“Yes,” Susan said.
We lay quietly together in the stillness of the bedroom, listening to Pearl work on her chew toy.
“Aren’t there supposed to be strings playing softly in the background,” I said, “while we lie here together?”
“Pretend,” Susan said.
I nodded, and closed my eyes and was quiet.
After a while I said, “It’s not working. It sounds like Pearl gnawing on a bully stick.”
“Won’t that do?” Susan said.
“Yes,” I said. “It will.”
I had my arm around her shoulder. She had her head against my neck.
“Postcoital languor,” she said, “is almost as good as inducing it.”
“Almost,” I said.
We were quiet. Pearl chewed. I could feel Susan’s chest move as she breathed.
“I wonder if we should get married,” Susan said.
After a moment I said, “Didn’t we already try that?”
“No,” she said. “We tried living together. Which was something of a disappointment.”
“True,” I said.
“But we didn’t try marriage.”
“I gather you don’t see marriage as requiring cohabitation?”
I said.
“No.”
“It is often the case,” I said.
“I know.”
“So we’d continue to live as we do,” I said.
“I guess,” she said.
“But we’d be married,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And the advantage of that is . . . ?”
She rubbed her head a little against the place where my neck joined my shoulder.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought we might discuss it, see what we thought.”
I was quiet. Pearl had finished her bully stick and was having a post-prandial nap. The room was very quiet.
“People of our generation,” I said, “who feel about each other the way we feel, usually get married.”
“Yes,” Susan said.
“Would it make you happier?” I said.
“No . . .”
“But?”
“I guess I would feel somehow more . . . complete,” she said.
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe I would, too.”
We were quiet. My arm was around Susan. I rubbed her shoulder.
She said, “There are no rules, you know.”
“I know.”
“Regardless of how we arrange it,” Susan said, “we will love each other at least until we die.”
“I know.”
“So if we marry or if we don’t, it will not change who we are and what we feel.”
“I know.”
“But . . . ?”
“But there’s something or other ceremonial in marriage that somehow or other matters,” I said.
“I knew you’d get it,” she said.
“If we decide to do it,” I said, “there ought to be an interesting group at the reception.”
