I laughed. “I love you,” I said. “Don’t ever leave me.” But when she said, “I love you, too. I never will,” we both knew she was making a promise she couldn’t keep. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing her again, losing her in a deeper way than I'd ever lost her before. I couldn’t bear the idea that I would be forever without her, with no tie to her. “Will you marry me?” I said. She laughed, and I stopped her. “Tm not kidding! I want to marry you. For once and for all. Don’t I deserve that? Seven marriages in, shouldn’t I finally get to marry the love of my life?” “T don’t think it works that way, sweetheart,” she said. “And need I remind you, I’d be stealing my brother’s wife.” “T’m serious, Celia.” “So am I, Evelyn. There’s no way for us to marry.” “All a marriage is is a promise.” “If you say so,” she said. “You're the expert.” “Let’s get married right here and now. Me and you. In this bed. You don’t even have to put on a white nightgown.” “What are you talking about?” “Tm talking about a spiritual promise, between the two of us, for the rest of our lives.” When Celia didn’t say anything, I knew that she was thinking about it. She was thinking about whether it could mean anything, the two of us there in that bed. “Here’s what we will do,” I said, trying to convince her. “We will look each other in the eye, and we will hold hands, and we will say what’s in our hearts, and we will promise to be there for each other. We don’t need any government documents or witnesses or religious approval. It doesn’t matter that I’m already legally married, because we both know that when I was marrying Robert, I was doing it to be with you. We don’t need anybody else’s rules. We just need each other.” She was quiet. She sighed. And then she said, “OK. I’m in.”