida, will you…