“Sweetie pie,” I said, reaching out for the first time to touch her. I cupped her chin in my hand, and stroked her cool hair, and admired for the one thousandth time the surprising planes of her downturned face. Emily was a thoughtful, intense, and complicated woman with an ear for dialogue, a nice sense of the absurd, and a loyal heart, but I may well have had no better reason for falling in love with her than her face. And I don’t care what you will say about me, either. People get married for worse reasons than that. But like all beautiful faces Emily’s made you believe that its possessor was a better person than she was. It allowed her to pass for stoical when she was petrified, and for mysterious and aloof when she was so filled with self-doubt that she bought presents for other people when it was her birthday, framed most of her conversation in terms of apology and regret, and for all her talent could no longer manage to string twenty-five paragraphs of prose together to make a short story. “I think it tastes fine. I do.”
She took hold of my hand and gave my fingers a grateful squeeze.
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