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“ Shut up. We’re in church.”

“It is a barn.”

“It’s a barn with a priest. “

There was a titter from the front row. The officiant, a portly, cheerful woman named Reverend Alma who’d married my parents’ friends for thirty years, coughed and adjusted her stole.

“Shall we begin?” she said.

We began.

I don’t remember the words. I’m sorry. It was very long, and very lovely, and full of things about devotion and patience and the strange courage of loving another person. I remember Reverend Alma smiling at us. I remember Jason sobbing. I remember my mother in the front row, holding Sabine’s hand, and both of them crying so hard it was almost funny.

I remember the vows.

Maksim went first. He had written them himself. He held a small card in his long fingers, and didn’t look at it once.

“Alexander Pendleton,” he said. “I have lived for a very long time.”

Quiet fell over the barn.

“I have seen empires rise and fall. I have buried everyone I ever knew. I have learned a great deal about patience and very little about joy.” A pause. “Then you threw me against a locker, and called me a name, and I discovered that all my knowledge was worthless.”

Someone laughed, softly.

“You taught me to eat. You taught me to laugh. You taught me that a man can be lonely for a thousand years and yet be entirely unprepared for happiness.” His voice shook. “You are loud. You are impatient. You have no idea how to fold a shirt. You are the bravest person I have ever known.

“I promise you this. I will love you when you are angry. I will love you when you are afraid. I will love you when you are sixty, and gray, and complaining about your knees. I will love you after. I will be there in the morning. I will be there in the dark. And if you ever say time apart to me again, I will fly to wherever you are, and I will sit on you. “

I was laughing and crying and could not stop.

“I give you my name,” said Maksim. “I give you my home. I give you the whole of my long life, for as long as you wish to have it. It is not much. It is all I have.”

He slid the ring onto my finger, next to the garnet.

I couldn’t see. My eyes were full. I took a breath, and another, and looked at the card in my hand. I’d written it in the shower, on the back of a shampoo bottle, with a Sharpie. I’d revised it nine times.

I put it in my pocket.

“Maksim Volkov,” I said. “You’re an idiot.”

A ripple went through the crowd.

“You’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met. You hid in a locker room and forgot to lock the door. You bought a sex manual. You color-coded it.” Someone in the back howled. “You sent me fifty words and thought that was a conversation.”

“Lex,” said Maksim, faintly.

“I’m not done.” I swallowed. “You’re the reason I’m not the guy I was. You’re the reason I go to therapy and eat breakfast and tell my mom I love her. You made me want to be someone I could stand. And I don’t know how you did it. I think you just… waited. You waited for me. You did it so well that I forgot I was scared.”

I took his hand.

“I promise I’ll try,” I said. “That’s all I’ve got. I’ll try every day. I’ll try when it’s hard. I’ll try when I want to run. I’ll say the word icing when I need to stop, and yes when I mean it, and I’ll say I love you every morning until you get sick of it.” My voice broke. “And when you get sick of it, I’ll say it again.”

I slid the ring onto his finger.

It was cold. It gleamed. And I watched him look down at it, and then up at me, with a face I’ll never forget: raw, luminous, undone. A man who’d waited a thousand years for a single moment, and was standing inside it.

“By the power vested in me,” said Reverend Alma, sniffling, “by the state of Connecticut and by a great deal of good luck, I now pronounce you husbands. You may kiss.”