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Abe and I walked through the tall redwoods of Muir Woods. After the cold dreariness of New York, these bright skies and balmy winds were soothing. We’d escaped our families that afternoon and driven across the Golden Gate Bridge, the mist curling around us like the friendly spirit of my childhood.
The roads to Muir Woods wound and wended, and I’d been scared in the past of driving too quickly and making the long plunge to our deaths down below, but it didn’t bother me this time.
We parked at the National Monument in the shade of century-old growth. Back in New York, it was far below freezing, but here the temperatures reached the mid-sixties, a very pleasant warmth for February in the Bay Area, where it usually hovered in the fifties. It was cooler here than at our parents’ homes in Menlo Park, but we’d come prepared with jeans and sweatshirts. In the Northeast they said, “Wait five minutes and the weather will change,” but here in the land of microclimates we said to drive five miles if you wanted a different temperature.
It was still much warmer than New York.
The boardwalk meandered slowly through the ancient groves, and we took our time walking it. Nothing had changed since we were children here. The red-brown trunks remained straight as arrows, solid and real. They were the tallest living things in the world, and as much as one can ascribe traits to plants, I found them honorable and patient. I always breathed easier walking through these trees, and now I felt the last tension from my months of fight drain out of me, tension I hadn’t even known was there. Moss crept up the trunk, and their leaves shaded us above. Everything was green here. Everything was perfect.
Abe noticed though, and he reached out and took my hand. I smiled at him. Was he a river or a redwood, this man that I loved so much? He was both, strong and honorable, determined and playful.
Afterward, we pulled a basket and blanket from the car and spread them out in the picnic area.
Abe leaned back on his elbows, tilting his head up to the buttery warmth. “Do you want to get married?”
Joy and happiness bubbled up inside me. “Yes.”
“To me, I mean,” he finished, and then looked at me. “Oh. Yes?”
“Yes.” I leaned over and cupped his face in mine, and kissed him.
When I drew back, he was smiling. “I don’t have a ring, though.”
“You’re in good company, because neither do I.”
He grinned at me. “But I know what’s going to be on it.”
I raised a brow. Love filled every nook and cranny
of me, an absolute, pure emotion that lifted my head and made my feet tingle and made me certain that while the rest of my life might be strange and uncertain in so many regards, this one part of it would always be the same. It would always be Abraham. “And what’s that?”
He sat up and brushed his lips under my ear. “A moonstone.”
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